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NAME
madvise - give advice about use of memory
LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/mman.h>
int madvise(void addr[.length], size_t length, int advice);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
madvise():
Since glibc 2.19:
_DEFAULT_SOURCE
Up to and including glibc 2.19:
_BSD_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
The madvise() system call is used to give advice or directions to the kernel about the address range
beginning at address addr and with size length. madvise() only operates on whole pages, therefore addr
must be page-aligned. The value of length is rounded up to a multiple of page size. In most cases, the
goal of such advice is to improve system or application performance.
Initially, the system call supported a set of "conventional" advice values, which are also available on
several other implementations. (Note, though, that madvise() is not specified in POSIX.) Subsequently,
a number of Linux-specific advice values have been added.
Conventional advice values
The advice values listed below allow an application to tell the kernel how it expects to use some mapped
or shared memory areas, so that the kernel can choose appropriate read-ahead and caching techniques.
These advice values do not influence the semantics of the application (except in the case of
MADV_DONTNEED), but may influence its performance. All of the advice values listed here have analogs in
the POSIX-specified posix_madvise(3) function, and the values have the same meanings, with the exception
of MADV_DONTNEED.
The advice is indicated in the advice argument, which is one of the following:
MADV_NORMAL
No special treatment. This is the default.
MADV_RANDOM
Expect page references in random order. (Hence, read ahead may be less useful than normally.)
MADV_SEQUENTIAL
Expect page references in sequential order. (Hence, pages in the given range can be aggressively
read ahead, and may be freed soon after they are accessed.)
MADV_WILLNEED
Expect access in the near future. (Hence, it might be a good idea to read some pages ahead.)
MADV_DONTNEED
Do not expect access in the near future. (For the time being, the application is finished with
the given range, so the kernel can free resources associated with it.)
After a successful MADV_DONTNEED operation, the semantics of memory access in the specified region
are changed: subsequent accesses of pages in the range will succeed, but will result in either
repopulating the memory contents from the up-to-date contents of the underlying mapped file (for
shared file mappings, shared anonymous mappings, and shmem-based techniques such as System V
shared memory segments) or zero-fill-on-demand pages for anonymous private mappings.
Note that, when applied to shared mappings, MADV_DONTNEED might not lead to immediate freeing of
the pages in the range. The kernel is free to delay freeing the pages until an appropriate
moment. The resident set size (RSS) of the calling process will be immediately reduced however.
MADV_DONTNEED cannot be applied to locked pages, or VM_PFNMAP pages. (Pages marked with the
kernel-internal VM_PFNMAP flag are special memory areas that are not managed by the virtual memory
subsystem. Such pages are typically created by device drivers that map the pages into user
space.)
Support for Huge TLB pages was added in Linux v5.18. Addresses within a mapping backed by Huge
TLB pages must be aligned to the underlying Huge TLB page size, and the range length is rounded up
to a multiple of the underlying Huge TLB page size.
Linux-specific advice values
The following Linux-specific advice values have no counterparts in the POSIX-specified posix_madvise(3),
and may or may not have counterparts in the madvise() interface available on other implementations. Note
that some of these operations change the semantics of memory accesses.
MADV_REMOVE (since Linux 2.6.16)
Free up a given range of pages and its associated backing store. This is equivalent to punching a
hole in the corresponding range of the backing store (see fallocate(2)). Subsequent accesses in
the specified address range will see data with a value of zero.
The specified address range must be mapped shared and writable. This flag cannot be applied to
locked pages, or VM_PFNMAP pages.
In the initial implementation, only tmpfs(5) supported MADV_REMOVE; but since Linux 3.5, any
filesystem which supports the fallocate(2) FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE mode also supports MADV_REMOVE.
Filesystems which do not support MADV_REMOVE fail with the error EOPNOTSUPP.
Support for the Huge TLB filesystem was added in Linux v4.3.
MADV_DONTFORK (since Linux 2.6.16)
Do not make the pages in this range available to the child after a fork(2). This is useful to
prevent copy-on-write semantics from changing the physical location of a page if the parent writes
to it after a fork(2). (Such page relocations cause problems for hardware that DMAs into the
page.)
MADV_DOFORK (since Linux 2.6.16)
Undo the effect of MADV_DONTFORK, restoring the default behavior, whereby a mapping is inherited
across fork(2).
MADV_HWPOISON (since Linux 2.6.32)
Poison the pages in the range specified by addr and length and handle subsequent references to
those pages like a hardware memory corruption. This operation is available only for privileged
(CAP_SYS_ADMIN) processes. This operation may result in the calling process receiving a SIGBUS
and the page being unmapped.
This feature is intended for testing of memory error-handling code; it is available only if the
kernel was configured with CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE.
