xref: /linux/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst (revision 7f71507851fc7764b36a3221839607d3a45c2025)
1============================
2Transparent Hugepage Support
3============================
4
5Objective
6=========
7
8Performance critical computing applications dealing with large memory
9working sets are already running on top of libhugetlbfs and in turn
10hugetlbfs. Transparent HugePage Support (THP) is an alternative mean of
11using huge pages for the backing of virtual memory with huge pages
12that supports the automatic promotion and demotion of page sizes and
13without the shortcomings of hugetlbfs.
14
15Currently THP only works for anonymous memory mappings and tmpfs/shmem.
16But in the future it can expand to other filesystems.
17
18.. note::
19   in the examples below we presume that the basic page size is 4K and
20   the huge page size is 2M, although the actual numbers may vary
21   depending on the CPU architecture.
22
23The reason applications are running faster is because of two
24factors. The first factor is almost completely irrelevant and it's not
25of significant interest because it'll also have the downside of
26requiring larger clear-page copy-page in page faults which is a
27potentially negative effect. The first factor consists in taking a
28single page fault for each 2M virtual region touched by userland (so
29reducing the enter/exit kernel frequency by a 512 times factor). This
30only matters the first time the memory is accessed for the lifetime of
31a memory mapping. The second long lasting and much more important
32factor will affect all subsequent accesses to the memory for the whole
33runtime of the application. The second factor consist of two
34components:
35
361) the TLB miss will run faster (especially with virtualization using
37   nested pagetables but almost always also on bare metal without
38   virtualization)
39
402) a single TLB entry will be mapping a much larger amount of virtual
41   memory in turn reducing the number of TLB misses. With
42   virtualization and nested pagetables the TLB can be mapped of
43   larger size only if both KVM and the Linux guest are using
44   hugepages but a significant speedup already happens if only one of
45   the two is using hugepages just because of the fact the TLB miss is
46   going to run faster.
47
48Modern kernels support "multi-size THP" (mTHP), which introduces the
49ability to allocate memory in blocks that are bigger than a base page
50but smaller than traditional PMD-size (as described above), in
51increments of a power-of-2 number of pages. mTHP can back anonymous
52memory (for example 16K, 32K, 64K, etc). These THPs continue to be
53PTE-mapped, but in many cases can still provide similar benefits to
54those outlined above: Page faults are significantly reduced (by a
55factor of e.g. 4, 8, 16, etc), but latency spikes are much less
56prominent because the size of each page isn't as huge as the PMD-sized
57variant and there is less memory to clear in each page fault. Some
58architectures also employ TLB compression mechanisms to squeeze more
59entries in when a set of PTEs are virtually and physically contiguous
60and approporiately aligned. In this case, TLB misses will occur less
61often.
62
63THP can be enabled system wide or restricted to certain tasks or even
64memory ranges inside task's address space. Unless THP is completely
65disabled, there is ``khugepaged`` daemon that scans memory and
66collapses sequences of basic pages into PMD-sized huge pages.
67
68The THP behaviour is controlled via :ref:`sysfs <thp_sysfs>`
69interface and using madvise(2) and prctl(2) system calls.
70
71Transparent Hugepage Support maximizes the usefulness of free memory
72if compared to the reservation approach of hugetlbfs by allowing all
73unused memory to be used as cache or other movable (or even unmovable
74entities). It doesn't require reservation to prevent hugepage
75allocation failures to be noticeable from userland. It allows paging
76and all other advanced VM features to be available on the
77hugepages. It requires no modifications for applications to take
78advantage of it.
79
80Applications however can be further optimized to take advantage of
81this feature, like for example they've been optimized before to avoid
82a flood of mmap system calls for every malloc(4k). Optimizing userland
83is by far not mandatory and khugepaged already can take care of long
84lived page allocations even for hugepage unaware applications that
85deals with large amounts of memory.
86
87In certain cases when hugepages are enabled system wide, application
88may end up allocating more memory resources. An application may mmap a
89large region but only touch 1 byte of it, in that case a 2M page might
90be allocated instead of a 4k page for no good. This is why it's
91possible to disable hugepages system-wide and to only have them inside
92MADV_HUGEPAGE madvise regions.
