2 views collected around this technical thread.
This comprehensive guide explores Linux's memory management ecosystem, detailing user‑space allocators like malloc, kernel‑space mechanisms such as kmalloc, vmalloc, and mmap, and core kernel algorithms including the Buddy system, CMA, slab allocator, and memory pools, while providing code examples and practical usage tips.
This article provides a comprehensive overview of Linux memory management, detailing the roles and mechanisms of the early boot memory allocator, the memblock subsystem, the buddy allocator for physical pages, and the slab allocator for small objects, including their data structures, algorithms, and practical usage scenarios.
This article provides an in‑depth overview of Linux memory management, covering the three primary allocators—bootmem, buddy, and slab—including their data structures, initialization, allocation and free mechanisms, code examples, and the role of memblock and zone watermarks.
This article explains Linux's flexible memory allocation system, covering user‑space malloc, kernel‑space kmalloc, vmalloc for large buffers, mmap for file and anonymous mappings, page allocation functions, the slab allocator, and memory pools, with detailed code examples and operational insights.
This article provides an in‑depth overview of Linux memory architecture, including address spaces, segmentation and paging, memory allocation strategies such as the buddy and slab allocators, kernel and user‑space memory pools, DMA considerations, common pitfalls, and practical tools for monitoring and optimizing memory usage.
This article explains how Linux manages physical address space using SMP and NUMA architectures, describes the node, zone, and page data structures, details page allocation via the buddy system and slab allocator, and outlines user‑ and kernel‑mode page‑fault handling, swapping, and address translation mechanisms.
This article explains the Linux kernel memory management hierarchy—including NUMA nodes, memory zones, the buddy system for free pages, and the SLAB allocator—providing command‑line examples, code snippets, and visual diagrams to illustrate how the kernel efficiently allocates and reclaims memory.
This article explains how Nginx obtains and releases shared memory on Unix and Windows, describes the unified ngx_shm_alloc/ngx_shm_free interfaces, and details the slab allocator’s page‑level and small‑block management, including allocation strategies, bitmap handling, and fragmentation issues.