Mentorship Session: Debugging Linux Memory Management Subsystem

Mentor: Khalid Aziz, Consulting Linux Kernel Engineer, Oracle

Linux Memory Management subsystem (mm) in the kernel is responsible for managing physical memory use on a system. It manages the state of physical memory, allocates memory to kernel, drivers and users as requested, reclaims freed memory and ensures memory regions are accessed only by the authorized users. Bugs in mm subsystems can impact functionality, performance and security.

In this talk, we will walk through the process of finding the root cause of a real life mm bug. We will explore components of the mm subsystem as we walk through the debugging process. We will learn about some of the tools, tips and techniques available for mm subsystem debugging.