93
94Embedded systems should enable hugepages only inside madvise regions
95to eliminate any risk of wasting any precious byte of memory and to
96only run faster.
97
98Applications that gets a lot of benefit from hugepages and that don't
99risk to lose memory by using hugepages, should use
100madvise(MADV_HUGEPAGE) on their critical mmapped regions.
101
102.. _thp_sysfs:
103
104sysfs
105=====
106
107Global THP controls
108-------------------
109
110Transparent Hugepage Support for anonymous memory can be entirely disabled
111(mostly for debugging purposes) or only enabled inside MADV_HUGEPAGE
112regions (to avoid the risk of consuming more memory resources) or enabled
113system wide. This can be achieved per-supported-THP-size with one of::
114
115	echo always >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/enabled
116	echo madvise >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/enabled
117	echo never >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/enabled
118
119where <size> is the hugepage size being addressed, the available sizes
120for which vary by system.
121
122For example::
123
124	echo always >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-2048kB/enabled
125
126Alternatively it is possible to specify that a given hugepage size
127will inherit the top-level "enabled" value::
128
129	echo inherit >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/enabled
130
131For example::
132
133	echo inherit >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-2048kB/enabled
134
135The top-level setting (for use with "inherit") can be set by issuing
136one of the following commands::
137
138	echo always >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
139	echo madvise >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
140	echo never >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
141
142By default, PMD-sized hugepages have enabled="inherit" and all other
143hugepage sizes have enabled="never". If enabling multiple hugepage
144sizes, the kernel will select the most appropriate enabled size for a
145given allocation.
146
147It's also possible to limit defrag efforts in the VM to generate
148anonymous hugepages in case they're not immediately free to madvise
149regions or to never try to defrag memory and simply fallback to regular
150pages unless hugepages are immediately available. Clearly if we spend CPU
151time to defrag memory, we would expect to gain even more by the fact we
152use hugepages later instead of regular pages. This isn't always
153guaranteed, but it may be more likely in case the allocation is for a
154MADV_HUGEPAGE region.
155
156::
157
158	echo always >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
159	echo defer >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
160	echo defer+madvise >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
161	echo madvise >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
162	echo never >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
163
164always
165	means that an application requesting THP will stall on
166	allocation failure and directly reclaim pages and compact
167	memory in an effort to allocate a THP immediately. This may be
168	desirable for virtual machines that benefit heavily from THP
169	use and are willing to delay the VM start to utilise them.
170
171defer
172	means that an application will wake kswapd in the background
173	to reclaim pages and wake kcompactd to compact memory so that
174	THP is available in the near future. It's the responsibility
175	of khugepaged to then install the THP pages later.
176
177defer+madvise
178	will enter direct reclaim and compaction like ``always``, but
179	only for regions that have used madvise(MADV_HUGEPAGE); all
180	other regions will wake kswapd in the background to reclaim
181	pages and wake kcompactd to compact memory so that THP is
182	available in the near future.
183
184madvise
185	will enter direct reclaim like ``always`` but only for regions
186	that are have used madvise(MADV_HUGEPAGE). This is the default
187	behaviour.
188
189never
190	should be self-explanatory.
191
192By default kernel tries to use huge, PMD-mappable zero page on read
193page fault to anonymous mapping. It's possible to disable huge zero
194page by writing 0 or enable it back by writing 1::
195
196	echo 0 >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/use_zero_page
197	echo 1 >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/use_zero_page
198
199Some userspace (such as a test program, or an optimized memory
200allocation library) may want to know the size (in bytes) of a
201PMD-mappable transparent hugepage::
202
203	cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hpage_pmd_size
204
205All THPs at fault and collapse time will be added to _deferred_list,
206and will therefore be split under memory presure if they are considered
207"underused". A THP is underused if the number of zero-filled pages in
208the THP is above max_ptes_none (see below). It is possible to disable
209this behaviour by writing 0 to shrink_underused, and enable it by writing
2101 to it::
211
212	echo 0 > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/shrink_underused
213	echo 1 > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/shrink_underused
214
215khugepaged will be automatically started when PMD-sized THP is enabled
216(either of the per-size anon control or the top-level control are set
217to "always" or "madvise"), and it'll be automatically shutdown when
218PMD-sized THP is disabled (when both the per-size anon control and the
219top-level control are "never")
220
221Khugepaged controls
222-------------------
223
224.. note::
225   khugepaged currently only searches for opportunities to collapse to
226   PMD-sized THP and no attempt is made to collapse to other THP
227   sizes.
