.\" Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH madvise 2 2025-06-28 "Linux man-pages (unreleased)"
.SH NAME
madvise \- give advice about use of memory
.SH LIBRARY
Standard C library
.RI ( libc ,\~ \-lc )
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <sys/mman.h>
.P
.BR "int madvise(" "size_t size;"
.BI "            void " addr [ size "], size_t " size ", int " advice );
.fi
.P
.RS -4
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
.RE
.P
.BR madvise ():
.nf
    Since glibc 2.19:
        _DEFAULT_SOURCE
    Up to and including glibc 2.19:
        _BSD_SOURCE
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR madvise ()
system call is used to give advice or directions to the kernel
about the address range beginning at address
.I addr
and with size
.IR size .
.BR madvise ()
only operates on whole pages, therefore
.I addr
must be page-aligned.
The value of
.I size
is rounded up to a multiple of page size.
In most cases,
the goal of such advice is to improve system or application performance.
.P
Initially, the system call supported a set of "conventional"
.I advice
values, which are also available on several other implementations.
(Note, though, that
.BR madvise ()
is not specified in POSIX.)
Subsequently, a number of Linux-specific
.I advice
values have been added.
.\"
.\" ======================================================================
.\"
.SS Conventional advice values
The
.I advice
values listed below
allow an application to tell the kernel how it expects to use
some mapped or shared memory areas, so that the kernel can choose
appropriate read-ahead and caching techniques.
These
.I advice
values do not influence the semantics of the application
(except in the case of
.BR MADV_DONTNEED ),
but may influence its performance.
All of the
.I advice
values listed here have analogs in the POSIX-specified
.BR posix_madvise (3)
function, and the values have the same meanings, with the exception of
.BR MADV_DONTNEED .
.P
The advice is indicated in the
.I advice
argument, which is one of the following:
.TP
.B MADV_NORMAL
No special treatment.
This is the default.
.TP
.B MADV_RANDOM
Expect page references in random order.
(Hence, read ahead may be less useful than normally.)
.TP
.B MADV_SEQUENTIAL
Expect page references in sequential order.
(Hence, pages in the given range can be aggressively read ahead,
and may be freed soon after they are accessed.)
.TP
.B MADV_WILLNEED
Expect access in the near future.
(Hence, it might be a good idea to read some pages ahead.)
.TP
.B MADV_DONTNEED
Do not expect access in the near future.
(For the time being, the application is finished with the given range,
so the kernel can free resources associated with it.)
.IP
After a successful
.B MADV_DONTNEED
operation,
the semantics of memory access in the specified region are changed:
subsequent accesses of pages in the range will succeed, but will result
in either repopulating the memory contents from the
up-to-date contents of the underlying mapped file
(for shared file mappings, shared anonymous mappings,
and shmem-based techniques such as System V shared memory segments)
or zero-fill-on-demand pages for anonymous private mappings.
.IP
Note that, when applied to shared mappings,
.B MADV_DONTNEED
might not lead to immediate freeing of the pages in the range.
The kernel is free to delay freeing the pages until an appropriate moment.
The resident set size (RSS) of the calling process will be immediately
reduced however.
.IP
.B MADV_DONTNEED
cannot be applied to locked pages, or
.B VM_PFNMAP
pages.
(Pages marked with the kernel-internal
.B VM_PFNMAP
.\" http://lwn.net/Articles/162860/
flag are special memory areas that are not managed
by the virtual memory subsystem.
Such pages are typically created by device drivers that
map the pages into user space.)
.IP
Support for Huge TLB pages was added in Linux v5.18.
Addresses within a mapping backed by Huge TLB pages must be aligned
to the underlying Huge TLB page size,
and the range size is rounded up
to a multiple of the underlying Huge TLB page size.
.\"
.\" ======================================================================
.\"
.SS Linux-specific advice values
The following Linux-specific
.I advice
values have no counterparts in the POSIX-specified
.BR posix_madvise (3),
and may or may not have counterparts in the
.BR madvise ()
interface available on other implementations.
