Hotplug Memory and the Linux VM

Dave Hansen (haveblue@us.ibm.com) Matt Tolentino <matthew.e.tolentino@intel.com> Mike Kravetz <kravetz@us.ibm.com>

This paper will describe the changes needed to the Linux memory management system to cope with adding or removing RAM from a running system. In addition to support for physically adding or removing DIMMs, there is an ever-increasing number of virtualized environments such as UML or the IBM pSeries(tm) Hypervisor which can transition RAM between virtual system images, based on need. This paper will describe techniques common to all supported platforms, as well as challenges for specific architectures.