libhugetlbfs HOWTO
==================
Author: David Gibson <dwg@au1.ibm.com>, Adam Litke <agl@us.ibm.com>, and others
Last updated: December 07, 2011
Introduction
============
In Linux(TM), access to hugepages is provided through a virtual file
system, "hugetlbfs". The libhugetlbfs library interface works with
hugetlbfs to provide more convenient specific application-level
services. In particular libhugetlbfs has three main functions:
* library functions
libhugetlbfs provides functions that allow an applications to
explicitly allocate and use hugepages more easily they could by
directly accessing the hugetblfs filesystem
* hugepage malloc()
libhugetlbfs can be used to make an existing application use hugepages
for all its malloc() calls. This works on an existing (dynamically
linked) application binary without modification.
* hugepage text/data/BSS
libhugetlbfs, in conjunction with included special linker scripts can
be used to make an application which will store its executable text,
its initialized data or BSS, or all of the above in hugepages. This
requires relinking an application, but does not require source-level
modifications.
This HOWTO explains how to use the libhugetlbfs library. It is for
application developers or system administrators who wish to use any of
the above functions.
The libhugetlbfs library is a focal point to simplify and standardise
the use of the kernel API.
Prerequisites
=============
Hardware prerequisites
----------------------
You will need a CPU with some sort of hugepage support, which is
handled by your kernel. This covers recent x86, AMD64, 64-bit
PowerPC(R) (POWER4, PPC970 and later), and IBM System z CPUs.
Currently, only x86, AMD64 and PowerPC are fully supported by
libhugetlbfs. IA64 and Sparc64 have a working malloc, and SH64
should also but it has not been tested. IA64, Sparc64, and SH64
do not support segment remapping at this time. IBM System z supports
malloc and also segment remapping with --hugetlbfs-align.
Kernel prerequisites
--------------------
To use all the features of libhugetlbfs you will need a 2.6.16 or
later kernel. Many things will work with earlier kernels, but they
have important bugs and missing features. The later sections of the
HOWTO assume a 2.6.16 or later kernel. The kernel must also have
hugepages enabled, that is to say the CONFIG_HUGETLB_PAGE and
CONFIG_HUGETLBFS options must be switched on.
To check if hugetlbfs is enabled, use one of the following methods:
* (Preferred) Use "grep hugetlbfs /proc/filesystems" to see if
hugetlbfs is a supported file system.
* On kernels which support /proc/config.gz (for example SLES10
kernels), you can search for the CONFIG_HUGETLB_PAGE and
CONFIG_HUGETLBFS options in /proc/config.gz
* Finally, attempt to mount hugetlbfs. If it works, the required
hugepage support is enabled.
Any kernel which meets the above test (even old ones) should support
at least basic libhugetlbfs functions, although old kernels may have
serious bugs.
The MAP_PRIVATE flag instructs the kernel to return a memory area that
is private to the requesting process. To use MAP_PRIVATE mappings,
libhugetlbfs's automatic malloc() (morecore) feature, or the hugepage
text, data, or BSS features, you will need a kernel with hugepage
Copy-on-Write (CoW) support. The 2.6.16 kernel has this.
PowerPC note: The malloc()/morecore features will generate warnings if
used on PowerPC chips with a kernel where hugepage mappings don't
respect the mmap() hint address (the "hint address" is the first
parameter to mmap(), when MAP_FIXED is not specified; the kernel is
not required to mmap() at this address, but should do so when
possible). 2.6.16 and later kernels do honor the hint address.
Hugepage malloc()/morecore should still work without this patch, but
the size of the hugepage heap will be limited (to around 256M for
32-bit and 1TB for 64-bit).
The 2.6.27 kernel introduced support for multiple huge page sizes for
systems with the appropriate hardware support. Unless specifically
requested, libhugetlbfs will continue to use the default huge page size.
