Multiple virtual address mapping for the same code on IA-64 linux kernel.

[vamsi krishna <vamsi.krishnak@gmail.com>]

Hello All,

Sorry to interrupt you.

I have been investigating a problem in which there has been a dramatic
 core size (complete program size) of a program running on a IA-64
machine running kernel version 2.4.21-4.0.1 (A redhat advanced server
distribution) compared to other 64-bit architectures like amd64 and
EM64T. There has been an increase of around 20% of the size.

I verified the virtual address mappings in /proc/<>/maps file and
found that several .so files (other segments of same size) are getting
mapped multiple times as follows.
<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
200000000005c000-200000000007c000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 6521003 
  /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6.4
200000000007c000-2000000000090000 rw-p 0000000000010000 08:07 6521003 
  /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6.4
2000000000090000-2000000000268000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 6520995 
  /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.2
2000000000268000-2000000000270000 ---p 00000000001d8000 08:07 6520995 
  /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.2
2000000000270000-2000000000284000 rw-p 00000000001d0000 08:07 6520995 
  /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.2
2000000000284000-200000000028c000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 6094863 
  /lib/libdl-2.2.4.so
200000000028c000-2000000000294000 ---p 0000000000008000 08:07 6094863 
  /lib/libdl-2.2.4.so
2000000000294000-200000000029c000 rw-p 0000000000000000 08:07 6094863 
  /lib/libdl-2.2.4.so
200000000029c000-20000000002b8000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 6094883 
  /lib/libpthread-0.9.so
20000000002b8000-20000000002bc000 ---p 000000000001c000 08:07 6094883 
  /lib/libpthread-0.9.so
20000000002bc000-20000000002d4000 rw-p 0000000000010000 08:07 6094883 
  /lib/libpthread-0.9.so
20000000002d4000-2000000000358000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 376886  
  /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5.2
2000000000358000-2000000000364000 ---p 0000000000084000 08:07 376886  
  /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5.2
2000000000364000-2000000000374000 rw-p 0000000000080000 08:07 376886  
  /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5.2
2000000000374000-2000000000378000 rw-p 0000000000000000 00:00 0
2000000000378000-2000000000400000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 6094865 
  /lib/libm-2.2.4.so
2000000000400000-2000000000408000 ---p 0000000000088000 08:07 6094865 
  /lib/libm-2.2.4.so
2000000000408000-2000000000414000 rw-p 0000000000080000 08:07 6094865 
  /lib/libm-2.2.4.so
2000000000414000-200000000065c000 r-xp 0000000000000000 08:07 6094859 
  /lib/libc-2.2.4.so
200000000065c000-2000000000664000 ---p 0000000000248000 08:07 6094859 
  /lib/libc-2.2.4.so
2000000000664000-2000000000678000 rw-p 0000000000240000 08:07 6094859 
  /lib/libc-2.2.4.so
<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

example /lib/libc-2.2.4.so size 6094859    got mapped 3 times with
permissions 'r-xp' , '---p' and 'rw-p' from the bottom.

I found the similar mappings for all the programs running on a IA-64
machine. Is this some special kernel kind of feature on IA-64 ??

Your kind inputs on this problem are greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Thanks in advance,
Vamsi kundeti