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NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | STANDARDS | HISTORY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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madvise(2) System Calls Manual madvise(2)
madvise - give advice about use of memory
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
#include <sys/mman.h>
int madvise(size_t size;
void addr[size], size_t size, int advice);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
feature_test_macros(7)):
madvise():
Since glibc 2.19:
_DEFAULT_SOURCE
Up to and including glibc 2.19:
_BSD_SOURCE
The madvise() system call is used to give advice or directions to
the kernel about the address range beginning at address addr and
with size size. madvise() only operates on whole pages, therefore
addr must be page-aligned. The value of 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.
Initially, the system call supported a set of "conventional"
advice values, which are also available on several other
implementations. (Note, though, that madvise() is not specified
in POSIX.) Subsequently, a number of Linux-specific advice values
have been added.
Conventional advice values
The 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 advice values do not influence the semantics of
the application (except in the case of MADV_DONTNEED), but may
influence its performance. All of the advice values listed here
have analogs in the POSIX-specified posix_madvise(3) function, and
the values have the same meanings, with the exception of
MADV_DONTNEED.
The advice is indicated in the advice argument, which is one of
the following:
MADV_NORMAL
No special treatment. This is the default.
MADV_RANDOM
Expect page references in random order. (Hence, read ahead
may be less useful than normally.)
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.)
MADV_WILLNEED
Expect access in the near future. (Hence, it might be a
good idea to read some pages ahead.)
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.)
After a successful 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.
Note that, when applied to shared mappings, 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.
MADV_DONTNEED cannot be applied to locked pages, or
VM_PFNMAP pages. (Pages marked with the kernel-internal
VM_PFNMAP 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.)
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.
Linux-specific advice values
The following Linux-specific advice values have no counterparts in
the POSIX-specified posix_madvise(3), and may or may not have
counterparts in the madvise() interface available on other
implementations. Note that some of these operations change the
semantics of memory accesses.
MADV_REMOVE (since Linux 2.6.16)
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
fallocate(2)). Subsequent accesses in the specified
address range will see data with a value of zero.
The specified address range must be mapped shared and
writable. This flag cannot be applied to locked pages, or
VM_PFNMAP pages.
In the initial implementation, only tmpfs(5) supported
MADV_REMOVE; but since Linux 3.5, any filesystem which
supports the fallocate(2) FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE mode also
supports MADV_REMOVE. Filesystems which do not support
MADV_REMOVE fail with the error EOPNOTSUPP.
Support for the Huge TLB filesystem was added in Linux
v4.3.
MADV_DONTFORK (since Linux 2.6.16)
Do not make the pages in this range available to the child
after a 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 fork(2). (Such page
relocations cause problems for hardware that DMAs into the
page.)
MADV_DOFORK (since Linux 2.6.16)
Undo the effect of MADV_DONTFORK, restoring the default
behavior, whereby a mapping is inherited across fork(2).
MADV_HWPOISON (since Linux 2.6.32)
Poison the pages in the range specified by addr and size
and handle subsequent references to those pages like a
hardware memory corruption. This operation is available
only for privileged (CAP_SYS_ADMIN) processes. This
operation may result in the calling process receiving a
SIGBUS and the page being unmapped.
This feature is intended for testing of memory error-
handling code; it is available only if the kernel was
configured with CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE.
MADV_MERGEABLE (since Linux 2.6.32)
Enable Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) for the pages in the
range specified by addr and 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 mmap(2)).
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
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst for more details.
The MADV_MERGEABLE and MADV_UNMERGEABLE operations are
available only if the kernel was configured with
CONFIG_KSM.
MADV_UNMERGEABLE (since Linux 2.6.32)
Undo the effect of an earlier MADV_MERGEABLE operation on
the specified address range; KSM unmerges whatever pages it
had merged in the address range specified by addr and size.
MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE (since Linux 2.6.33)
Soft offline the pages in the range specified by addr and
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
MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE operation is invisible to (i.e., does not
change the semantics of) the calling process.
This feature is intended for testing of memory error-
handling code; it is available only if the kernel was
configured with CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE.
MADV_HUGEPAGE (since Linux 2.6.38)
Enable Transparent Huge Pages (THP) for pages in the range
specified by addr and 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 posix_memalign(2)).
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
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst for more
details.
Most common kernels configurations provide MADV_HUGEPAGE-
style behavior by default, and thus MADV_HUGEPAGE is
normally not necessary. It is mostly intended for embedded
systems, where 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 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.
Since Linux 5.4, automatic scan of eligible areas and
replacement by huge pages works with private anonymous
pages (see 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 —including tmpfs (see tmpfs(2))— 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.
The VMA must not be marked VM_NOHUGEPAGE, VM_HUGETLB,
VM_IO, VM_DONTEXPAND, VM_MIXEDMAP, or 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 PR_SET_THP_DISABLE set (see prctl(2)).
