Transcendent memory（TMEM）

最新推荐文章于 2020-12-03 22:29:19 发布

Am_111

最新推荐文章于 2020-12-03 22:29:19 发布

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Transcendent Memory（TMEM）是一种新型内存管理技术，旨在提高操作系统对有限RAM资源的利用率，尤其在虚拟化环境中。它允许创建未知大小、间接寻址、可能消失的快速内存，类似于RAM磁盘。TMEM基于页池概念，用户无法预先指定池的大小，其操作包括数据存取。TMEM的潜在应用包括作为Linux页缓存的临时存储，减少磁盘I/O，以及作为优化的交换设备。然而，安全性是关注的重点，共享池可能导致数据泄露，因此后续版本移除了对共享池的支持。TMEM需要展示其性能提升潜力，才能被纳入主线内核。

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By Jonathan Corbet
July 8, 2009

Making the best use ofavailable memory is one of the biggest challenges for any operating system.Throwing virtualization into the mix adds both new challenges (balancing memoryuse between guests, for example) and opportunities (sharing pages betweenguests). Developers have responded with technologies like hot-plug memory and KSM, but nobody seems to think thatthe problem is fully solved. Transcendent memory is a new memory-managementtechnique which, it is hoped, will improve the system's use of scarce RAM,regardless of whether virtualization is being used.

In his linux-kernel introduction, DanMagenheimer asks:

What if there was aclass of memory that is of unknown and dynamically variable size, isaddressable only indirectly by the kernel, can be configured either aspersistent or as "ephemeral" (meaning it will be around for awhile,but might disappear without warning), and is still fast enough to besynchronously accessible?

Dan (along with a listof other kernel developers) is exploring this concept, which he calls"transcendental memory." In short, transcendental memory can bethought of as a sort of RAM disk with some interesting characteristics: nobodyknows how big it is, writes to the disk may not succeed, and, potentially, datawritten to the disk may vanish before being read back again. At a first blush,it may seem like a relatively useless sort of device, but it is hoped thattranscendental memory will be able to improve performance in a few situations.

There is anAPI specification [PDF] available; there is also a related C API found inthe patch itself. This discussion will focus on the latter, which suffers fromless EXCESSIVE CAPITAL USE and is generally easier to understand.