Linux’s Virtual Memory Area (VMA) is the kernel’s core structure for managing a process’s address space, and this article explains its definition, key fields, linked‑list and red‑black‑tree organization, allocation, protection, page‑fault handling, copy‑on‑write, and practical usage examples.
This article explains how the Linux kernel implements heap memory management, covering the heap data structure, the mm_struct fields start_brk and brk, the brk/sbrk and malloc/free allocation methods, the brk and mmap system calls, and the internal glibc structures heap_info and malloc_state that track heap state.
This article explains how the Linux kernel allocates dynamic memory, distinguishes kernel and user‑space allocation strategies, describes the mm_struct layout of a process address space, and shows how pages and page tables translate virtual addresses to physical memory.
This article explains the complete memory layout of a Linux process, detailing user‑space structures like mm_struct and vm_area_struct, the role of TASK_SIZE, how ELF binaries are loaded, the sys_brk implementation, and the differences between 32‑bit and 64‑bit kernel virtual address spaces.
