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.Dd July 23, 1998 .Dt POOL 9 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm pool_create , .Nm pool_destroy , .Nm pool_get , .Nm pool_put , .Nm pool_prime .Nd resource-pool manager .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include <sys/pool.h> .Ft struct pool * too many arguments for a single .Fn
.Fo pool_create .Fa "size_t size" .Fa "u_int align" .Fa "u_int align_offset" .Fa "int nitems" .Fa "char *wchan" .Fa "u_int pagesz" .Fa "void *(*palloc)(unsigned long sz, int flags, int tag)" .Fa "void (*prelease)(void *v, unsigned long sz, int tag)" .Fa "int mtag" .Fc .Ft void * .Fn pool_get "struct pool *pp" "int flags" .Ft void .Fn pool_put "struct pool *pp" "void *item" .Ft int .Fn pool_prime "struct pool *pp" "int nitems" "caddr_t storage" .Fn pool_sethiwat "struct pool *pp" "int n" .Fn pool_setlowat "struct pool *pp" "int n" .Fn POOL_STORAGE_SIZE "size" "nitems" .Sh DESCRIPTION These utility routines provide management of pools of fixed-sized areas of memory. Resource pools set aside an amount of memory for exclusive use by the resource pool owner. This can be used by applications to guarantee the availability of a minimum amount of memory needed to continue operation independent of the memory resources currently available from the system-wide memory allocator
q Xr malloc 9 . The pool manager can optionally obtain temporary memory by calling the .Fn palloc function passed to .Fn pool_create , for extra pool items in case the number of allocations exceeds the nominal number of pool items managed by a pool resource. This temporary memory will be automatically returned to the system at a later time. .Ss CREATING A POOL The function .Fn pool_create initializes a resource pool and returns a handle to it. The arguments are:
p l -tag -offset indent -width "prelease" t Fa size Specifies the size of the memory items managed by the pool. t Fa align Specifies the memory address aligment of the items returned by .Fn pool_get . This argument must be a power of two. If zero, the alignment defaults to a architecture-specific natural aligment. t Fa align_offset The offset within an item to which the .Fa align parameter applies. t Fa nitems Specifies the number of memory items that are allocated to the pool at creation time. This number may be zero, in which case .Fn pool_prime can be used at a later time to add permanent items to the pool. t Fa wchan The .Sq wait channel passed on to .Xr tsleep 9 if .Fn pool_get must wait for items to be returned to the pool. t Fa pagesz The unit which is used to allocate additional memory to the pool. It must be a power of two. t Fa palloc is called to add additional memory if the pool is depleted. It returns .Fa pagesz aligned memory. The argument .Fa sz will be a multiple of .Fa pagesz . t Fa prelease is called to release pages back to the system. .Fn palloc and .Fn prelease may be .Dv NULL , in which case the pool manager uses .Xr uvm_km_kmemalloc 9 and .Xr uvm_km_free 9 to allocate and release memory using the .Em kernel_map
o see .Xr UVM 9
c . t Fa mtag The memory tag passed to .Fn palloc and .Fn prelease when allocating or releasing memory pages. t Fa storage Optional storage provided by the caller to use in lieu of .Xr malloc 9 for both the pool handle and all pool items. .El
p If not enough memory is available to create the pool resource, .Fn pool_create returns .Dv NULL . If the .Fa storage parameter is used, the client is responsible for providing enough storage to accommodate the number of pool items specified by .Fa nitems , as well as the space required by the pool's administrative overhead
q i.e. the pool handle .
The macro
.Fn POOL_STORAGE_SIZE "size" "nitems"
can be used to determine the amount of storage needed to setup a pool,
given the size and number of the pool items.
.Ss ALLOCATING ITEMS FROM A POOL
.Fn pool_get
allocates an item from the pool and returns a pointer to it.
l -tag -offset indent -width "flags" t Fa pp The handle identifying the pool resource instance.
t Fa flags One of
.Dv PR_URGENT
or
.Dv PR_WAITOK ,
that define behaviour in case the pooled resources are depleted.
