[PATCH v2 0/4] mm: improve large folio readahead and alignment for exec memory

Usama Arif
2026-03-20T14:04:00Z

v2 takes a different approach from v1 trying to move away from
exec_folio_order() and comeup with a generic arch independent solution
which is what I think David was suggesting in [1].
I thought I would send it as code rather than try and discuss it in v1
as its easier :)

v1 -> v2: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260310145406.3073394-1-usama.arif@linux.dev/
- disable mmap_miss logic for VM_EXEC (Jan Kara)
- Align in elf only when segment VA and file offset are already aligned (Rui)
- preferred_exec_order() for VM_EXEC sync mmap_readahead which takes into
account zone high watermarks (as an approximation of memory pressure)
(David, or atleast my approach to what David suggested in [1] :))
- Extend max alignment to mapping_max_folio_size() instead of
exec_folio_order()

Motiviation
===========
exec_folio_order() was introduced [2] to request readahead at an
arch-preferred folio order for executable memory, enabling hardware PTE
coalescing (e.g. arm64 contpte) and PMD mappings on the fault path.

However, several things prevent this from working optimally:

1. The mmap_miss heuristic in do_sync_mmap_readahead() silently disables
exec readahead after 100 page faults. The mmap_miss counter tracks
whether readahead is useful for mmap'd file access:

- Incremented by 1 in do_sync_mmap_readahead() on every page cache
miss (page needed IO).

- Decremented by N in filemap_map_pages() for N pages successfully
mapped via fault-around (pages found in cache without faulting,
evidence that readahead was useful). Only non-workingset pages
count and recently evicted and re-read pages don't count as hits.

- Decremented by 1 in do_async_mmap_readahead() when a PG_readahead
marker page is found (indicates sequential consumption of readahead
pages).

When mmap_miss exceeds MMAP_LOTSAMISS (100), all readahead is
disabled. On arm64 with 64K pages, both decrement paths are inactive:

- filemap_map_pages() is never called because fault_around_pages
(65536 >> PAGE_SHIFT = 1) disables should_fault_around(), which
requires fault_around_pages > 1. With only 1 page in the
fault-around window, there is nothing "around" to map.

- do_async_mmap_readahead() never fires for exec mappings because
exec readahead sets async_size = 0, so no PG_readahead markers
are placed.

With no decrements, mmap_miss monotonically increases past
MMAP_LOTSAMISS after 100 faults, disabling exec readahead
for the remainder of the mapping. Patch 1 fixes this by excluding
VM_EXEC VMAs from the mmap_miss logic, similar to how VM_SEQ_READ
is already excluded.

2. exec_folio_order() is an arch-specific hook that returns a static
order (ilog2(SZ_64K >> PAGE_SHIFT)), which is suboptimal for non-4K
page sizes and doesn't adapt to runtime conditions. Patch 2 replaces
it with a generic preferred_exec_order() that targets min(PMD_ORDER,
2M), which naturally gives the right answer across architectures and
different page sizes: contpte on arm64 (2M for all page sizes), PMD
mapping on x86 (2M), and smaller PMDs like s390 (1M). The 2M cap also
avoids requesting excessively large folios on configurations where
PMD_ORDER is much larger (32M on arm64 16K pages, 512M on arm64 64K
pages), which would cause unnecessary memory pressure. The function
adapts at runtime based on VMA size and memory pressure (zone
watermarks), stepping down the order when memory is tight.

3. Even with correct folio order and readahead, hardware PTE coalescing
(e.g. contpte) and PMD mapping require the virtual address to be
aligned to the folio size. The readahead path aligns file offsets and
the buddy allocator aligns physical memory, but the virtual address
depends on the VMA start. For PIE binaries, ASLR randomizes the load
address at PAGE_SIZE granularity, so on arm64 with 64K pages only
1/32 of load addresses are 2M-aligned. When misaligned, contpte
cannot be used for any folio in the VMA.

Patch 3 fixes this for the main binary by extending maximum_alignment()
in the ELF loader to consider mapping_max_folio_size(), aligning
load_bias to the largest folio the filesystem will allocate.

Patch 4 fixes this for shared libraries by adding a folio-size
alignment fallback in thp_get_unmapped_area_vmflags(). The existing
PMD_SIZE alignment (512M on arm64 64K pages) is too large for typical
shared libraries, so this smaller fallback succeeds where PMD fails.

I created a benchmark that mmaps a large executable file and calls
RET-stub functions at PAGE_SIZE offsets across it. "Cold" measures
fault + readahead cost. "Random" first faults in all pages with a
sequential sweep (not measured), then measures time for calling random
offsets, isolating iTLB miss cost for scattered execution.

The benchmark results on Neoverse V2 (Grace), arm64 with 64K base pages,
512MB executable file on ext4, averaged over 3 runs:

Phase | Baseline | Patched | Improvement
-----------|--------------|--------------|------------------
Cold fault | 83.4 ms | 41.3 ms | 50% faster
Random | 76.0 ms | 58.3 ms | 23% faster

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/d72d5ca3-4b92-470e-9f89-9f39a3975f1e@kernel.org/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250430145920.3748738-6-ryan.roberts@arm.com/

Usama Arif (4):
mm: bypass mmap_miss heuristic for VM_EXEC readahead
mm: replace exec_folio_order() with generic preferred_exec_order()
elf: align ET_DYN base to max folio size for PTE coalescing
mm: align file-backed mmap to max folio order in thp_get_unmapped_area

arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h | 8 -----
fs/binfmt_elf.c | 38 ++++++++++++++++++--
include/linux/pgtable.h | 11 ------
mm/filemap.c | 59 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
mm/huge_memory.c | 14 ++++++++
5 files changed, 102 insertions(+), 28 deletions(-)

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2.52.0