Re: [patch] rfc: introduce /dev/hugetlb

Ken Chen
2007-03-24T07:11:39Z

On 3/23/07, Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> a) Ken observes that obtaining private hugetlb memory via hugetlbfs
> involves "fuss".
>
> b) the libhugetlbfs maintainers then go off and implement a no-fuss way of
> doing this.

Hmm, what started this thread was libhugetlbfs maintainer complained
how "fuss" it was to create private hugetlb mapping and suggested an
even bigger kernel change with pagetable_operations API. The new API
was designed with an end goal of introduce /dev/hugetlb (as one of the
feature, they might be thinking more). What motivated me here is to
point out that we can achieve the same goal of having a /dev/hugetlb
with existing hugetlbfs infrastructure and the implementation is
relatively straightforward. What it also buys us is a bit more
flexibility to the end user who wants to use the interface directly.