MALLOC(9)

💖 MALLOC(9) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the Kernel Developer's Manual page for kernel memory management routines ✨ this one is lowkey iconic because it's literally how the kernel grabs, resizes, and yeets memory. no cap, there are a lot of functions, so let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

malloc, mallocarray, free, zfree, realloc, reallocf, malloc_usable_size, malloc_aligned, malloc_exec, MALLOC_DECLARE, MALLOC_DEFINE, malloc_domainset, malloc_domainset_aligned, malloc_domainset_exec, mallocarray_domainset — kernel memory management routines 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/malloc.h>

       void *
       malloc(size_t size, struct malloc_type *type, int flags);

       void *
       mallocarray(size_t nmemb, size_t size, struct malloc_type *type,
           int flags);

       void
       free(void *addr, struct malloc_type *type);

       void
       zfree(void *addr, struct malloc_type *type);

       void *
       realloc(void *addr, size_t size, struct malloc_type *type, int flags);

       void *
       reallocf(void *addr, size_t size, struct malloc_type *type, int flags);

       size_t
       malloc_usable_size(const void *addr);

       void *
       malloc_aligned(size_t size, size_t align, struct malloc_type *type,
           int flags);

       void *
       malloc_exec(size_t size, struct malloc_type *type, int flags);

       MALLOC_DECLARE(type);

       #include <sys/param.h>
       #include <sys/malloc.h>
       #include <sys/kernel.h>

       MALLOC_DEFINE(type, shortdesc, longdesc);

       #include <sys/param.h>
       #include <sys/domainset.h>
       #include <sys/malloc.h>

       void *
       malloc_domainset(size_t size, struct malloc_type *type,
           struct domainset *ds, int flags);

       void *
       malloc_domainset_aligned(size_t size, size_t align,
           struct malloc_type *type, struct domainset *ds, int flags);

       void *
       malloc_domainset_exec(size_t size, struct malloc_type *type,
           struct domainset *ds, int flags);

       void *
       mallocarray_domainset(size_t nmemb, size_t size,
           struct malloc_type *type, struct domainset *ds, int flags);

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

The malloc() function allocates uninitialized memory in kernel address space for an object whose size is specified by size ✨

The malloc_domainset() variant allocates memory from a specific numa(4) domain using the specified domain selection policy. See domainset(9) for some example policies 🌈

The malloc_aligned() and malloc_domainset_aligned() variants return allocations aligned as specified by align, which must be non-zero, a power of two, and less than or equal to the page size 🎀

Both malloc_exec() and malloc_domainset_exec() can be used to return executable memory. Not all platforms enforce a distinction between executable and non-executable memory 👀

The mallocarray() function allocates uninitialized memory in kernel address space for an array of nmemb entries whose size is specified by size 🧚

The mallocarray_domainset() variant allocates memory from a specific numa(4) domain using the specified domain selection policy. See domainset(9) for some example policies 🌸

The free() function releases memory at address addr that was previously allocated by malloc() for re-use. The memory is not zeroed. If addr is NULL, then free() does nothing 💀

Like free(), the zfree() function releases memory at address addr that was previously allocated by malloc() for re-use. However, zfree() will zero the memory before it is released 🧼✨

The realloc() function changes the size of the previously allocated memory referenced by addr to size bytes. The contents of the memory are unchanged up to the lesser of the new and old sizes. Note that the returned value may differ from addr. If the requested memory cannot be allocated, NULL is returned and the memory referenced by addr is valid and unchanged. If addr is NULL, the realloc() function behaves identically to malloc() for the specified size 🦋

The reallocf() function is identical to realloc() except that it will free the passed pointer when the requested memory cannot be allocated 🫶

The malloc_usable_size() function returns the usable size of the allocation pointed to by addr. The return value may be larger than the size that was requested during allocation 📏

Unlike its standard C library counterpart (malloc(3)), the kernel version takes two more arguments. The flags argument further qualifies malloc()'s operational characteristics as follows:

