Add some more description on the limitations for smaps/maps readings, as well as some guaruntees we can make.
Signed-off-by: Robert Ho <[email protected]> --- Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt index 68080ad..90eabc7 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt @@ -515,6 +515,14 @@ be vanished or the reverse -- new added. This file is only present if the CONFIG_MMU kernel configuration option is enabled. +Note: for both /proc/PID/maps and /proc/PID/smaps readings, it's +possible in race conditions, that the mappings printed may not be that +up-to-date, because during each read walking, the task's mappings may have +changed, this typically happens in multithread cases. But anyway in each single +read these can be guarunteed: 1) the mapped addresses doesn't go backward; 2) no +overlaps 3) if there is something at a given vaddr during the entirety of the +life of the smaps/maps walk, there will be some output for it. + The /proc/PID/clear_refs is used to reset the PG_Referenced and ACCESSED/YOUNG bits on both physical and virtual pages associated with a process, and the soft-dirty bit on pte (see Documentation/vm/soft-dirty.txt for details). -- 1.8.3.1