MADV_MERGEABLE (since Linux 2.6.32)
Enable Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) for the pages in the range specified by addr and length. The
kernel regularly scans those areas of user memory that have been marked as mergeable, looking for
pages with identical content. These are replaced by a single write-protected page (which is
automatically copied if a process later wants to update the content of the page). KSM merges only
private anonymous pages (see mmap(2)).
The KSM feature is intended for applications that generate many instances of the same data (e.g.,
virtualization systems such as KVM). It can consume a lot of processing power; use with care.
See the Linux kernel source file Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst for more details.
The MADV_MERGEABLE and MADV_UNMERGEABLE operations are available only if the kernel was configured
with CONFIG_KSM.
MADV_UNMERGEABLE (since Linux 2.6.32)
Undo the effect of an earlier MADV_MERGEABLE operation on the specified address range; KSM
unmerges whatever pages it had merged in the address range specified by addr and length.
MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE (since Linux 2.6.33)
Soft offline the pages in the range specified by addr and length. The memory of each page in the
specified range is preserved (i.e., when next accessed, the same content will be visible, but in a
new physical page frame), and the original page is offlined (i.e., no longer used, and taken out
of normal memory management). The effect of the MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE operation is invisible to
(i.e., does not change the semantics of) the calling process.
This feature is intended for testing of memory error-handling code; it is available only if the
kernel was configured with CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE.
MADV_HUGEPAGE (since Linux 2.6.38)
Enable Transparent Huge Pages (THP) for pages in the range specified by addr and length. The
kernel will regularly scan the areas marked as huge page candidates to replace them with huge
pages. The kernel will also allocate huge pages directly when the region is naturally aligned to
the huge page size (see posix_memalign(2)).
This feature is primarily aimed at applications that use large mappings of data and access large
regions of that memory at a time (e.g., virtualization systems such as QEMU). It can very easily
waste memory (e.g., a 2 MB mapping that only ever accesses 1 byte will result in 2 MB of wired
memory instead of one 4 KB page). See the Linux kernel source file
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst for more details.
Most common kernels configurations provide MADV_HUGEPAGE-style behavior by default, and thus
MADV_HUGEPAGE is normally not necessary. It is mostly intended for embedded systems, where
MADV_HUGEPAGE-style behavior may not be enabled by default in the kernel. On such systems, this
flag can be used in order to selectively enable THP. Whenever MADV_HUGEPAGE is used, it should
always be in regions of memory with an access pattern that the developer knows in advance won't
risk to increase the memory footprint of the application when transparent hugepages are enabled.
Since Linux 5.4, automatic scan of eligible areas and replacement by huge pages works with private
anonymous pages (see mmap(2)), shmem pages, and file-backed pages. For all memory types, memory
may only be replaced by huge pages on hugepage-aligned boundaries. For file-mapped memory
—including tmpfs (see tmpfs(2))— the mapping must also be naturally hugepage-aligned within the
file. Additionally, for file-backed, non-tmpfs memory, the file must not be open for write and
the mapping must be executable.
The VMA must not be marked VM_NOHUGEPAGE, VM_HUGETLB, VM_IO, VM_DONTEXPAND, VM_MIXEDMAP, or
VM_PFNMAP, nor can it be stack memory or backed by a DAX-enabled device (unless the DAX device is
hot-plugged as System RAM). The process must also not have PR_SET_THP_DISABLE set (see prctl(2)).
The MADV_HUGEPAGE, MADV_NOHUGEPAGE, and MADV_COLLAPSE operations are available only if the kernel
was configured with CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE and file/shmem memory is only supported if the
kernel was configured with CONFIG_READ_ONLY_THP_FOR_FS.
MADV_NOHUGEPAGE (since Linux 2.6.38)
Ensures that memory in the address range specified by addr and length will not be backed by
transparent hugepages.
MADV_COLLAPSE (since Linux 6.1)
Perform a best-effort synchronous collapse of the native pages mapped by the memory range into
Transparent Huge Pages (THPs). MADV_COLLAPSE operates on the current state of memory of the
calling process and makes no persistent changes or guarantees on how pages will be mapped,
constructed, or faulted in the future.
MADV_COLLAPSE supports private anonymous pages (see mmap(2)), shmem pages, and file-backed pages.
See MADV_HUGEPAGE for general information on memory requirements for THP. If the range provided
spans multiple VMAs, the semantics of the collapse over each VMA is independent from the others.
If collapse of a given huge page-aligned/sized region fails, the operation may continue to attempt
collapsing the remainder of the specified memory. MADV_COLLAPSE will automatically clamp the
provided range to be hugepage-aligned.
All non-resident pages covered by the range will first be swapped/faulted-in, before being copied
onto a freshly allocated hugepage. If the native pages compose the same PTE-mapped hugepage, and
are suitably aligned, allocation of a new hugepage may be elided and collapse may happen in-place.