Toolchain prerequisites
-----------------------
The library uses a number of GNU specific features, so you will need to use
both gcc and GNU binutils. For PowerPC and AMD64 systems you will need a
"biarch" compiler, which can build both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. To use
hugepage text and data segments, GNU binutils version 2.17 (or later) is
recommended. Older versions will work with restricted functionality.
Configuration prerequisites
---------------------------
Direct access to hugepage pool has been deprecated in favor of the
hugeadm utility. This utility can be used for finding the available
hugepage pools and adjusting their minimum and maximum sizes depending
on kernel support.
To list all availabe hugepage pools and their current min and max values:
hugeadm --pool-list
To set the 2MB pool minimum to 10 pages:
hugeadm --pool-pages-min 2MB:10
Note: that the max pool size will be adjusted to keep the same number of
overcommit pages available if the kernel support is available when min
pages are adjusted
To add 15 pages to the maximum for 2MB pages:
hugeadm --pool-pages-min 2MB:-5
For more information see man 8 hugeadm
The raw kernel interfaces (as described below) are still available.
In kernels before 2.6.24, hugepages must be allocated at boot-time via
the hugepages= command-line parameter or at run-time via the
/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages sysctl. If memory is restricted on the system,
boot-time allocation is recommended. Hugepages so allocated will be in
the static hugepage pool.
In kernels starting with 2.6.24, the hugepage pool can grown on-demand.
If this feature should be used, /proc/sys/vm/nr_overcommit_hugepages
should be set to the maximum size of the hugepage pool. No hugepages
need to be allocated via /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages or hugepages= in this
case. Hugepages so allocated will be in the dynamic hugepage pool.
For the running of the libhugetlbfs testsuite (see below), allocating 25
static hugepages is recommended. Due to memory restrictions, the number
of hugepages requested may not be allocated if the allocation is
attempted at run-time. Users should verify the actual number of
hugepages allocated by:
hugeadm --pool-list
or
grep HugePages_Total /proc/meminfo
With 25 hugepages allocated, most tests should succeed. However, with
smaller hugepages sizes, many more hugepages may be necessary.
To use libhugetlbfs features, as well as to run the testsuite, hugetlbfs
must be mounted. Each hugetlbfs mount point is associated with a page
size. To choose the size, use the pagesize mount option. If this option
is omitted, the default huge page size will be used.
To mount the default huge page size:
mkdir -p /mnt/hugetlbfs
mount -t hugetlbfs none /mnt/hugetlbfs
To mount 64KB pages (assuming hardware support):
mkdir -p /mnt/hugetlbfs-64K
mount -t hugetlbfs none -opagesize=64k /mnt/hugetlbfs-64K
If hugepages should be available to non-root users, the permissions on
the mountpoint need to be set appropriately.
Installation
============
1. Type "make" to build the library
This will create "obj32" and/or "obj64" under the top level
libhugetlbfs directory, and build, respectively, 32-bit and 64-bit
shared and static versions (as applicable) of the library into each
directory. This will also build (but not run) the testsuite.
On i386 systems, only the 32-bit library will be built. On PowerPC
and AMD64 systems, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be built (the
32-bit AMD64 version is identical to the i386 version).
2. Run the testsuite with "make check"
Running the testsuite is a good idea to ensure that the library is
working properly, and is quite quick (under 3 minutes on a 2GHz Apple
G5). "make func" will run the just the functionality tests, rather
than stress tests (a subset of "make check") which is much quicker.
The testsuite contains tests both for the library's features and for
the underlying kernel hugepage functionality.
NOTE: The testsuite must be run as the root user.
WARNING: The testsuite contains testcases explicitly designed to test
for a number of hugepage related kernel bugs uncovered during the
library's development. Some of these testcases WILL CRASH HARD a
kernel without the relevant fixes. 2.6.16 contains all such fixes for
all testcases included as of this writing.