Note that some of these operations change the semantics of memory accesses.
.TP
.BR MADV_REMOVE " (since Linux 2.6.16)"
.\" commit f6b3ec238d12c8cc6cc71490c6e3127988460349
Free up a given range of pages
and its associated backing store.
This is equivalent to punching a hole in the corresponding
range of the backing store (see
.BR fallocate (2)).
Subsequent accesses in the specified address range will see
data with a value of zero.
.\" Databases want to use this feature to drop a section of their
.\" bufferpool (shared memory segments) - without writing back to
.\" disk/swap space.  This feature is also useful for supporting
.\" hot-plug memory on UML.
.IP
The specified address range must be mapped shared and writable.
This flag cannot be applied to locked pages, or
.B VM_PFNMAP
pages.
.IP
In the initial implementation, only
.BR tmpfs (5)
supported
.BR MADV_REMOVE ;
but since Linux 3.5,
.\" commit 3f31d07571eeea18a7d34db9af21d2285b807a17
any filesystem which supports the
.BR fallocate (2)
.B FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE
mode also supports
.BR MADV_REMOVE .
Filesystems which do not support
.B MADV_REMOVE
fail with the error
.BR EOPNOTSUPP .
.IP
Support for the Huge TLB filesystem was added in Linux v4.3.
.TP
.BR MADV_DONTFORK " (since Linux 2.6.16)"
.\" commit f822566165dd46ff5de9bf895cfa6c51f53bb0c4
.\" See http://lwn.net/Articles/171941/
Do not make the pages in this range available to the child after a
.BR fork (2).
This is useful to prevent copy-on-write semantics from changing
the physical location of a page if the parent writes to it after a
.BR fork (2).
(Such page relocations cause problems for hardware that
DMAs into the page.)
.\" [PATCH] madvise MADV_DONTFORK/MADV_DOFORK
.\" Currently, copy-on-write may change the physical address of
.\" a page even if the user requested that the page is pinned in
.\" memory (either by mlock or by get_user_pages).  This happens
.\" if the process forks meanwhile, and the parent writes to that
.\" page.  As a result, the page is orphaned: in case of
.\" get_user_pages, the application will never see any data hardware
.\" DMA's into this page after the COW.  In case of mlock'd memory,
.\" the parent is not getting the realtime/security benefits of mlock.
.\"
.\" In particular, this affects the Infiniband modules which do DMA from
.\" and into user pages all the time.
.\"
.\" This patch adds madvise options to control whether memory range is
.\" inherited across fork. Useful e.g. for when hardware is doing DMA
.\" from/into these pages.  Could also be useful to an application
.\" wanting to speed up its forks by cutting large areas out of
.\" consideration.
.\"
.\" SEE ALSO: http://lwn.net/Articles/171941/
.\" "Tweaks to madvise() and posix_fadvise()", 14 Feb 2006
.TP
.BR MADV_DOFORK " (since Linux 2.6.16)"
Undo the effect of
.BR MADV_DONTFORK ,
restoring the default behavior, whereby a mapping is inherited across
.BR fork (2).
.TP
.BR MADV_HWPOISON " (since Linux 2.6.32)"
.\" commit 9893e49d64a4874ea67849ee2cfbf3f3d6817573
Poison the pages in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.I size
and handle subsequent references to those pages
like a hardware memory corruption.
This operation is available only for privileged
.RB ( CAP_SYS_ADMIN )
processes.
This operation may result in the calling process receiving a
.B SIGBUS
and the page being unmapped.
.IP
This feature is intended for testing of memory error-handling code;
it is available only if the kernel was configured with
.BR CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE .
.TP
.BR MADV_MERGEABLE " (since Linux 2.6.32)"
.\" commit f8af4da3b4c14e7267c4ffb952079af3912c51c5
Enable Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) for the pages in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
The kernel regularly scans those areas of user memory that have
been marked as mergeable,
looking for pages with identical content.
These are replaced by a single write-protected page (which is automatically
copied if a process later wants to update the content of the page).
