Does malloc lazily create the backing pages for an allocation on Linux (and other platforms)?

Question

On Linux if I were to malloc(1024 * 1024 * 1024), what does malloc actually do?

I\'m sure it assigns a virtual address to the allocation (by walking the

Answer 1

On most Unix-like systems, it manages the brk boundary. The VM adds pages when hit by the processor. At least Linux and BSDs do this.