Chapter 9: Virtual Memory: Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts - 9 Edition
Chapter 9: Virtual Memory: Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts - 9 Edition
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Chapter 9: Virtual Memory
Background
Demand Paging
Page Replacement
Allocation of Frames
Thrashing
Memory-Mapped Files
Allocating Kernel Memory
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Objectives
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Background
Code needs to be in memory to execute, but entire program rarely
used
Error code, unusual routines, large data structures
Entire program code not needed at same time
Consider ability to execute partially-loaded program
Program no longer constrained by limits of physical memory
Each program takes less memory while running -> more
programs run at the same time
Increased CPU utilization and throughput with no increase
in response time or turnaround time
Less I/O needed to load or swap programs into memory ->
each user program runs faster
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Background (Cont.)
Virtual memory – separation of user logical memory from
physical memory
Only part of the program needs to be in memory for execution
Logical address space can therefore be much larger than physical
address space
Allows address spaces to be shared by several processes
Allows for more efficient process creation
More programs running concurrently
Less I/O needed to load or swap processes
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Background (Cont.)
Virtual address space – logical view of how process is
stored in memory
Usually start at address 0, contiguous addresses until end of
space
Meanwhile, physical memory organized in page frames
MMU must map logical to physical
Virtual memory can be implemented via:
Demand paging
Demand segmentation
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Virtual Memory That is Larger Than Physical Memory
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Virtual-address Space
Usually design logical address space for
stack to start at Max logical address and
grow “down” while heap grows “up”
Maximizes address space use
Unused address space between
the two is hole
No physical memory needed
until heap or stack grows to a
given new page
Enables sparse address spaces with
holes left for growth, dynamically linked
libraries, etc
System libraries shared via mapping into
virtual address space
Shared memory by mapping pages read-
write into virtual address space
Pages can be shared during fork(),
speeding process creation
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Demand Paging
Could bring entire process into memory
at load time
Or bring a page into memory only when
it is needed
Less I/O needed, no unnecessary
I/O
Less memory needed
Faster response
More users
Similar to paging system with swapping
(diagram on right)
Page is needed reference to it
invalid reference abort
not-in-memory bring to memory
Lazy swapper – never swaps a page
into memory unless page will be needed
Swapper that deals with pages is a
pager
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Basic Concepts
With swapping, pager guesses which pages will be used before
swapping out again
Instead, pager brings in only those pages into memory
How to determine that set of pages?
Need new MMU functionality to implement demand paging
If pages needed are already memory resident
No difference from non demand-paging
If page needed and not memory resident
Need to detect and load the page into memory from storage
Without changing program behavior
Without programmer needing to change code
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Valid-Invalid Bit
With each page table entry a valid–invalid bit is associated
(v in-memory – memory resident, i not-in-memory)
Initially valid–invalid bit is set to i on all entries
Example of a page table snapshot:
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Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main Memory
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Page Fault
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Steps in Handling a Page Fault
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Need For Page Replacement
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Basic Page Replacement
1. Find the location of the desired page on disk
3. Bring the desired page into the (newly) free frame; update the page
and frame tables
4. Continue the process by restarting the instruction that caused the trap
Note now potentially 2 page transfers for page fault – increasing EAT
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Page Replacement
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Page and Frame Replacement Algorithms
Page-replacement algorithm
Want lowest page-fault rate on both first access and re-access
Evaluate algorithm by running it on a particular string of memory
references (reference string) and computing the number of page
faults on that string
String is just page numbers, not full addresses
Repeated access to the same page does not cause a page fault
Results depend on number of frames available
In all our examples, the reference string of referenced page
numbers is
7,0,1,2,0,3,0,4,2,3,0,3,0,3,2,1,2,0,1,7,0,1
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Graph of Page Faults Versus The Number of Frames
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First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm
Reference string: 7,0,1,2,0,3,0,4,2,3,0,3,0,3,2,1,2,0,1,7,0,1
3 frames (3 pages can be in memory at a time per process)
15 page faults
Can vary by reference string: consider 1,2,3,4,1,2,5,1,2,3,4,5
Adding more frames can cause more page faults!
Belady’s Anomaly
How to track ages of pages?
Just use a FIFO queue
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FIFO Illustrating Belady’s Anomaly
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Optimal Algorithm
Replace page that will not be used for longest period of time
9 is optimal for the example
How do you know this?