KSM merges only private anonymous pages (see
.BR mmap (2)).
.IP
The KSM feature is intended for applications that generate many
instances of the same data (e.g., virtualization systems such as KVM).
It can consume a lot of processing power; use with care.
See the Linux kernel source file
.I Documentation/admin\-guide/mm/ksm.rst
for more details.
.IP
The
.B MADV_MERGEABLE
and
.B MADV_UNMERGEABLE
operations are available only if the kernel was configured with
.BR CONFIG_KSM .
.TP
.BR MADV_UNMERGEABLE " (since Linux 2.6.32)"
Undo the effect of an earlier
.B MADV_MERGEABLE
operation on the specified address range;
KSM unmerges whatever pages it had merged in the address range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
.TP
.BR MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE " (since Linux 2.6.33)"
.\" commit afcf938ee0aac4ef95b1a23bac704c6fbeb26de6
Soft offline the pages in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
The memory of each page in the specified range is preserved
(i.e., when next accessed, the same content will be visible,
but in a new physical page frame),
and the original page is offlined
(i.e., no longer used, and taken out of normal memory management).
The effect of the
.B MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE
operation is invisible to (i.e., does not change the semantics of)
the calling process.
.IP
This feature is intended for testing of memory error-handling code;
it is available only if the kernel was configured with
.BR CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE .
.TP
.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE " (since Linux 2.6.38)"
.\" commit 0af4e98b6b095c74588af04872f83d333c958c32
.\" http://lwn.net/Articles/358904/
.\" https://lwn.net/Articles/423584/
Enable Transparent Huge Pages (THP) for pages in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
The kernel will regularly scan the areas marked as huge page candidates
to replace them with huge pages.
The kernel will also allocate huge pages directly when the region is
naturally aligned to the huge page size (see
.BR posix_memalign (2)).
.IP
This feature is primarily aimed at applications that use large mappings of
data and access large regions of that memory at a time (e.g., virtualization
systems such as QEMU).
It can very easily waste memory (e.g., a 2\ MB mapping that only ever accesses
1 byte will result in 2\ MB of wired memory instead of one 4\ KB page).
See the Linux kernel source file
.I Documentation/admin\-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
for more details.
.IP
Most common kernels configurations provide
.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE -style
behavior by default, and thus
.B MADV_HUGEPAGE
is normally not necessary.
It is mostly intended for embedded systems, where
.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE -style
behavior may not be enabled by default in the kernel.
On such systems,
this flag can be used in order to selectively enable THP.
Whenever
.B MADV_HUGEPAGE
is used, it should always be in regions of memory with
an access pattern that the developer knows in advance won't risk
to increase the memory footprint of the application when transparent
hugepages are enabled.
.IP
.\" commit 99cb0dbd47a15d395bf3faa78dc122bc5efe3fc0
Since Linux 5.4,
automatic scan of eligible areas and replacement by huge pages works with
private anonymous pages (see
.BR mmap (2)),
shmem pages,
and file-backed pages.
For all memory types,
memory may only be replaced by huge pages on hugepage-aligned boundaries.
For file-mapped memory
\[em]including tmpfs (see
.BR tmpfs (2))\[em]
the mapping must also be naturally hugepage-aligned within the file.
Additionally,
for file-backed,
non-tmpfs memory,
the file must not be open for write and the mapping must be executable.
.IP
The VMA must not be marked
.BR VM_NOHUGEPAGE ,
.BR VM_HUGETLB ,
.BR VM_IO ,
.BR VM_DONTEXPAND ,
.BR VM_MIXEDMAP ,
or
.BR VM_PFNMAP ,
nor can it be stack memory or backed by a DAX-enabled device
(unless the DAX device is hot-plugged as System RAM).
The process must also not have
.B PR_SET_THP_DISABLE
set (see
.BR prctl (2)).
.IP
The
.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE ,
.BR MADV_NOHUGEPAGE ,
and
.B MADV_COLLAPSE
operations are available only if the kernel was configured with
.B CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE
and file/shmem memory is only supported if the kernel was configured with
.BR CONFIG_READ_ONLY_THP_FOR_FS .
