[PATCH RFC 27/29] docs/mm: convert from "Non-LRU page migration" to "movable_ops page migration"

David Hildenbrand david at redhat.com
Thu Jun 19 03:40:10 AEST 2025


Let's bring the docs up-to-date.

Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david at redhat.com>
---
 Documentation/mm/page_migration.rst | 39 ++++++++++++++++++++---------
 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/mm/page_migration.rst b/Documentation/mm/page_migration.rst
index 519b35a4caf5b..a448e95e0a98e 100644
--- a/Documentation/mm/page_migration.rst
+++ b/Documentation/mm/page_migration.rst
@@ -146,18 +146,33 @@ Steps:
 18. The new page is moved to the LRU and can be scanned by the swapper,
     etc. again.
 
-Non-LRU page migration
-======================
-
-Although migration originally aimed for reducing the latency of memory
-accesses for NUMA, compaction also uses migration to create high-order
-pages.  For compaction purposes, it is also useful to be able to move
-non-LRU pages, such as zsmalloc and virtio-balloon pages.
-
-If a driver wants to make its pages movable, it should define a struct
-movable_operations.  It then needs to call __SetPageMovable() on each
-page that it may be able to move.  This uses the ``page->mapping`` field,
-so this field is not available for the driver to use for other purposes.
+movable_ops page migration
+==========================
+
+Selected typed, non-folio pages (e.g., pages inflated in a memory balloon,
+zsmalloc pages) can be migrated using the movable_ops migration framework.
+
+The "struct movable_operations" provide callbacks specific to a page type
+for isolating, migrating and un-isolating (putback) these pages.
+
+Once a page is indicated as having movable_ops, that condition must not
+change until the page was freed back to the buddy. This includes not
+changing/clearing the page type and not changing/clearing the
+PG_movable_ops page flag.
+
+Arbitrary drivers cannot currently make use of this framework, as it
+requires:
+
+(a) a page type
+(b) indicating them as possibly having movable_ops in page_has_movable_ops()
+    based on the page type
+(c) returning the movable_ops from page_has_movable_ops() based on the page
+    type
+(d) not reusing the PG_movable_ops and PG_movable_ops_isolated page flags
+    for other purposes
+
+For example, balloon drivers can make use of this framework through the
+balloon-compaction framework residing in the core kernel.
 
 Monitoring Migration
 =====================
-- 
2.49.0



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