If no resources are available and
.Dv PR_WAITOK
is given,
this function will wait until items are returned to the pool.
Otherwise
.Fn pool_get
returns
.Dv NULL .
If
.Dv PR_URGENT
is specified and no items are available and
.Fn palloc
cannot allocate a new page,
the system will panic
q XXX .
Undefined behaviour results if
.Dv PR_MALLOCOK
is specified on a pool handle that was created using client-provided
storage.
.El
.Ss RETURNING ITEMS TO A POOL
.Fn pool_put
returns the pool item pointed at by
.Fa item
to the resource pool identified by the pool handle
.Fa pp .
If the number of available items in the pool exceeds the maximum pool
size set by
.Fn pool_sethiwat
and there are no outstanding requests for pool items,
the excess items will be returned to the system by calling
.Fn prelease .
l -tag -offset indent -width "item" t Fa pp The handle identifying the pool resource instance.
t Fa item A pointer to a pool item previously obtained by
.Fn pool_get .
.El
.Ss PRIMING A POOL
.Fn pool_prime
adds items to the pool.
Storage space for the items is either allocated directly using
.Xr malloc 9
or given to
.Fn pool_prime
preallocated by the calling function.
p .Fn pool_prime l -tag -offset indent -width "nitems" t Fa pp The handle identifying the pool resource instance. t Fa nitems The number of items to add to the pool. Storage for the pool items can be passed in the .Fa storage argument. If this parameter is .Dv NULL , the items are allocated by using .Xr malloc 9 . This function may return .Dv ENOMEM in case the requested number of items could not be allocated. Otherwise, the return value is 0. .El .Ss SETTING POOL RESOURCE WATERMARKS A pool will attempt to increase its resource usage to keep up with the demand for its items. Conversely, it will return unused memory to the system should the number of accumulated unused items in the pool exceed a programmable limit. The limits for the minimum and maximum number of items which a pool should keep at hand are known as the high and low .Sy watermarks. The functions .Fn pool_sethiwat and .Fn pool_setlowat set a pool's high and low watermarks, respectively.
p .Fn pool_sethiwat l -tag -offset indent -width "flags" t Fa pp The handle identifying the pool resource instance. t Fa n The maximum number of items to keep in the pool. As items are returned and the total number of pages in the pool is larger than the maximum set by this function, any completely unused pages are released immediately
q by calling Fn prelease . If this function is not used to specify a maximum number of items, the pages will remain associated with the pool until the system runs low on memory, at which point the VM system will try to reclaim unused pages. .El
p .Fn pool_setlowat l -tag -offset indent -width "flags" t Fa pp The handle identifying the pool resource instance. t Fa n The minimum number of items to keep in the pool. The number pages in the pool will not decrease below the required value to accommodate the minimum number of items specified by this function. Unlike .Fn pool_prime , this function does not allocate the necessary memory upfront. .El .Ss POTENTIAL PITFALLS Note that undefined behaviour results when mixing the storage providing methods supported by the pool resource routines.
p
The pool resource code uses a per-pool lock to protect its internal state.
If any pool functions are called in an interrupt context,
the caller must block all interrupts that might cause the
code to be reentered.
.Ss DIAGNOSTICS
Pool usage logs can be enabled by defining the compile-time option
.Dv POOL_DIAGNOSTIC .
.Sh RETURN VALUES
.Sh EXAMPLES
.Sh CODE REFERENCES
The pool manager is implemented in the file
a sys/kern/subr_pool.c .
.Sh AUTHOR
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr malloc 9 ,
.Xr free 9 ,
.Xr uvm 9
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nx
pool manager appeared in
.Nx 1.4 .
Indexes created Wed Oct 22 13:09:56 GMT 2025