.TP
.BR MADV_NOHUGEPAGE " (since Linux 2.6.38)"
Ensures that memory in the address range specified by
.I addr
and
.I size
will not be backed by transparent hugepages.
.TP
.BR MADV_COLLAPSE " (since Linux 6.1)"
.\" commit 7d8faaf155454f8798ec56404faca29a82689c77
.\" commit 34488399fa08faaf664743fa54b271eb6f9e1321
Perform a best-effort synchronous collapse of
the native pages mapped by the memory range
into Transparent Huge Pages (THPs).
.B MADV_COLLAPSE
operates on the current state of memory of the calling process and
makes no persistent changes or guarantees on how pages will be mapped,
constructed,
or faulted in the future.
.IP
.B MADV_COLLAPSE
supports private anonymous pages (see
.BR mmap (2)),
shmem pages,
and file-backed pages.
See
.B MADV_HUGEPAGE
for general information on memory requirements for THP.
If the range provided spans multiple VMAs,
the semantics of the collapse over each VMA is independent from the others.
If collapse of a given huge page-aligned/sized region fails,
the operation may continue to attempt collapsing
the remainder of the specified memory.
.B MADV_COLLAPSE
will automatically clamp the provided range to be hugepage-aligned.
.IP
All non-resident pages covered by the range
will first be swapped/faulted-in,
before being copied onto a freshly allocated hugepage.
If the native pages compose the same PTE-mapped hugepage,
and are suitably aligned,
allocation of a new hugepage may be elided and
collapse may happen in-place.
Unmapped pages will have their data directly initialized to 0
in the new hugepage.
However,
for every eligible hugepage-aligned/sized region to be collapsed,
at least one page must currently be backed by physical memory.
.IP
.B MADV_COLLAPSE
is independent of any sysfs
(see
.BR sysfs (5))
setting under
.IR /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage ,
both in terms of determining THP eligibility,
and allocation semantics.
See Linux kernel source file
.I Documentation/admin\-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
for more information.
.B MADV_COLLAPSE
also ignores
.B huge=
tmpfs mount when operating on tmpfs files.
Allocation for the new hugepage may enter direct reclaim and/or compaction,
regardless of VMA flags
(though
.B VM_NOHUGEPAGE
is still respected).
.IP
When the system has multiple NUMA nodes,
the hugepage will be allocated from
the node providing the most native pages.
.IP
If all hugepage-sized/aligned regions covered by the provided range were
either successfully collapsed,
or were already PMD-mapped THPs,
this operation will be deemed successful.
Note that this doesn't guarantee anything about
other possible mappings of the memory.
In the event multiple hugepage-aligned/sized areas fail to collapse,
only the most-recently\[en]failed code will be set in
.IR errno .
.TP
.BR MADV_DONTDUMP " (since Linux 3.4)"
.\" commit 909af768e88867016f427264ae39d27a57b6a8ed
.\" commit accb61fe7bb0f5c2a4102239e4981650f9048519
Exclude from a core dump those pages in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
This is useful in applications that have large areas of memory
that are known not to be useful in a core dump.
The effect of
.B MADV_DONTDUMP
takes precedence over the bit mask that is set via the
.IR /proc/ pid /coredump_filter
file (see
.BR core (5)).
.TP
.BR MADV_DODUMP " (since Linux 3.4)"
Undo the effect of an earlier
.BR MADV_DONTDUMP .
.TP
.BR MADV_FREE " (since Linux 4.5)"
The application no longer requires the pages in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
The kernel can thus free these pages,
but the freeing could be delayed until memory pressure occurs.
For each of the pages that has been marked to be freed
but has not yet been freed,
the free operation will be canceled if the caller writes into the page.
After a successful
.B MADV_FREE
operation, any stale data (i.e., dirty, unwritten pages) will be lost
when the kernel frees the pages.