Unmapped pages will have their data directly initialized to 0 in the new hugepage. However, for
every eligible hugepage-aligned/sized region to be collapsed, at least one page must currently be
backed by physical memory.
MADV_COLLAPSE is independent of any sysfs (see sysfs(5)) setting under
/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage, both in terms of determining THP eligibility, and allocation
semantics. See Linux kernel source file Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst for more
information. MADV_COLLAPSE also ignores huge= tmpfs mount when operating on tmpfs files.
Allocation for the new hugepage may enter direct reclaim and/or compaction, regardless of VMA
flags (though VM_NOHUGEPAGE is still respected).
When the system has multiple NUMA nodes, the hugepage will be allocated from the node providing
the most native pages.
If all hugepage-sized/aligned regions covered by the provided range were either successfully
collapsed, or were already PMD-mapped THPs, this operation will be deemed successful. Note that
this doesn't guarantee anything about other possible mappings of the memory. In the event
multiple hugepage-aligned/sized areas fail to collapse, only the most-recently–failed code will be
set in errno.
MADV_DONTDUMP (since Linux 3.4)
Exclude from a core dump those pages in the range specified by addr and length. This is useful in
applications that have large areas of memory that are known not to be useful in a core dump. The
effect of MADV_DONTDUMP takes precedence over the bit mask that is set via the
/proc/pid/coredump_filter file (see core(5)).
MADV_DODUMP (since Linux 3.4)
Undo the effect of an earlier MADV_DONTDUMP.
MADV_FREE (since Linux 4.5)
The application no longer requires the pages in the range specified by addr and len. The kernel
can thus free these pages, but the freeing could be delayed until memory pressure occurs. For
each of the pages that has been marked to be freed but has not yet been freed, the free operation
will be canceled if the caller writes into the page. After a successful MADV_FREE operation, any
stale data (i.e., dirty, unwritten pages) will be lost when the kernel frees the pages. However,
subsequent writes to pages in the range will succeed and then kernel cannot free those dirtied
pages, so that the caller can always see just written data. If there is no subsequent write, the
kernel can free the pages at any time. Once pages in the range have been freed, the caller will
see zero-fill-on-demand pages upon subsequent page references.
The MADV_FREE operation can be applied only to private anonymous pages (see mmap(2)). Before
Linux 4.12, when freeing pages on a swapless system, the pages in the given range are freed
instantly, regardless of memory pressure.
MADV_WIPEONFORK (since Linux 4.14)
Present the child process with zero-filled memory in this range after a fork(2). This is useful
in forking servers in order to ensure that sensitive per-process data (for example, PRNG seeds,
cryptographic secrets, and so on) is not handed to child processes.
The MADV_WIPEONFORK operation can be applied only to private anonymous pages (see mmap(2)).
Within the child created by fork(2), the MADV_WIPEONFORK setting remains in place on the specified
address range. This setting is cleared during execve(2).
MADV_KEEPONFORK (since Linux 4.14)
Undo the effect of an earlier MADV_WIPEONFORK.
MADV_COLD (since Linux 5.4)
Deactivate a given range of pages. This will make the pages a more probable reclaim target should
there be a memory pressure. This is a nondestructive operation. The advice might be ignored for
some pages in the range when it is not applicable.
MADV_PAGEOUT (since Linux 5.4)
Reclaim a given range of pages. This is done to free up memory occupied by these pages. If a
page is anonymous, it will be swapped out. If a page is file-backed and dirty, it will be written
back to the backing storage. The advice might be ignored for some pages in the range when it is
not applicable.
MADV_POPULATE_READ (since Linux 5.14)
"Populate (prefault) page tables readable, faulting in all pages in the range just as if manually
reading from each page; however, avoid the actual memory access that would have been performed
after handling the fault.
In contrast to MAP_POPULATE, MADV_POPULATE_READ does not hide errors, can be applied to (parts of)
existing mappings and will always populate (prefault) page tables readable. One example use case
is prefaulting a file mapping, reading all file content from disk; however, pages won't be dirtied
and consequently won't have to be written back to disk when evicting the pages from memory.
Depending on the underlying mapping, map the shared zeropage, preallocate memory or read the
underlying file; files with holes might or might not preallocate blocks. If populating fails, a
SIGBUS signal is not generated; instead, an error is returned.
If MADV_POPULATE_READ succeeds, all page tables have been populated (prefaulted) readable once.
If MADV_POPULATE_READ fails, some page tables might have been populated.
MADV_POPULATE_READ cannot be applied to mappings without read permissions and special mappings,
for example, mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as VM_PFNMAP or VM_IO, or secret
memory regions created using memfd_secret(2).
Note that with MADV_POPULATE_READ, the process can be killed at any moment when the system runs
out of memory.