3. (Optional) Install to system paths with "make install"
This will install the library images to the system lib/lib32/lib64 as
appropriate, the helper utilities and the manual pages. By default
it will install under /usr/local. To put it somewhere else use
PREFIX=/path/to/install on the make command line. For example:
make install PREFIX=/opt/hugetlbfs
Will install under /opt/hugetlbfs.
"make install" will also install the linker scripts and wrapper for ld
used for hugepage test/data/BSS (see below for details).
Alternatively, you can use the library from the directory in which it
was built, using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
To only install library with linker scripts, the manual pages or the helper
utilities separetly, use the install-libs, install-man and install-bin targets
respectively. This can be useful when you with to install the utilities but
not override the distribution-supported version of libhugetlbfs for example.
Usage
=====
Using hugepages for malloc() (morecore)
---------------------------------------
This feature allows an existing (dynamically linked) binary executable
to use hugepages for all its malloc() calls. To run a program using
the automatic hugepage malloc() feature, you must set several
environment variables:
1. Set LD_PRELOAD=libhugetlbfs.so
This tells the dynamic linker to load the libhugetlbfs shared
library, even though the program wasn't originally linked against it.
Note: If the program is linked against libhugetlbfs, preloading the
library may lead to application crashes. You should skip this
step in that case.
2. Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the directory containing libhugetlbfs.so
This is only necessary if you haven't installed libhugetlbfs.so to a
system default path. If you set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, make sure the
directory referenced contains the right version of the library
(32-bit or 64-bit) as appropriate to the binary you want to run.
3. Set HUGETLB_MORECORE
This enables the hugepage malloc() feature, instructing libhugetlbfs
to override libc's normal morecore() function with a hugepage
version and use it for malloc(). From this point all malloc()s
should come from hugepage memory until it runs out. This option can
be specified in two ways:
To use the default huge page size:
HUGETLB_MORECORE=yes
To use a specific huge page size:
HUGETLB_MORECORE=<pagesize>
To use Transparent Huge Pages (THP):
HUGETLB_MORECORE=thp
Note: This option requires a kernel that supports Transparent Huge Pages
Usually it's preferable to set these environment variables on the
command line of the program you wish to run, rather than using
"export", because you'll only want to enable the hugepage malloc() for
particular programs, not everything.
Examples:
If you've installed libhugetlbfs in the default place (under
/usr/local) which is in the system library search path use:
$ LD_PRELOAD=libhugetlbfs.so HUGETLB_MORECORE=yes <your app command line>
If you have built libhugetlbfs in ~/libhugetlbfs and haven't installed
it yet, the following would work for a 64-bit program:
$ LD_PRELOAD=libhugetlbfs.so LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/libhugetlbfs/obj64 \
HUGETLB_MORECORE=yes <your app command line>
Under some circumstances, you might want to specify the address where
the hugepage heap is located. You can do this by setting the
HUGETLB_MORECORE_HEAPBASE environment variable to the heap address in
hexadecimal. NOTE: this will not work on PowerPC systems with old kernels
which don't respect the hugepage hint address; see Kernel Prerequisites
above. Also note that this option is ignored for THP morecore.
By default, the hugepage heap begins at roughly the same place a
normal page heap would, rounded up by an amount determined by your
platform. For 32-bit PowerPC binaries the normal page heap address is
rounded-up to a multiple of 256MB (that is, putting it in the next MMU
segment); for 64-bit PowerPC binaries the address is rounded-up to a
multiple of 1TB. On all other platforms the address is rounded-up to
the size of a hugepage.
