Apple Inc.

Lionel Divyang Desai

Andrew D Myrick

Joseph Sokol, Jr

Neil Gareth Crane

Karen A Crippes

David Michael Chan

Jonathan R Reeves

James C McIlree

Dmitriy B Solomonov

Jeffrey D Curless

Rasha Eqbal

Russell Alexader Blaine

Damien Pascal Sorresso

Benjamin C Trumbull

James Michael Magee

Jeremy C Andrus

Matthew G Watson

Jacques Anthony Vidrine

Kushal Dalmia

Joseph R Auricchio

Ananthakrishna Ramesh

Daniel E Crosby

Francois Barbou-Des-Places

Andrey V Talnikov

Leroy Francis Bernhard, Iii

Matthew Harris Jacobson

Techniques for memory management of a data processing system are described herein. According to one embodiment, a memory usage monitor executed by a processor of a data processing system monitors memory usages of groups of programs running within a memory of the data processing system. In response to determining that a first memory usage of a first group of the programs exceeds a first predetermined threshold, a user level reboot is performed in which one or more applications running within a user space of an operating system of the data processing system are terminated and relaunched. In response to determining that a second memory usage of a second group of the programs exceeds a second predetermined threshold, a system level reboot is performed in which one or more system components running within a kernel space of the operating system are terminated and relaunched.

Memory management of data processing systems

A method and apparatus of a device for resource management by using a hierarchy of resource management techniques with dynamic resource policies is described. The device terminates several misbehaving application programs when available memory on the device is running low. Each of those misbehaving application programs consumes more memory space than a memory consumption limit assigned to the application program. If available memory on the device is still low after terminating those misbehaving application programs, the device further sends memory pressure notifications to all application programs. If available memory on the device is still running low after sending the memory pressure notifications, the device further terminates background, idle, and suspended application programs. The device further terminates foreground application programs when available memory on the device is still low after terminating the background, idle, and suspended application programs.

Resource management with dynamic resource policies

Memory management in a data processing system can learn one or more behaviors of software processes such as daemon software processes and application processes, and based on information learned about the behaviors, the memory management can adjust how it controls memory usage in the system. For example, a memory management system can learn how software processes react (e.g. how quickly they relaunch) to memory recovery methods, such as system initiated terminations of one or more software processes that are performed to reclaim memory to increase available volatile memory, and based on information about how they react, the memory recovery methods can operate differently depending upon how the software reacted previously.

Memory management based on classification of a software process

Techniques are disclosed relating to virtual memory page reclamation policies. In some embodiments, an operating system of a computing device implements, during a first operating mode, a first page reclamation policy for pages corresponding to user processes and non-user processes. The computing device may then enter a second operating mode upon detecting some indication of user inactivity. The operating system may then implement, during the second operating mode, a second page reclamation policy for pages corresponding to user processes and non-user processes, where the second page reclamation policy prioritizes, relative to the first page reclamation policy, eviction of pages corresponding to non-user processes.

Memory page reclamation in a user idle mode

In one embodiment, when a secondary application on an electronic device is selected for deactivation, the memory associated with the application can be gathered, compacted and compressed into a memory freezer file. The memory freezer file can be stored in non-volatile memory with a reduced storage footprint compared to a memory stored in a conventional swap file. When the selected application is to be reactivated, the compressed memory in the memory freezer file can be quickly restored to process memory.

Partially deactivated application with termination protection

According to one embodiment, it is determined whether data stored in a compressor pool exceeds a first predetermined threshold, the compressor pool being a fixed-size memory pool maintained in a kernel of an operating system. The compressor pool stores a plurality of compressed memory pages, each memory page storing compressed data pages that can be paged out to or paged in from a persistent storage device. The compressed memory pages are associated with a plurality of processes. A memory consumption reduction action is performed to reduce memory usage, including terminating at least one of the processes to reclaim a memory space occupied by the process, in response to determining that the data stored in the compressor pool exceeds the first predetermined threshold.

Method and apparatus for managing kernel memory of data processing systems

Compressed freezer files

System and method for compaction of compressed and uncompressed virtual memory

A method for resource management of a data processing system is described herein. According to one embodiment, a token is periodically pushed into a memory usage queue, where the token includes a timestamp indicating time entering the memory usage queue. The memory usage queue stores a plurality of memory page identifiers (IDs) identifying a plurality of memory pages currently allocated to a plurality of programs running within the data processing system. In response to a request to reduce memory usage, a token is popped from the memory usage queue. A timestamp of the popped token is then compared with current time to determine whether a memory usage reduction action should be performed.

Adaptive resource management of a data processing system

One or more memory coalitions of software processes are created and used to decide whether to perform memory reduction operations on a data processing system. One method in one embodiment includes adding a newly launched second process to an existing memory coalition in response to determining that the second process should be part of a memory coalition that includes a first process. In response to determining that available system memory (e.g. DRAM) is low, the system determines which memory coalition of foreground applications uses the most amount of system memory and then performs one or more memory reduction operations on that memory coalition in order to make more system memory available to other processes.

Coalition based memory management

A two-level paging mechanism. The first level gathers data from reclaimable memory locations for a process and compacts the data into a single container. The second level sends the compact container's contents to a swap file and may use optimal I/O operations to the target memory device. On-demand paging is made possible by having a first pager locate the requested data in the compact container and then having a second pager retrieve the corresponding data from the swap file.

Techniques for moving data between memory types

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Lionel Divyang Desai