228
229khugepaged runs usually at low frequency so while one may not want to
230invoke defrag algorithms synchronously during the page faults, it
231should be worth invoking defrag at least in khugepaged. However it's
232also possible to disable defrag in khugepaged by writing 0 or enable
233defrag in khugepaged by writing 1::
234
235	echo 0 >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/defrag
236	echo 1 >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/defrag
237
238You can also control how many pages khugepaged should scan at each
239pass::
240
241	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/pages_to_scan
242
243and how many milliseconds to wait in khugepaged between each pass (you
244can set this to 0 to run khugepaged at 100% utilization of one core)::
245
246	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/scan_sleep_millisecs
247
248and how many milliseconds to wait in khugepaged if there's an hugepage
249allocation failure to throttle the next allocation attempt::
250
251	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/alloc_sleep_millisecs
252
253The khugepaged progress can be seen in the number of pages collapsed (note
254that this counter may not be an exact count of the number of pages
255collapsed, since "collapsed" could mean multiple things: (1) A PTE mapping
256being replaced by a PMD mapping, or (2) All 4K physical pages replaced by
257one 2M hugepage. Each may happen independently, or together, depending on
258the type of memory and the failures that occur. As such, this value should
259be interpreted roughly as a sign of progress, and counters in /proc/vmstat
260consulted for more accurate accounting)::
261
262	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/pages_collapsed
263
264for each pass::
265
266	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/full_scans
267
268``max_ptes_none`` specifies how many extra small pages (that are
269not already mapped) can be allocated when collapsing a group
270of small pages into one large page::
271
272	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/max_ptes_none
273
274A higher value leads to use additional memory for programs.
275A lower value leads to gain less thp performance. Value of
276max_ptes_none can waste cpu time very little, you can
277ignore it.
278
279``max_ptes_swap`` specifies how many pages can be brought in from
280swap when collapsing a group of pages into a transparent huge page::
281
282	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/max_ptes_swap
283
284A higher value can cause excessive swap IO and waste
285memory. A lower value can prevent THPs from being
286collapsed, resulting fewer pages being collapsed into
287THPs, and lower memory access performance.
288
289``max_ptes_shared`` specifies how many pages can be shared across multiple
290processes. khugepaged might treat pages of THPs as shared if any page of
291that THP is shared. Exceeding the number would block the collapse::
292
293	/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/max_ptes_shared
294
295A higher value may increase memory footprint for some workloads.
296
297Boot parameters
298===============
299
300You can change the sysfs boot time default for the top-level "enabled"
301control by passing the parameter ``transparent_hugepage=always`` or
302``transparent_hugepage=madvise`` or ``transparent_hugepage=never`` to the
303kernel command line.
304
305Alternatively, each supported anonymous THP size can be controlled by
306passing ``thp_anon=<size>[KMG],<size>[KMG]:<state>;<size>[KMG]-<size>[KMG]:<state>``,
307where ``<size>`` is the THP size (must be a power of 2 of PAGE_SIZE and
308supported anonymous THP)  and ``<state>`` is one of ``always``, ``madvise``,
309``never`` or ``inherit``.
310
311For example, the following will set 16K, 32K, 64K THP to ``always``,
312set 128K, 512K to ``inherit``, set 256K to ``madvise`` and 1M, 2M
313to ``never``::
314
315	thp_anon=16K-64K:always;128K,512K:inherit;256K:madvise;1M-2M:never
316
317``thp_anon=`` may be specified multiple times to configure all THP sizes as
318required. If ``thp_anon=`` is specified at least once, any anon THP sizes
319not explicitly configured on the command line are implicitly set to
320``never``.