MADV_POPULATE_WRITE (since Linux 5.14)
Populate (prefault) page tables writable, faulting in all pages in the range just as if manually
writing to each each page; however, avoid the actual memory access that would have been performed
after handling the fault.
In contrast to MAP_POPULATE, MADV_POPULATE_WRITE does not hide errors, can be applied to (parts
of) existing mappings and will always populate (prefault) page tables writable. One example use
case is preallocating memory, breaking any CoW (Copy on Write).
Depending on the underlying mapping, preallocate memory or read the underlying file; files with
holes will preallocate blocks. If populating fails, a SIGBUS signal is not generated; instead, an
error is returned.
If MADV_POPULATE_WRITE succeeds, all page tables have been populated (prefaulted) writable once.
If MADV_POPULATE_WRITE fails, some page tables might have been populated.
MADV_POPULATE_WRITE cannot be applied to mappings without write permissions and special mappings,
for example, mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as VM_PFNMAP or VM_IO, or secret
memory regions created using memfd_secret(2).
Note that with MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, the process can be killed at any moment when the system runs
out of memory.
RETURN VALUE
On success, madvise() returns zero. On error, it returns -1 and errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
EACCES advice is MADV_REMOVE, but the specified address range is not a shared writable mapping.
EAGAIN A kernel resource was temporarily unavailable.
EBADF The map exists, but the area maps something that isn't a file.
EBUSY (for MADV_COLLAPSE) Could not charge hugepage to cgroup: cgroup limit exceeded.
EFAULT advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, and populating (prefaulting) page tables
failed because a SIGBUS would have been generated on actual memory access and the reason is not a
HW poisoned page (HW poisoned pages can, for example, be created using the MADV_HWPOISON flag
described elsewhere in this page).
EINVAL addr is not page-aligned or length is negative.
EINVAL advice is not a valid.
EINVAL advice is MADV_COLD or MADV_PAGEOUT and the specified address range includes locked, Huge TLB
pages, or VM_PFNMAP pages.
EINVAL advice is MADV_DONTNEED or MADV_REMOVE and the specified address range includes locked, Huge TLB
pages, or VM_PFNMAP pages.
EINVAL advice is MADV_MERGEABLE or MADV_UNMERGEABLE, but the kernel was not configured with CONFIG_KSM.
EINVAL advice is MADV_FREE or MADV_WIPEONFORK but the specified address range includes file, Huge TLB,
MAP_SHARED, or VM_PFNMAP ranges.
EINVAL advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, but the specified address range includes
ranges with insufficient permissions or special mappings, for example, mappings marked with
kernel-internal flags such a VM_IO or VM_PFNMAP, or secret memory regions created using
memfd_secret(2).
EIO (for MADV_WILLNEED) Paging in this area would exceed the process's maximum resident set size.
ENOMEM (for MADV_WILLNEED) Not enough memory: paging in failed.
ENOMEM (for MADV_COLLAPSE) Not enough memory: could not allocate hugepage.
ENOMEM Addresses in the specified range are not currently mapped, or are outside the address space of the
process.
ENOMEM advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, and populating (prefaulting) page tables
failed because there was not enough memory.
EPERM advice is MADV_HWPOISON, but the caller does not have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.
EHWPOISON
advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, and populating (prefaulting) page tables
failed because a HW poisoned page (HW poisoned pages can, for example, be created using the
MADV_HWPOISON flag described elsewhere in this page) was encountered.
VERSIONS
Versions of this system call, implementing a wide variety of advice values, exist on many other
implementations. Other implementations typically implement at least the flags listed above under
Conventional advice flags, albeit with some variation in semantics.
POSIX.1-2001 describes posix_madvise(3) with constants POSIX_MADV_NORMAL, POSIX_MADV_RANDOM,
POSIX_MADV_SEQUENTIAL, POSIX_MADV_WILLNEED, and POSIX_MADV_DONTNEED, and so on, with behavior close to
the similarly named flags listed above.
Linux
The Linux implementation requires that the address addr be page-aligned, and allows length to be zero.
If there are some parts of the specified address range that are not mapped, the Linux version of
madvise() ignores them and applies the call to the rest (but returns ENOMEM from the system call, as it
should).
madvise(0, 0, advice) will return zero iff advice is supported by the kernel and can be relied on to
probe for support.
STANDARDS
None.
HISTORY
First appeared in 4.4BSD.
Since Linux 3.18, support for this system call is optional, depending on the setting of the
CONFIG_ADVISE_SYSCALLS configuration option.
SEE ALSO
getrlimit(2), memfd_secret(2), mincore(2), mmap(2), mprotect(2), msync(2), munmap(2), prctl(2), process_madvise(2), posix_madvise(3), core(5)