By default, the hugepage heap will be prefaulted by libhugetlbfs to
guarantee enough hugepages exist and are reserved for the application
(if this was not done, applications could receive a SIGKILL signal if
hugepages needed for the heap are used by another application before
they are faulted in). This leads to local-node allocations when no
memory policy is in place for hugepages. Therefore, it is recommended to
use
$ numactl --interleave=all <your app command line>
to regain some of the performance impact of local-node allocations on
large NUMA systems. This can still result in poor performance for those
applications which carefully place their threads on particular nodes
(such as by using OpenMP). In that case, thread-local allocation is
preferred so users should select a memory policy that corresponds to
the run-time behavior of the process' CPU usage. Users can specify
HUGETLB_NO_PREFAULT to prevent the prefaulting of hugepages and instead
rely on run-time faulting of hugepages. NOTE: specifying
HUGETLB_NO_PREFAULT on a system where hugepages are available to and
used by many process can result in some applications receving SIGKILL,
so its use is not recommended in high-availability or production
environments.
By default, the hugepage heap does not shrink. To enable hugepage heap
shrinking, set HUGETLB_MORECORE_SHRINK=yes. NB: We have been seeing some
unexpected behavior from glibc's malloc when this is enabled.
Using hugepage shared memory
----------------------------
Hugepages are used for shared memory segments if the SHM_HUGETLB flag is
set when calling shmget() and the pool is large enough. For hugepage-unaware
applications, libhugetlbfs overrides shmget and adds the SHM_HUGETLB if the
environment variable HUGETLB_SHM is set to "yes". The steps to use hugepages
with applications not linked to libhugetlbfs are similar to morecore except
for step 3.
1. Set LD_PRELOAD=libhugetlbfs.so
This tells the dynamic linker to load the libhugetlbfs shared
library, even though the program wasn't originally linked against it.
Note: If the program is linked against libhugetlbfs, preloading the
library may lead to application crashes. You should skip this
step in that case.
2. Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the directory containing libhugetlbfs.so
This is only necessary if you haven't installed libhugetlbfs.so to a
system default path. If you set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, make sure the
directory referenced contains the right version of the library
(32-bit or 64-bit) as appropriate to the binary you want to run.
3. Set HUGETLB_SHM=yes
The shmget() call is overridden whether the application is linked or the
libhugetlbfs library is preloaded. When this environment variable is set,
the SHM_HUGETLB flag is added to the call and the size parameter is aligned
to back the shared memory segment with huge pages. In the event hugepages
cannot be used, small pages will be used instead and a warning will be
printed to explain the failure.
Note: It is not possible to select any huge page size other than the
system default for this option. If the kernel supports multiple
huge page sizes, the size used for shared memory can be changed by
altering the default huge page size via the default_hugepagesz
kernel boot parameter.
Using hugepage text, data, or BSS
---------------------------------
To use the hugepage text, data, or BSS segments feature, you need to specially
link your application. How this is done depends on the version of GNU ld. To
support ld versions older than 2.17, libhugetlbfs provides custom linker
scripts that must be used to achieve the required binary layout. With version
2.17 or later, the system default linker scripts should be used.
To link an application for hugepages, you should use the the ld.hugetlbfs
script included with libhugetlbfs in place of your normal linker. Without any
special options this will simply invoke GNU ld with the same parameters. When
it is invoked with options detailed in the following sections, ld.hugetlbfs
will call the system linker with all of the options necessary to link for
hugepages. If a custom linker script is required, it will also be selected.
If you installed ld.hugetlbfs using "make install", or if you run it
from the place where you built libhugetlbfs, it should automatically
be able to find the libhugetlbfs linker scripts. Otherwise you may
need to explicitly instruct it where to find the scripts with the
option:
--hugetlbfs-script-path=/path/to/scripts
(The linker scripts are in the ldscripts/ subdirectory of the
libhugetlbfs source tree).
Linking the application with binutils-2.17 or later:
----------------------------------------------------
This method will use the system default linker scripts. Only one linker option
is required to prepare the application for hugepages:
--hugetlbfs-align
will instruct ld.hugetlbfs to call GNU ld with two options that increase the
alignment of the resulting binary. For reference, the options passed to ld are:
-z common-page-size=<value> and
-z max-page-size=<value>
Linking the application with binutils-2.16 or older:
----------------------------------------------------
To link a program with a custom linker script, one of the following linker
options should be specified:
--hugetlbfs-link=B
will link the application to store BSS data (only) into hugepages
--hugetlbfs-link=BDT
will link the application to store text, initialized data and BSS data
into hugepages.