However, subsequent writes to pages in the range will succeed
and then kernel cannot free those dirtied pages,
so that the caller can always see just written data.
If there is no subsequent write,
the kernel can free the pages at any time.
Once pages in the range have been freed, the caller will
see zero-fill-on-demand pages upon subsequent page references.
.IP
The
.B MADV_FREE
operation
can be applied only to private anonymous pages (see
.BR mmap (2)).
Before Linux 4.12,
.\" commit 93e06c7a645343d222c9a838834a51042eebbbf7
when freeing pages on a swapless system,
the pages in the given range are freed instantly,
regardless of memory pressure.
.TP
.BR MADV_WIPEONFORK " (since Linux 4.14)"
.\" commit d2cd9ede6e193dd7d88b6d27399e96229a551b19
Present the child process with zero-filled memory in this range after a
.BR fork (2).
This is useful in forking servers in order to ensure
that sensitive per-process data
(for example, PRNG seeds, cryptographic secrets, and so on)
is not handed to child processes.
.IP
The
.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
operation can be applied only to private anonymous pages (see
.BR mmap (2)).
.IP
Within the child created by
.BR fork (2),
the
.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
setting remains in place on the specified address range.
This setting is cleared during
.BR execve (2).
.TP
.BR MADV_KEEPONFORK " (since Linux 4.14)"
.\" commit d2cd9ede6e193dd7d88b6d27399e96229a551b19
Undo the effect of an earlier
.BR MADV_WIPEONFORK .
.TP
.BR MADV_COLD " (since Linux 5.4)"
.\" commit 9c276cc65a58faf98be8e56962745ec99ab87636
Deactivate a given range of pages.
This will make the pages a more probable
reclaim target should there be a memory pressure.
This is a nondestructive operation.
The advice might be ignored for some pages in the range when it is not
applicable.
.TP
.BR MADV_PAGEOUT " (since Linux 5.4)"
.\" commit 1a4e58cce84ee88129d5d49c064bd2852b481357
Reclaim a given range of pages.
This is done to free up memory occupied by these pages.
If a page is anonymous, it will be swapped out.
If a page is file-backed and dirty, it will be written back to the backing
storage.
The advice might be ignored for some pages in the range when it is not
applicable.
.TP
.BR MADV_POPULATE_READ " (since Linux 5.14)"
"Populate (prefault) page tables readable,
faulting in all pages in the range just as if manually reading from each page;
however,
avoid the actual memory access that would have been performed after handling
the fault.
.IP
In contrast to
.BR MAP_POPULATE ,
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
does not hide errors,
can be applied to (parts of) existing mappings and will always populate
(prefault) page tables readable.
One example use case is prefaulting a file mapping,
reading all file content from disk;
however,
pages won't be dirtied and consequently won't have to be written back to disk
when evicting the pages from memory.
.IP
Depending on the underlying mapping,
map the shared zeropage,
preallocate memory or read the underlying file;
files with holes might or might not preallocate blocks.
If populating fails,
a
.B SIGBUS
signal is not generated; instead, an error is returned.
.IP
If
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
succeeds,
all page tables have been populated (prefaulted) readable once.
If
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
fails,
some page tables might have been populated.
.IP
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
cannot be applied to mappings without read permissions
and special mappings,
for example,
mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
.B VM_PFNMAP
or
.BR VM_IO ,
or secret memory regions created using
.BR memfd_secret(2) .
.IP
Note that with
.BR MADV_POPULATE_READ ,
the process can be killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.
.TP
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE " (since Linux 5.14)"
Populate (prefault) page tables writable,
faulting in all pages in the range just as if manually writing to each
each page;
however,
avoid the actual memory access that would have been performed after handling
the fault.
.IP
In contrast to
.BR MAP_POPULATE ,
MADV_POPULATE_WRITE does not hide errors,
can be applied to (parts of) existing mappings and will always populate
(prefault) page tables writable.
One example use case is preallocating memory,
breaking any CoW (Copy on Write).
.IP
Depending on the underlying mapping,
preallocate memory or read the underlying file;
files with holes will preallocate blocks.
