Virtual memory map with 4 level page tables: 0000000000000000 - 00007fffffffffff (=47bits) user space, different per mm hole caused by [48:63] sign extension ffff800000000000 - ffff80ffffffffff (=40bits) guard hole ffff810000000000 - ffffc0ffffffffff (=46bits) direct mapping of phys. memory ffffc10000000000 - ffffc1ffffffffff (=40bits) hole ffffc20000000000 - ffffe1ffffffffff (=45bits) vmalloc/ioremap space ... unused hole ... ffffffff80000000 - ffffffff82800000 (=40MB) kernel text mapping, from phys 0 ... unused hole ... ffffffff88000000 - fffffffffff00000 (=1919MB) module mapping space vmalloc space is lazily synchronized into the different PML4 pages of the processes using the page fault handler, with init_level4_pgt as reference. Current X86-64 implementations only support 40 bit of address space, but we support upto 46bits. This expands into MBZ space in the page tables. -Andi Kleen, Jul 2004