These are the only two available options when using custom linker scripts.
A note about the custom libhugetlbfs linker scripts:
----------------------------------------------------
Linker scripts are usually distributed with GNU binutils and they may contain a
partial implementation of new linker features. As binutils evolves, the linker
scripts supplied with previous versions become obsolete and are upgraded.
Libhugetlbfs distributes one set of linker scripts that must work across
several Linux distributions and binutils versions. This has worked well for
some time but binutils-2.17 (including some late 2.16 builds) have made changes
that are impossible to accomodate without breaking the libhugetlbfs linker
scripts for older versions of binutils. This is why the linker scripts (and
the --hugetlbfs-link ld.hugetlbfs option) have been deprecated for binutils >=
2.17 configurations.
If you are using a late 2.16 binutils version (such as 2.16.91) and are
experiencing problems with huge page text, data, and bss, you can check
binutils for the incompatibility with the following command:
ld --verbose | grep SPECIAL
If any matches are returned, then the libhugetlbfs linker scripts may not work
correctly. In this case you should upgrade to binutils >= 2.17 and use the
--hugetlbfs-align linking method.
Linking via gcc:
----------------
In many cases it's normal to link an application by invoking gcc,
which will then invoke the linker with appropriate options, rather
than invoking ld directly. In such cases it's usually best to
convince gcc to invoke the ld.hugetlbfs script instead of the system
linker, rather than modifying your build procedure to invoke the
ld.hugetlbfs directly; the compilers may often add special libraries
or other linker options which can be fiddly to reproduce by hand.
To make this easier, 'make install' will install ld.hugetlbfs into
$PREFIX/share/libhugetlbfs and create an 'ld' symlink to it.
Then with gcc, you invoke it as a linker with two options:
-B $PREFIX/share/libhugetlbfs
This option tells gcc to look in a non-standard location for the
linker, thus finding our script rather than the normal linker. This
can optionally be set in the CFLAGS environment variable.
-Wl,--hugetlbfs-align
OR -Wl,--hugetlbfs-link=B
OR -Wl,--hugetlbfs-link=BDT
This option instructs gcc to pass the option after the comma down to the
linker, thus invoking the special behaviour of the ld.hugetblfs script. This
can optionally be set in the LDFLAGS environment variable.
If you use a compiler other than gcc, you will need to consult its
documentation to see how to convince it to invoke ld.hugetlbfs in
place of the system linker.
Running the application:
------------------------
The specially-linked application needs the libhugetlbfs library, so
you might need to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable so the
application can locate libhugetlbfs.so. Depending on the method used to link
the application, the HUGETLB_ELFMAP environment variable can be used to control
how hugepages will be used.
When using --hugetlbfs-link:
----------------------------
The custom linker script determines which segments may be remapped into
hugepages and this remapping will occur by default. The following setting will
disable remapping entirely:
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=no
When using --hugetlbfs-align:
-----------------------------
This method of linking an application permits greater flexibility at runtime.
Using HUGETLB_ELFMAP, it is possible to control which program segments are
placed in hugepages. The following four settings will cause the indicated
segments to be placed in hugepages:
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=R Read-only segments (text)
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=W Writable segments (data/BSS)
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=RW All segments (text/data/BSS)
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=no No segments
It is possible to select specific huge page sizes for read-only and writable
segments by using the following advanced syntax:
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=[R[=<pagesize>]:[W[=<pagesize>]]
For example:
Place read-only segments into 64k pages and writable into 16M pages
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=R=64k:W=16M
Use the default for read-only segments, 1G pages for writable segments
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=R:W=1G
Use 16M pages for writable segments only
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=W=16M
Default remapping behavior:
---------------------------
If --hugetlbfs-link was used to link an application, the chosen remapping mode
is saved in the binary and becomes the default behavior. Setting
HUGETLB_ELFMAP=no will disable all remapping and is the only way to modify the
default behavior.