Can’t read the future
Used for measuring how well your algorithm performs
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Least Recently Used (LRU) Algorithm
Use past knowledge rather than future
Replace page that has not been used in the most amount of time
Associate time of last use with each page
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Allocation of Frames
Each process needs minimum number of frames
Example: IBM 370 – 6 pages to handle SS MOVE instruction:
instruction is 6 bytes, might span 2 pages
2 pages to handle from
2 pages to handle to
Maximum of course is total frames in the system
Two major allocation schemes
fixed allocation
priority allocation
Many variations
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Fixed Allocation
Equal allocation – For example, if there are 100 frames (after
allocating frames for the OS) and 5 processes, give each process
20 frames
Keep some as free frame buffer pool
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Priority Allocation
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Global vs. Local Allocation
Global replacement – process selects a replacement frame
from the set of all frames; one process can take a frame from
another
But then process execution time can vary greatly
But greater throughput so more common
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Thrashing
If a process does not have “enough” pages, the page-fault rate is
very high
Page fault to get page
Replace existing frame
But quickly need replaced frame back
This leads to:
Low CPU utilization
Operating system thinking that it needs to increase the
degree of multiprogramming
Another process added to the system
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Thrashing (Cont.)
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Demand Paging and Thrashing
Why does demand paging work?
Locality model
Process migrates from one locality to another
Localities may overlap
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Working-Set Model
working-set window a fixed number of page references
Example: 10,000 instructions
WSSi (working set of Process Pi) =
total number of pages referenced in the most recent (varies in time)
if too small will not encompass entire locality
if too large will encompass several localities
if = will encompass entire program
D = WSSi total demand frames
Approximation of locality
if D > m Thrashing
Policy if D > m, then suspend or swap out one of the processes
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Page-Fault Frequency
More direct approach than WSS
Establish “acceptable” page-fault frequency (PFF) rate
and use local replacement policy
If actual rate too low, process loses frame
If actual rate too high, process gains frame
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Memory-Mapped Files
Memory-mapped file I/O allows file I/O to be treated as routine
memory access by mapping a disk block to a page in memory
A file is initially read using demand paging
A page-sized portion of the file is read from the file system into
a physical page
Subsequent reads/writes to/from the file are treated as
ordinary memory accesses
Simplifies and speeds file access by driving file I/O through
memory rather than read() and write() system calls
Also allows several processes to map the same file allowing the
pages in memory to be shared
But when does written data make it to disk?
Periodically and / or at file close() time
For example, when the pager scans for dirty pages
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Memory-Mapped File Technique for all I/O
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Memory Mapped Files
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Shared Memory via Memory-Mapped I/O
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Allocating Kernel Memory
Treated differently from user memory
Often allocated from a free-memory pool
Kernel requests memory for structures of varying sizes
Some kernel memory needs to be contiguous
I.e. for device I/O
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Buddy System
Allocates memory from fixed-size segment consisting of physically-
contiguous pages
Memory allocated using power-of-2 allocator
Satisfies requests in units sized as power of 2
Request rounded up to next highest power of 2
When smaller allocation needed than is available, current chunk
split into two buddies of next-lower power of 2
Continue until appropriate sized chunk available
For example, assume 256KB chunk available, kernel requests 21KB
Split into AL and AR of 128KB each
One further divided into BL and BR of 64KB
– One further into CL and CR of 32KB each – one used to
satisfy request
Advantage – quickly coalesce unused chunks into larger chunk
Disadvantage - fragmentation
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Buddy System Allocator
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Slab Allocator
Alternate strategy
Slab is one or more physically contiguous pages
Cache consists of one or more slabs
Single cache for each unique kernel data structure
Each cache filled with objects – instantiations of the data
structure
When cache created, filled with objects marked as free
When structures stored, objects marked as used
If slab is full of used objects, next object allocated from empty
slab
If no empty slabs, new slab allocated
Benefits include no fragmentation, fast memory request
satisfaction
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Slab Allocation
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Slab Allocator in Linux
For example process descriptor is of type struct task_struct
Approx 1.7KB of memory
New task -> allocate new struct from cache
Will use existing free struct task_struct
Slab can be in three possible states
1. Full – all used
2. Empty – all free
3. Partial – mix of free and used
Upon request, slab allocator
1. Uses free struct in partial slab
2. If none, takes one from empty slab
3. If no empty slab, create new empty
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
End of Chapter 9
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013