The MADV_HUGEPAGE, MADV_NOHUGEPAGE, and MADV_COLLAPSE
operations are available only if the kernel was configured
with CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE and file/shmem memory is
only supported if the kernel was configured with
CONFIG_READ_ONLY_THP_FOR_FS.
MADV_NOHUGEPAGE (since Linux 2.6.38)
Ensures that memory in the address range specified by addr
and size will not be backed by transparent hugepages.
MADV_COLLAPSE (since Linux 6.1)
Perform a best-effort synchronous collapse of the native
pages mapped by the memory range into Transparent Huge
Pages (THPs). 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.
MADV_COLLAPSE supports private anonymous pages (see
mmap(2)), shmem pages, and file-backed pages. See
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. MADV_COLLAPSE will automatically clamp the
provided range to be hugepage-aligned.
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.
MADV_COLLAPSE is independent of any sysfs (see sysfs(5))
setting under /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage, both in
terms of determining THP eligibility, and allocation
semantics. See Linux kernel source file
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/transhuge.rst for more
information. MADV_COLLAPSE also ignores 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 VM_NOHUGEPAGE is still
respected).
When the system has multiple NUMA nodes, the hugepage will
be allocated from the node providing the most native pages.
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–failed code will be set in errno.
MADV_DONTDUMP (since Linux 3.4)
Exclude from a core dump those pages in the range specified
by addr and 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 MADV_DONTDUMP takes precedence
over the bit mask that is set via the
/proc/pid/coredump_filter file (see core(5)).
MADV_DODUMP (since Linux 3.4)
Undo the effect of an earlier MADV_DONTDUMP.
MADV_FREE (since Linux 4.5)
The application no longer requires the pages in the range
specified by addr and 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 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.
The MADV_FREE operation can be applied only to private
anonymous pages (see mmap(2)). Before Linux 4.12, when
freeing pages on a swapless system, the pages in the given
range are freed instantly, regardless of memory pressure.
MADV_WIPEONFORK (since Linux 4.14)
Present the child process with zero-filled memory in this
range after a 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.
The MADV_WIPEONFORK operation can be applied only to
private anonymous pages (see mmap(2)).
Within the child created by fork(2), the MADV_WIPEONFORK
setting remains in place on the specified address range.
This setting is cleared during execve(2).
MADV_KEEPONFORK (since Linux 4.14)
Undo the effect of an earlier MADV_WIPEONFORK.
MADV_COLD (since Linux 5.4)
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.
MADV_PAGEOUT (since Linux 5.4)
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.
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.
In contrast to MAP_POPULATE, 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.
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 SIGBUS signal is not generated;
instead, an error is returned.
If MADV_POPULATE_READ succeeds, all page tables have been
populated (prefaulted) readable once. If
MADV_POPULATE_READ fails, some page tables might have been
populated.
MADV_POPULATE_READ cannot be applied to mappings without
read permissions and special mappings, for example,
mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
VM_PFNMAP or VM_IO, or secret memory regions created using
memfd_secret(2).
Note that with MADV_POPULATE_READ, the process can be
killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.
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.
In contrast to 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).
Depending on the underlying mapping, preallocate memory or
read the underlying file; files with holes will preallocate
blocks. If populating fails, a SIGBUS signal is not
generated; instead, an error is returned.
If MADV_POPULATE_WRITE succeeds, all page tables have been
populated (prefaulted) writable once. If
MADV_POPULATE_WRITE fails, some page tables might have been
populated.
MADV_POPULATE_WRITE cannot be applied to mappings without
write permissions and special mappings, for example,
mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
VM_PFNMAP or VM_IO, or secret memory regions created using
memfd_secret(2).
Note that with MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, the process can be
killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.
MADV_GUARD_INSTALL (since Linux 6.13)
Install a lightweight guard region into the range specified
by addr and size, causing any read or write in the range to
result in a SIGSEGV signal being raised.
If the region maps memory pages those mappings will be
replaced as part of the operation, though if
MADV_GUARD_INSTALL is applied to regions containing pre-
existing lightweight guard regions, they are left in place.
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.
The mapping must not be mlock'd, map hugetlb ranges, nor
contain special mappings. For example, mappings marked
with kernel-internal flags such as VM_PFNMAP or VM_IO, or
secret memory regions created using memfd_secret(2).
An EINVAL error is returned if it is attempted on any other
kind of mapping.
This operation is more efficient than mapping a new region
of memory 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.
Lightweight guard regions remain on fork (except for any
parts which have had MADV_WIPEONFORK applied to them), and
are not removed by MADV_DONTNEED, MADV_FREE, MADV_PAGEOUT,
or MADV_COLD.
Attempting to mlock(2) lightweight guard regions will fail,
as will MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE.
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).
If a mapping is moved using mremap(2), lightweight guard
regions are moved with it.