• M_ZERO — causes the allocated memory to be set to all zeros ✨
• M_NODUMP — for allocations greater than page size, causes the allocated memory to be excluded from kernel core dumps 💀
• M_NOWAIT — causes malloc(), realloc(), and reallocf() to return NULL if the request cannot be immediately fulfilled due to resource shortage. Note that M_NOWAIT is required when running in an interrupt context ⚡
• M_WAITOK — indicates that it is OK to wait for resources. If the request cannot be immediately fulfilled, the current process is put to sleep to wait for resources to be released by other processes. The malloc(), mallocarray(), realloc(), and reallocf() functions cannot return NULL if M_WAITOK is specified. If the multiplication of nmemb and size would cause an integer overflow, the mallocarray() function induces a panic 😭
• M_USE_RESERVE — indicates that the system can use its reserve of memory to satisfy the request. This option should only be used in combination with M_NOWAIT when an allocation failure cannot be tolerated by the caller without catastrophic effects on the system 🚨
• M_NEVERFREED — this is an internal flag used by the uma(9) allocator and should not be used in regular malloc() invocations. See the description of VM_ALLOC_NOFREE in vm_page_alloc(9) for more details 🙈

Exactly one of either M_WAITOK or M_NOWAIT must be specified. periodt 💅

The type argument is used to perform statistics on memory usage, and for basic sanity checks. It can be used to identify multiple allocations. The statistics can be examined by vmstat -m 📊

A type is defined using struct malloc_type via the MALLOC_DECLARE() and MALLOC_DEFINE() macros.

             /* sys/something/foo_extern.h */

             MALLOC_DECLARE(M_FOOBUF);

             /* sys/something/foo_main.c */

             MALLOC_DEFINE(M_FOOBUF, "foobuffers", "Buffers to foo data into the ether");

             /* sys/something/foo_subr.c */

             ...
             buf = malloc(sizeof(*buf), M_FOOBUF, M_NOWAIT);

In order to use MALLOC_DEFINE(), one must include <sys/param.h> (instead of <sys/types.h>) and <sys/kernel.h> 🌟

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🌀 CONTEXT 🌀

malloc(), realloc() and reallocf() may not be called from fast interrupts handlers. When called from threaded interrupts, flags must contain M_NOWAIT ⚡

malloc(), realloc() and reallocf() may sleep when called with M_WAITOK. free() never sleeps. However, malloc(), realloc(), reallocf() and free() may not be called in a critical section or while holding a spin lock 🔒

Any calls to malloc() (even with M_NOWAIT) or free() when holding a vnode(9) interlock, will cause a LOR (Lock Order Reversal) due to the intertwining of VM Objects and Vnodes 😭

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🧚 IMPLEMENTATION NOTES 🧚

The memory allocator allocates memory in chunks that have size a power of two for requests up to the size of a page of memory. For larger requests, one or more pages is allocated. While it should not be relied upon, this information may be useful for optimizing the efficiency of memory use 👑✨

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🎀 RETURN VALUES 🎀

The malloc(), realloc(), and reallocf() functions return a kernel virtual address that is suitably aligned for storage of any type of object, or NULL if the request could not be satisfied (implying that M_NOWAIT was set) 🌈

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🚨 DIAGNOSTICS 🚨

A kernel compiled with the INVARIANTS configuration option attempts to detect memory corruption caused by such things as writing outside the allocated area and imbalanced calls to the malloc() and free() functions. Failing consistency checks will cause a panic or a system console message 💀🔥

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• numa(4)
• vmstat(8)
• contigmalloc(9)
• domainset(9)
• memguard(9)
• vnode(9)

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📜 HISTORY 📜

zfree() first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0 🎉👑

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mwah 💋 that's the whole page bestie — source/version: Debian, date: August 4, 2024, manual section: MALLOC(9). byeee 🫶🌸