RFR: 8253683: Clean up and clarify uses of os::vm_allocation_granularity

Thomas Stuefe stuefe at openjdk.org
Thu Jan 29 09:33:09 UTC 2026


On Tue, 25 Nov 2025 14:31:39 GMT, Casper Norrbin <cnorrbin at openjdk.org> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> `os::vm_allocation_granularity()` is meant to describe the alignment restrictions of the operating system when we reserve memory. That is 64 KiB on Windows (`VirtualAlloc`) and 256 MiB on AIX (with `shmat`). On every other platform it happens to match the page size. The page size (available via `os::vm_page_size()`) is what matters when we later commit or protect the reserved pages.
> 
> Because the functions are poorly documented and the two numbers are identical on most systems, they have gradually been used more and more interchangeably. We now have many code paths that round **sizes** up to `os::vm_allocation_granularity()` or assert that a size is a multiple of it. That is wrong. Only addresses need that alignment, sizes merely have to be page-aligned. Places that round sizes should instead use `os::vm_page_size()` as they are unrelated to attach alignment.
> 
> For this change I have gone over the call sites of `os::vm_allocation_granularity()` and where it was being used to pad or sanity-check a size I have instead replaced it with `os::vm_page_size()`. The calls that genuinely deal with an attach address are left untouched.
> 
> Testing:
> - Oracle tiers 1-8

I think this looks good and was a lot of work. This requires some thorough testing, though, since I did not follow all use cases and derived sizes may now be different.

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Marked as reviewed by stuefe (Reviewer).

PR Review: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/28493#pullrequestreview-3721552391


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