321
322``transparent_hugepage`` setting only affects the global toggle. If
323``thp_anon`` is not specified, PMD_ORDER THP will default to ``inherit``.
324However, if a valid ``thp_anon`` setting is provided by the user, the
325PMD_ORDER THP policy will be overridden. If the policy for PMD_ORDER
326is not defined within a valid ``thp_anon``, its policy will default to
327``never``.
328
329Similarly to ``transparent_hugepage``, you can control the hugepage
330allocation policy for the internal shmem mount by using the kernel parameter
331``transparent_hugepage_shmem=<policy>``, where ``<policy>`` is one of the
332seven valid policies for shmem (``always``, ``within_size``, ``advise``,
333``never``, ``deny``, and ``force``).
334
335In the same manner as ``thp_anon`` controls each supported anonymous THP
336size, ``thp_shmem`` controls each supported shmem THP size. ``thp_shmem``
337has the same format as ``thp_anon``, but also supports the policy
338``within_size``.
339
340``thp_shmem=`` may be specified multiple times to configure all THP sizes
341as required. If ``thp_shmem=`` is specified at least once, any shmem THP
342sizes not explicitly configured on the command line are implicitly set to
343``never``.
344
345``transparent_hugepage_shmem`` setting only affects the global toggle. If
346``thp_shmem`` is not specified, PMD_ORDER hugepage will default to
347``inherit``. However, if a valid ``thp_shmem`` setting is provided by the
348user, the PMD_ORDER hugepage policy will be overridden. If the policy for
349PMD_ORDER is not defined within a valid ``thp_shmem``, its policy will
350default to ``never``.
351
352Hugepages in tmpfs/shmem
353========================
354
355You can control hugepage allocation policy in tmpfs with mount option
356``huge=``. It can have following values:
357
358always
359    Attempt to allocate huge pages every time we need a new page;
360
361never
362    Do not allocate huge pages;
363
364within_size
365    Only allocate huge page if it will be fully within i_size.
366    Also respect fadvise()/madvise() hints;
367
368advise
369    Only allocate huge pages if requested with fadvise()/madvise();
370
371The default policy is ``never``.
372
373``mount -o remount,huge= /mountpoint`` works fine after mount: remounting
374``huge=never`` will not attempt to break up huge pages at all, just stop more
375from being allocated.
376
377There's also sysfs knob to control hugepage allocation policy for internal
378shmem mount: /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/shmem_enabled. The mount
379is used for SysV SHM, memfds, shared anonymous mmaps (of /dev/zero or
380MAP_ANONYMOUS), GPU drivers' DRM objects, Ashmem.
381
382In addition to policies listed above, shmem_enabled allows two further
383values:
384
385deny
386    For use in emergencies, to force the huge option off from
387    all mounts;
388force
389    Force the huge option on for all - very useful for testing;
390
391Shmem can also use "multi-size THP" (mTHP) by adding a new sysfs knob to
392control mTHP allocation:
393'/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/shmem_enabled',
394and its value for each mTHP is essentially consistent with the global
395setting.  An 'inherit' option is added to ensure compatibility with these
396global settings.  Conversely, the options 'force' and 'deny' are dropped,
397which are rather testing artifacts from the old ages.
398
399always
400    Attempt to allocate <size> huge pages every time we need a new page;
401
402inherit
403    Inherit the top-level "shmem_enabled" value. By default, PMD-sized hugepages
404    have enabled="inherit" and all other hugepage sizes have enabled="never";
405
406never
407    Do not allocate <size> huge pages;
408
409within_size
410    Only allocate <size> huge page if it will be fully within i_size.
411    Also respect fadvise()/madvise() hints;
412
413advise
414    Only allocate <size> huge pages if requested with fadvise()/madvise();
415
416Need of application restart
417===========================
418
419The transparent_hugepage/enabled and
420transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/enabled values and tmpfs mount
421option only affect future behavior. So to make them effective you need
422to restart any application that could have been using hugepages. This
423also applies to the regions registered in khugepaged.
