Linux Kernel Memory Management

Explore how the Linux kernel allocates, manages, and protects system memory.

What you'll learn

Understand how memory is structured and managed in the Linux kernel.

Learn how Linux handles virtual memory, paging, segmentation, and physical memory mapping.

Explore important kernel data structures like struct page, vm_area_struct, and memory zones

Trace how system calls and user-space memory requests are handled in the kernel.

Requirements

Basic knowledge of C programming.

No prior experience with kernel development is required, but it’s a bonus!

Description

Behind every running application, service, or container in Linux, there's a powerful memory management system ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently, processes are isolated securely, and performance is optimized. In this course, we take you deep into the world of Linux Kernel Memory Management, exploring how the operating system handles memory under the hood—from basic paging to advanced allocation strategies.This course is designed to demystify one of the most complex and critical areas of Linux internals. You'll begin by understanding how physical and virtual memory are structured in Linux. From there, we'll examine key kernel components such as memory zones, page tables, slab and slub allocators, the buddy system, and how the kernel efficiently maps, allocates, and tracks memory using structures like vm_area_struct and struct page.You'll get hands-on with real-world tools like /proc, vmstat, top, and kmemleak, and you’ll learn to analyze memory-related issues, monitor usage, and debug potential problems. We also cover how system calls interact with memory and how memory is shared, protected, and reclaimed.Whether you're an aspiring kernel developer, systems programmer, or someone who simply wants to go beyond the surface of Linux, this course will give you the skills and insights to truly master memory at the kernel level.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Section 2: Page

Lecture 2 Page

Lecture 3 Page Usage

Section 3: Process Address Space

Lecture 4 Process Address Space

Lecture 5 Virtual Memory Area

Lecture 6 Page Table

Section 4: Virtual Memory

Lecture 7 Virtual Memory

Section 5: Memory Descriptor

Lecture 8 Memory Descriptor

Lecture 9 mm_struct continue

Lecture 10 Allocation and Destroy of memory descriptor

Section 6: Virtual Memory Areas

Lecture 11 Virtual Memory Area

Lecture 12 VMA Operations

Lecture 13 VMA ops Continue

Section 7: Kernel Segment

Lecture 14 Kernel Segment

Section 8: Page Management

Lecture 15 Page Structure

Lecture 16 Page Allocation

Section 9: Zones

Lecture 17 Zones in Linux Kernel

Section 10: Memory Allocation in Linux Kernel

Lecture 18 Kmalloc

Lecture 19 Vmalloc

System programmers who want to understand how the kernel handles memory under the hood.,Computer science students looking to deepen their OS internals knowledge