If populating fails,
a
.B SIGBUS
signal is not generated; instead, an error is returned.
.IP
If
.B MADV_POPULATE_WRITE
succeeds,
all page tables have been populated (prefaulted) writable once.
If
.B MADV_POPULATE_WRITE
fails,
some page tables might have been populated.
.IP
.B MADV_POPULATE_WRITE
cannot be applied to mappings without write permissions
and special mappings,
for example,
mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
.B VM_PFNMAP
or
.BR VM_IO ,
or secret memory regions created using
.BR memfd_secret(2) .
.IP
Note that with
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
the process can be killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.
.TP
.BR MADV_GUARD_INSTALL " (since Linux 6.13)"
Install a lightweight guard region
into the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size ,
causing any read or write in the range to result in a
.B SIGSEGV
signal being raised.
.IP
If the region maps memory pages
those mappings will be replaced
as part of the operation,
though if
.B MADV_GUARD_INSTALL
is applied to regions
containing pre-existing lightweight guard regions,
they are left in place.
.IP
Prior to Linux 6.15,
this operation was supported
only for writable anonymous private mappings.
Since Linux 6.15,
both anonymous and file-backed mappings are supported,
including read-only mappings.
.IP
The mapping must not be mlock'd,
map hugetlb ranges,
nor contain special mappings.
For example,
mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
.B VM_PFNMAP
or
.BR VM_IO ,
or secret memory regions created using
.BR memfd_secret (2).
.IP
An
.B EINVAL
error is returned if it is attempted on any other kind of mapping.
.IP
This operation is more efficient than mapping a new region of memory
.BR PROT_NONE ,
as it does not require the establishment of new mappings.
Instead,
regions of an existing mapping
simply have their page tables
manipulated to establish the desired behavior.
No additional memory is used.
.IP
Lightweight guard regions remain on fork
(except for any parts which have had
.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
applied to them),
and are not removed by
.BR MADV_DONTNEED ,
.BR MADV_FREE ,
.BR MADV_PAGEOUT ,
or
.BR MADV_COLD .
.IP
Attempting to
.BR mlock (2)
lightweight guard regions will fail,
as will
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
or
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE .
.IP
If the mapping has its attributes changed,
or is split or partially unmapped,
any existing guard regions remain in place
(except if they are unmapped).
.IP
If a mapping is moved using
.BR mremap (2),
lightweight guard regions are moved with it.
.IP
Lightweight guard regions are removed when unmapped,
on process teardown,
or when the
.B MADV_GUARD_REMOVE
operation is applied to them.
.TP
.BR MADV_GUARD_REMOVE " (since Linux 6.13)"
Remove any lightweight guard regions
which exist in the range specified by
.I addr
and
.IR size .
.IP
All mappings in the range
other than lightweight guard regions
are left in place.
The operation is supported on those mappings
permitted by
.B MADV_GUARD_INSTALL
in addition to mlock()'d mappings,
returning an
.B EINVAL
error otherwise.
.IP
When lightweight guard regions are removed,
they act as empty regions of the containing mapping.
Therefore,
anonymous private mappings become
zero-fill-on-demand pages,
and file-backed mappings are repopulated with the
memory contents from the up-to-date contents of the
underlying mapped file.
.IP
If any transparent huge pages are encountered in the operation,
they are left in place.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success,
.BR madvise ()
returns zero.
On error, it returns \-1 and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EACCES
.I advice
is
.BR MADV_REMOVE ,
but the specified address range is not a shared writable mapping.
.TP
.B EAGAIN
A kernel resource was temporarily unavailable.
.TP
.B EBADF
The map exists, but the area maps something that isn't a file.
.TP
.B EBUSY
(for
.BR MADV_COLLAPSE )
Could not charge hugepage to cgroup: cgroup limit exceeded.
.TP
.B EBUSY
(for
.BR MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE )
Any pages within the specified address range
could not be offlined.
This might occur if the page is currently in use or locked.