424
425Monitoring usage
426================
427
428The number of PMD-sized anonymous transparent huge pages currently used by the
429system is available by reading the AnonHugePages field in ``/proc/meminfo``.
430To identify what applications are using PMD-sized anonymous transparent huge
431pages, it is necessary to read ``/proc/PID/smaps`` and count the AnonHugePages
432fields for each mapping. (Note that AnonHugePages only applies to traditional
433PMD-sized THP for historical reasons and should have been called
434AnonHugePmdMapped).
435
436The number of file transparent huge pages mapped to userspace is available
437by reading ShmemPmdMapped and ShmemHugePages fields in ``/proc/meminfo``.
438To identify what applications are mapping file transparent huge pages, it
439is necessary to read ``/proc/PID/smaps`` and count the FileHugeMapped fields
440for each mapping.
441
442Note that reading the smaps file is expensive and reading it
443frequently will incur overhead.
444
445There are a number of counters in ``/proc/vmstat`` that may be used to
446monitor how successfully the system is providing huge pages for use.
447
448thp_fault_alloc
449	is incremented every time a huge page is successfully
450	allocated and charged to handle a page fault.
451
452thp_collapse_alloc
453	is incremented by khugepaged when it has found
454	a range of pages to collapse into one huge page and has
455	successfully allocated a new huge page to store the data.
456
457thp_fault_fallback
458	is incremented if a page fault fails to allocate or charge
459	a huge page and instead falls back to using small pages.
460
461thp_fault_fallback_charge
462	is incremented if a page fault fails to charge a huge page and
463	instead falls back to using small pages even though the
464	allocation was successful.
465
466thp_collapse_alloc_failed
467	is incremented if khugepaged found a range
468	of pages that should be collapsed into one huge page but failed
469	the allocation.
470
471thp_file_alloc
472	is incremented every time a shmem huge page is successfully
473	allocated (Note that despite being named after "file", the counter
474	measures only shmem).
475
476thp_file_fallback
477	is incremented if a shmem huge page is attempted to be allocated
478	but fails and instead falls back to using small pages. (Note that
479	despite being named after "file", the counter measures only shmem).
480
481thp_file_fallback_charge
482	is incremented if a shmem huge page cannot be charged and instead
483	falls back to using small pages even though the allocation was
484	successful. (Note that despite being named after "file", the
485	counter measures only shmem).
486
487thp_file_mapped
488	is incremented every time a file or shmem huge page is mapped into
489	user address space.
490
491thp_split_page
492	is incremented every time a huge page is split into base
493	pages. This can happen for a variety of reasons but a common
494	reason is that a huge page is old and is being reclaimed.
495	This action implies splitting all PMD the page mapped with.
496
497thp_split_page_failed
498	is incremented if kernel fails to split huge
499	page. This can happen if the page was pinned by somebody.
500
501thp_deferred_split_page
502	is incremented when a huge page is put onto split
503	queue. This happens when a huge page is partially unmapped and
504	splitting it would free up some memory. Pages on split queue are
505	going to be split under memory pressure.
506
507thp_underused_split_page
508	is incremented when a huge page on the split queue was split
509	because it was underused. A THP is underused if the number of
510	zero pages in the THP is above a certain threshold
511	(/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/max_ptes_none).
512
513thp_split_pmd
514	is incremented every time a PMD split into table of PTEs.
515	This can happen, for instance, when application calls mprotect() or
516	munmap() on part of huge page. It doesn't split huge page, only
517	page table entry.
518
519thp_zero_page_alloc
520	is incremented every time a huge zero page used for thp is
521	successfully allocated. Note, it doesn't count every map of
522	the huge zero page, only its allocation.
523
524thp_zero_page_alloc_failed
525	is incremented if kernel fails to allocate
526	huge zero page and falls back to using small pages.