For applications linked with --hugetlbfs-align, the default behavior is to not
remap any segments into huge pages. To set or display the default remapping
mode for a binary, the included hugeedit command can be used:
hugeedit [options] target-executable
options:
--text,--data Remap the specified segment into huge pages by default
--disable Do not remap any segments by default
When target-executable is the only argument, hugeedit will display the default
remapping mode without making any modifications.
When a binary is remapped according to its default remapping policy, the
system default huge page size will be used.
Environment variables:
----------------------
There are a number of private environment variables which can affect
libhugetlbfs:
HUGETLB_DEFAULT_PAGE_SIZE
Override the system default huge page size for all uses
except hugetlb-backed shared memory
HUGETLB_RESTRICT_EXE
By default, libhugetlbfs will act on any program that it
is loaded with, either via LD_PRELOAD or by explicitly
linking with -lhugetlbfs.
There are situations in which it is desirable to restrict
libhugetlbfs' actions to specific programs. For example,
some ISV applications are wrapped in a series of scripts
that invoke bash, python, and/or perl. It is more
convenient to set the environment variables related
to libhugetlbfs before invoking the wrapper scripts,
yet this has the unintended and undesirable consequence
of causing the script interpreters to use and consume
hugepages. There is no obvious benefit to causing the
script interpreters to use hugepages, and there is a
clear disadvantage: fewer hugepages are available to
the actual application.
To address this scenario, set HUGETLB_RESTRICT_EXE to a
colon-separated list of programs to which the other
libhugetlbfs environment variables should apply. (If
not set, libhugetlbfs will attempt to apply the requested
actions to all programs.) For example,
HUGETLB_RESTRICT_EXE="hpcc:long_hpcc"
will restrict libhugetlbfs' actions to programs named
/home/fred/hpcc and /bench/long_hpcc but not /usr/hpcc_no.
HUGETLB_ELFMAP
Control or disable segment remapping (see above)
HUGETLB_MINIMAL_COPY
If equal to "no", the entire segment will be copied;
otherwise, only the necessary parts will be, which can
be much more efficient (default)
HUGETLB_FORCE_ELFMAP
Explained in "Partial segment remapping"
HUGETLB_MORECORE
HUGETLB_MORECORE_HEAPBASE
HUGETLB_NO_PREFAULT
Explained in "Using hugepages for malloc()
(morecore)"
HUGETLB_VERBOSE
Specify the verbosity level of debugging output from 1
to 99 (default is 1)
HUGETLB_PATH
Specify the path to the hugetlbfs mount point
HUGETLB_SHARE
Explained in "Sharing remapped segments"
HUGETLB_DEBUG
Set to 1 if an application segfaults. Gives very detailed output
and runs extra diagnostics.
Sharing remapped segments:
--------------------------
By default, when libhugetlbfs uses anonymous, unlinked hugetlbfs files
to store remapped program segment data. This means that if the same
program is started multiple times using hugepage segments, multiple
huge pages will be used to store the same program data.
The reduce this wastage, libugetlbfs can be instructed to allow
sharing segments between multiple invocations of a program. To do
this, you must set the HUGETLB_SHARE variable must be set for all the
processes in question. This variable has two possible values:
anything but 1: the default, indicates no segments should be shared
1: indicates that read-only segments (i.e. the program text,
in most cases) should be shared, read-write segments (data and bss)
will not be shared.
If the HUGETLB_MINIMAL_COPY variable is set for any program using
shared segments, it must be set to the same value for all invocations
of that program.
Segment sharing is implemented by creating persistent files in a
hugetlbfs containing the necessary segment data. By default, these
files are stored in a subdirectory of the first located hugetlbfs
filesystem, named 'elflink-uid-XXX' where XXX is the uid of the
process using sharing. This directory must be owned by the uid in
question, and have mode 0700. If it doesn't exist, libhugetlbfs will
create it automatically. This means that (by default) separate
invocations of the same program by different users will not share huge
pages.
