From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: mm-commits@vger.kernel.org,ziy@nvidia.com,vbabka@kernel.org,surenb@google.com,mhocko@suse.com,jackmanb@google.com,hannes@cmpxchg.org,zhen.ni@easystack.cn,akpm@linux-foundation.org
Subject: + mm-page_owner-document-page_owner-filter.patch added to mm-unstable branch
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:20:20 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260707192020.939111F000E9@smtp.kernel.org> (raw)
The patch titled
Subject: mm/page_owner: document page_owner filter
has been added to the -mm mm-unstable branch. Its filename is
mm-page_owner-document-page_owner-filter.patch
This patch will shortly appear at
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/25-new.git/tree/patches/mm-page_owner-document-page_owner-filter.patch
This patch will later appear in the mm-unstable branch at
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm
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*** Remember to use Documentation/process/submit-checklist.rst when testing your code ***
The -mm tree is included into linux-next via various
branches at git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm
and is updated there most days
------------------------------------------------------
From: Zhen Ni <zhen.ni@easystack.cn>
Subject: mm/page_owner: document page_owner filter
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2026 19:54:11 +0800
Add documentation for the page_owner_filter userspace tool and
kernel-level filtering features.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260707115411.1714314-5-zhen.ni@easystack.cn
Signed-off-by: Zhen Ni <zhen.ni@easystack.cn>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) <vbabka@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>
Cc: Brendan Jackman <jackmanb@google.com>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
---
Documentation/mm/page_owner.rst | 77 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 75 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
--- a/Documentation/mm/page_owner.rst~mm-page_owner-document-page_owner-filter
+++ a/Documentation/mm/page_owner.rst
@@ -65,7 +65,14 @@ un-tracking state.
Usage
=====
-1) Build user-space helper::
+1) Build user-space helpers::
+
+To filter page_owner output:
+
+ cd tools/mm
+ make page_owner_filter
+
+To sort and analyze page_owner output:
cd tools/mm
make page_owner_sort
@@ -74,7 +81,11 @@ Usage
3) Do the job that you want to debug.
-4) Analyze information from page owner::
+4) (Optional) Filter page_owner output::
+
+ ./page_owner_filter -m handle -n 0,1,2 > filtered_page_owner.txt
+
+5) Analyze information from page owner::
cat /sys/kernel/debug/page_owner_stacks/show_stacks > stacks.txt
cat stacks.txt
@@ -263,3 +274,65 @@ STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS
f free whether the page has been released or not
st stacktrace stack trace of the page allocation
ator allocator memory allocator for pages
+
+Filtering page_owner output
+============================
+
+page_owner supports filtering output at the kernel level before reading,
+which reduces the amount of data that needs to be processed in userspace.
+
+The page_owner_filter tool provides a convenient interface for this filtering
+capability. It supports two types of filters:
+
+1. **print_mode filter**: Control what information is printed for each page
+ - ``stack``: Print full stack traces (default, compatible with existing usage)
+ - ``handle``: Print only stack handle numbers (much faster, smaller output)
+ - ``stack_handle``: Print both stack traces and handle numbers
+
+ The ``handle`` mode uses numeric identifiers instead of full stack traces.
+ The mapping from handles to actual stack traces can be obtained via the
+ show_stacks_handles interface.
+
+2. **NUMA node filter**: Filter pages by NUMA node ID
+ - Supports single node: ``-n 0``
+ - Multiple nodes: ``-n 0,1,2``
+ - Ranges: ``-n 0-3``
+ - Mixed format: ``-n 0,2-3,5``
+
+Usage examples::
+
+ # Filter by print mode
+ ./page_owner_filter -m handle
+ ./page_owner_filter -m stack_handle
+
+ # Filter by NUMA node
+ ./page_owner_filter -n 0
+ ./page_owner_filter -n 0-3
+
+ # Combined filters
+ ./page_owner_filter -m stack -n 0,1,2
+ ./page_owner_filter -m handle -n 0,2-3
+
+ # Save to file
+ ./page_owner_filter -m handle -o filtered_output.txt
+
+The handle mode is particularly useful for monitoring and performance-critical
+scenarios as it dramatically reduces output size. Testing shows handle mode can
+reduce output size by ~66% (84MB vs 244MB) and improve read performance by ~4.4x
+compared to full stack output.
+
+The NUMA node filter is useful for NUMA-aware memory allocation analysis and debugging.
+
+Behind the scenes, page_owner_filter opens /sys/kernel/debug/page_owner and
+writes filter commands before reading the filtered output. The filtering uses
+per-file-descriptor state, allowing each open() to have independent filter settings.
+
+Each file descriptor maintains its own filter state, so you can have multiple
+independent filtering operations running concurrently. For example, in different
+terminals you can run different filters simultaneously::
+
+ # Terminal 1: Filter node 0
+ ./page_owner_filter -n 0 > node0_output.txt
+
+ # Terminal 2: Filter node 1 (runs concurrently)
+ ./page_owner_filter -n 1 > node1_output.txt
_
Patches currently in -mm which might be from zhen.ni@easystack.cn are
mm-page_owner-add-print_mode-filter.patch
mm-page_owner-add-numa-node-filter.patch
tools-mm-add-page_owner_filter-userspace-tool.patch
mm-page_owner-document-page_owner-filter.patch
reply other threads:[~2026-07-07 19:20 UTC|newest]
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