527
528thp_swpout
529	is incremented every time a huge page is swapout in one
530	piece without splitting.
531
532thp_swpout_fallback
533	is incremented if a huge page has to be split before swapout.
534	Usually because failed to allocate some continuous swap space
535	for the huge page.
536
537In /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-<size>kB/stats, There are
538also individual counters for each huge page size, which can be utilized to
539monitor the system's effectiveness in providing huge pages for usage. Each
540counter has its own corresponding file.
541
542anon_fault_alloc
543	is incremented every time a huge page is successfully
544	allocated and charged to handle a page fault.
545
546anon_fault_fallback
547	is incremented if a page fault fails to allocate or charge
548	a huge page and instead falls back to using huge pages with
549	lower orders or small pages.
550
551anon_fault_fallback_charge
552	is incremented if a page fault fails to charge a huge page and
553	instead falls back to using huge pages with lower orders or
554	small pages even though the allocation was successful.
555
556zswpout
557	is incremented every time a huge page is swapped out to zswap in one
558	piece without splitting.
559
560swpin
561	is incremented every time a huge page is swapped in from a non-zswap
562	swap device in one piece.
563
564swpout
565	is incremented every time a huge page is swapped out to a non-zswap
566	swap device in one piece without splitting.
567
568swpout_fallback
569	is incremented if a huge page has to be split before swapout.
570	Usually because failed to allocate some continuous swap space
571	for the huge page.
572
573shmem_alloc
574	is incremented every time a shmem huge page is successfully
575	allocated.
576
577shmem_fallback
578	is incremented if a shmem huge page is attempted to be allocated
579	but fails and instead falls back to using small pages.
580
581shmem_fallback_charge
582	is incremented if a shmem huge page cannot be charged and instead
583	falls back to using small pages even though the allocation was
584	successful.
585
586split
587	is incremented every time a huge page is successfully split into
588	smaller orders. This can happen for a variety of reasons but a
589	common reason is that a huge page is old and is being reclaimed.
590
591split_failed
592	is incremented if kernel fails to split huge
593	page. This can happen if the page was pinned by somebody.
594
595split_deferred
596        is incremented when a huge page is put onto split queue.
597        This happens when a huge page is partially unmapped and splitting
598        it would free up some memory. Pages on split queue are going to
599        be split under memory pressure, if splitting is possible.
600
601nr_anon
602       the number of anonymous THP we have in the whole system. These THPs
603       might be currently entirely mapped or have partially unmapped/unused
604       subpages.
605
606nr_anon_partially_mapped
607       the number of anonymous THP which are likely partially mapped, possibly
608       wasting memory, and have been queued for deferred memory reclamation.
609       Note that in corner some cases (e.g., failed migration), we might detect
610       an anonymous THP as "partially mapped" and count it here, even though it
611       is not actually partially mapped anymore.
612
613As the system ages, allocating huge pages may be expensive as the
614system uses memory compaction to copy data around memory to free a
615huge page for use. There are some counters in ``/proc/vmstat`` to help
616monitor this overhead.
617
618compact_stall
619	is incremented every time a process stalls to run
620	memory compaction so that a huge page is free for use.
621
622compact_success
623	is incremented if the system compacted memory and
624	freed a huge page for use.
625
626compact_fail
627	is incremented if the system tries to compact memory
628	but failed.
629
630It is possible to establish how long the stalls were using the function
631tracer to record how long was spent in __alloc_pages() and
632using the mm_page_alloc tracepoint to identify which allocations were
633for huge pages.
634
635Optimizing the applications
636===========================
637
638To be guaranteed that the kernel will map a THP immediately in any
639memory region, the mmap region has to be hugepage naturally
640aligned. posix_memalign() can provide that guarantee.
641
642Hugetlbfs
643=========
644
645You can use hugetlbfs on a kernel that has transparent hugepage
646support enabled just fine as always. No difference can be noted in
647hugetlbfs other than there will be less overall fragmentation. All
648usual features belonging to hugetlbfs are preserved and
649unaffected. libhugetlbfs will also work fine as usual.
650