The location for storing the hugetlbfs page files can be changed by
setting the HUGETLB_SHARE_PATH environment variable. If set, this
variable must contain the path of an accessible, already created
directory located in a hugetlbfs filesystem. The owner and mode of
this directory are not checked, so this method can be used to allow
processes of multiple uids to share huge pages. IMPORTANT SECURITY
NOTE: any process sharing hugepages can insert arbitrary executable
code into any other process sharing hugepages in the same directory.
Therefore, when using HUGETLB_SHARE_PATH, the directory created *must*
allow access only to a set of uids who are mutually trusted.
The files created in hugetlbfs for sharing are persistent, and must be
manually deleted to free the hugepages in question. Future versions
of libhugetlbfs should include tools and scripts to automate this
cleanup.
Partial segment remapping
-------------------------
libhugetlbfs has limited support for remapping a normal, non-relinked
binary's data, text and BSS into hugepages. To enable this feature,
HUGETLB_FORCE_ELFMAP must be set to "yes".
Partial segment remapping is not guaranteed to work. Most importantly, a
binary's segments must be large enough even when not relinked by
libhugetlbfs:
architecture address minimum segment size
------------ ------- --------------------
i386, x86_64 all hugepage size
ppc32 all 256M
ppc64 0-4G 256M
ppc64 4G-1T 1020G
ppc64 1T+ 1T
The raw size, though, is not sufficient to indicate if the code will
succeed, due to alignment. Since the binary is not relinked, however,
this is relatively straightforward to 'test and see'.
NOTE: You must use LD_PRELOAD to load libhugetlbfs.so when using
partial remapping.
Examples
========
Example 1: Application Developer
---------------------------------
To have a program use hugepages, complete the following steps:
1. Make sure you are working with kernel 2.6.16 or greater.
2. Modify the build procedure so your application is linked against
libhugetlbfs.
For the remapping, you link against the library with the appropriate
linker script (if necessary or desired). Linking against the library
should result in transparent usage of hugepages.
Example 2: End Users and System Administrators
-----------------------------------------------
To have an application use libhugetlbfs, complete the following steps:
1. Make sure you are using kernel 2.6.16.
2. Make sure the library is in the path, which you can set with the
LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. You might need to set other
environment variables, including LD_PRELOAD as described above.
Troubleshooting
===============
The library has a certain amount of debugging code built in, which can
be controlled with the environment variable HUGETLB_VERBOSE. By
default the debug level is "1" which means the library will only print
relatively serious error messages. Setting HUGETLB_VERBOSE=2 or
higher will enable more debug messages (at present 2 is the highest
debug level, but that may change). Setting HUGETLB_VERBOSE=0 will
silence the library completely, even in the case of errors - the only
exception is in cases where the library has to abort(), which can
happen if something goes wrong in the middle of unmapping and
remapping segments for the text/data/bss feature.
If an application fails to run, set the environment variable HUGETLB_DEBUG
to 1. This causes additional diagnostics to be run. This information should
be included when sending bug reports to the libhugetlbfs team.
Specific Scenarios:
-------------------
ISSUE: When using the --hugetlbfs-align or -zmax-page-size link options, the
linker complains about truncated relocations and the build fails.
TRY: Compile the program with the --relax linker option. Either add
-Wl,--relax to CFLAGS or --relax to LDFLAGS.
ISSUE: When using the xB linker script with a 32 bit binary on an x86 host with
NX support enabled, the binary segfaults.
TRY: Recompiling with the --hugetlbfs-align options and use the new relinking
method or booting your kernel with noexec32=off.
Trademarks
==========
This work represents the view of the author and does not necessarily
represent the view of IBM.
PowerPC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines
Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Linux is
a trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries,
or both.