Lightweight guard regions are removed when unmapped, on
process teardown, or when the MADV_GUARD_REMOVE operation
is applied to them.
MADV_GUARD_REMOVE (since Linux 6.13)
Remove any lightweight guard regions which exist in the
range specified by addr and size.
All mappings in the range other than lightweight guard
regions are left in place. The operation is supported on
those mappings permitted by MADV_GUARD_INSTALL in addition
to mlock()'d mappings, returning an EINVAL error otherwise.
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.
If any transparent huge pages are encountered in the
operation, they are left in place.
On success, madvise() returns zero. On error, it returns -1 and
errno is set to indicate the error.
EACCES advice is MADV_REMOVE, but the specified address range is
not a shared writable mapping.
EAGAIN A kernel resource was temporarily unavailable.
EBADF The map exists, but the area maps something that isn't a
file.
EBUSY (for MADV_COLLAPSE) Could not charge hugepage to cgroup:
cgroup limit exceeded.
EBUSY (for 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.
EFAULT advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, and
populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because a
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 MADV_HWPOISON flag
described elsewhere in this page).
EINVAL addr is not page-aligned or size is negative.
EINVAL advice is not a valid.
EINVAL advice is MADV_COLD or MADV_PAGEOUT and the specified
address range includes locked, Huge TLB pages, or VM_PFNMAP
pages.
EINVAL advice is MADV_DONTNEED or MADV_REMOVE and the specified
address range includes locked, Huge TLB pages, or VM_PFNMAP
pages.
EINVAL advice is MADV_MERGEABLE or MADV_UNMERGEABLE, but the
kernel was not configured with CONFIG_KSM.
EINVAL advice is MADV_FREE or MADV_WIPEONFORK but the specified
address range includes file, Huge TLB, MAP_SHARED, or
VM_PFNMAP ranges.
EINVAL advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or 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 VM_IO or
VM_PFNMAP, or secret memory regions created using
memfd_secret(2).
EINVAL advice is MADV_GUARD_INSTALL or MADV_GUARD_REMOVE, but the
specified address range contains an unsupported mapping.
EIO (for MADV_WILLNEED) Paging in this area would exceed the
process's maximum resident set size.
ENOMEM (for MADV_WILLNEED) Not enough memory: paging in failed.
ENOMEM (for MADV_COLLAPSE) Not enough memory: could not allocate
hugepage.
ENOMEM Addresses in the specified range are not currently mapped,
or are outside the address space of the process.
ENOMEM advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, and
populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because there
was not enough memory.
EPERM advice is MADV_HWPOISON, but the caller does not have the
CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.
EHWPOISON
advice is MADV_POPULATE_READ or MADV_POPULATE_WRITE, and
populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because a HW
poisoned page (HW poisoned pages can, for example, be
created using the MADV_HWPOISON flag described elsewhere in
this page) was encountered.
Versions of this system call, implementing a wide variety of
advice values, exist on many other implementations. Other
implementations typically implement at least the flags listed
above under Conventional advice flags, albeit with some variation
in semantics.
POSIX.1-2001 describes posix_madvise(3) with constants
POSIX_MADV_NORMAL, POSIX_MADV_RANDOM, POSIX_MADV_SEQUENTIAL,
POSIX_MADV_WILLNEED, and POSIX_MADV_DONTNEED, and so on, with
behavior close to the similarly named flags listed above.
Linux
The Linux implementation requires that the address addr be page-
aligned, and allows size to be zero. If there are some parts of
the specified address range that are not mapped, the Linux version
of madvise() ignores them and applies the call to the rest (but
returns ENOMEM from the system call, as it should).
madvise(0, 0, advice) will return zero iff advice is supported by
the kernel and can be relied on to probe for support.
None.
First appeared in 4.4BSD.
Since Linux 3.18, support for this system call is optional,
depending on the setting of the CONFIG_ADVISE_SYSCALLS
configuration option.
getrlimit(2), memfd_secret(2), mincore(2), mmap(2), mprotect(2),
msync(2), munmap(2), prctl(2), process_madvise(2),
posix_madvise(3), core(5)
This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
user-space interface documentation) project. Information about
the project can be found at
⟨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩.
This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.15.tar.gz
fetched from
⟨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/⟩ on
2025-08-11. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-
to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
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[email protected]
Linux man-pages 6.15 2025-06-28 madvise(2)
Pages that refer to this page: fork(2), getrlimit(2), io_uring_enter2(2), io_uring_enter(2), mincore(2), open(2), process_madvise(2), PR_SET_THP_DISABLE(2const), readahead(2), syscalls(2), UFFDIO_API(2const), userfaultfd(2), io_uring_prep_madvise(3), io_uring_prep_madvise64(3), malloc_trim(3), posix_madvise(3), core(5), proc_meminfo(5), tmpfs(5), capabilities(7)
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