.TP
.B EFAULT
.I advice
is
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
or
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
and populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because a
.B SIGBUS
would have been generated on actual memory access and the reason is not a
HW poisoned page
(HW poisoned pages can,
for example,
be created using the
.B MADV_HWPOISON
flag described elsewhere in this page).
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I addr
is not page-aligned or
.I size
is negative.
.\" .I size
.\" is zero,
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is not a valid.
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is
.B MADV_COLD
or
.B MADV_PAGEOUT
and the specified address range includes locked, Huge TLB pages, or
.B VM_PFNMAP
pages.
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is
.B MADV_DONTNEED
or
.B MADV_REMOVE
and the specified address range includes locked, Huge TLB pages, or
.B VM_PFNMAP
pages.
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is
.B MADV_MERGEABLE
or
.BR MADV_UNMERGEABLE ,
but the kernel was not configured with
.BR CONFIG_KSM .
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is
.B MADV_FREE
or
.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
but the specified address range includes file, Huge TLB,
.BR MAP_SHARED ,
or
.B VM_PFNMAP
ranges.
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
or
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
but the specified address range includes ranges with insufficient permissions
or special mappings,
for example,
mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such a
.B VM_IO
or
.BR VM_PFNMAP ,
or secret memory regions created using
.BR memfd_secret(2) .
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I advice
is
.B MADV_GUARD_INSTALL
or
.BR MADV_GUARD_REMOVE ,
but the specified address range contains an unsupported mapping.
.TP
.B EIO
(for
.BR MADV_WILLNEED )
Paging in this area would exceed the process's
maximum resident set size.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
(for
.BR MADV_WILLNEED )
Not enough memory: paging in failed.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
(for
.BR MADV_COLLAPSE )
Not enough memory: could not allocate hugepage.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
Addresses in the specified range are not currently
mapped, or are outside the address space of the process.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
.I advice
is
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
or
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
and populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because there was not enough
memory.
.TP
.B EPERM
.I advice
is
.BR MADV_HWPOISON ,
but the caller does not have the
.B CAP_SYS_ADMIN
capability.
.TP
.B EHWPOISON
.I advice
is
.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
or
.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
and populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because a HW poisoned page
(HW poisoned pages can,
for example,
be created using the
.B MADV_HWPOISON
flag described elsewhere in this page)
was encountered.
.SH VERSIONS
Versions of this system call, implementing a wide variety of
.I advice
values, exist on many other implementations.
Other implementations typically implement at least the flags listed
above under
.IR "Conventional advice flags" ,
albeit with some variation in semantics.
.P
POSIX.1-2001 describes
.BR posix_madvise (3)
with constants
.BR POSIX_MADV_NORMAL ,
.BR POSIX_MADV_RANDOM ,
.BR POSIX_MADV_SEQUENTIAL ,
.BR POSIX_MADV_WILLNEED ,
and
.BR POSIX_MADV_DONTNEED ,
and so on, with behavior close to the similarly named flags listed above.
.SS Linux
The Linux implementation requires that the address
.I addr
be page-aligned, and allows
.I size
to be zero.
If there are some parts of the specified address range
that are not mapped, the Linux version of
.BR madvise ()
ignores them and applies the call to the rest (but returns
.B ENOMEM
from the system call, as it should).
.P
.I madvise(0,\ 0,\ advice)
will return zero iff
.I advice
is supported by the kernel and can be relied on to probe for support.
.SH STANDARDS
None.
.SH HISTORY
First appeared in 4.4BSD.
.P
Since Linux 3.18,
.\" commit d3ac21cacc24790eb45d735769f35753f5b56ceb
support for this system call is optional,
depending on the setting of the
.B CONFIG_ADVISE_SYSCALLS
configuration option.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR getrlimit (2),
.BR memfd_secret (2),
.BR mincore (2),
.BR mmap (2),
.BR mprotect (2),
.BR msync (2),
.BR munmap (2),
.BR prctl (2),
.BR process_madvise (2),
.BR posix_madvise (3),
.BR core (5)