Main Memory Management in Operating Systems
Main Memory Management in Operating Systems
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Background
8.2
Base and Limit Registers
A pair of base and limit registers define the logical address space
CPU must check every memory access generated in user mode to
be sure it is between base and limit for that user
8.3
Hardware Address Protection
8.4
Address Binding
Programs on disk, ready to be brought into memory to execute form an
input queue
Without support, must be loaded into address 0000
Inconvenient to have first user process physical address always at 0000
How can it not be?
Further, addresses represented in different ways at different stages of a
program’s life
Source code addresses usually symbolic
Compiled code addresses bind to relocatable addresses
i.e. “14 bytes from beginning of this module”
Linker or loader will bind relocatable addresses to absolute addresses
i.e. 74014
Each binding maps one address space to another
8.5
Logical vs. Physical Address Space
8.6
Memory-Management Unit (MMU)
Hardware device that at run time maps virtual to physical
address
Many methods possible, covered in the rest of this chapter
To start, consider simple scheme where the value in the
relocation register is added to every address generated by a
user process at the time it is sent to memory
Base register now called relocation register
MS-DOS on Intel 80x86 used 4 relocation registers
The user program deals with logical addresses; it never sees the
real physical addresses
Execution-time binding occurs when reference is made to
location in memory
Logical address bound to physical addresses
8.7
Dynamic relocation using a relocation register
8.8
Swapping
A process can be swapped temporarily out of memory to a
backing store, and then brought back into memory for continued
execution
Total physical memory space of processes can exceed
physical memory
Backing store – fast disk large enough to accommodate copies
of all memory images for all users; must provide direct access to
these memory images
Roll out, roll in – swapping variant used for priority-based
scheduling algorithms; lower-priority process is swapped out so
higher-priority process can be loaded and executed
Major part of swap time is transfer time; total transfer time is
directly proportional to the amount of memory swapped
System maintains a ready queue of ready-to-run processes
which have memory images on disk
8.9
Schematic View of Swapping
8.10
Context Switch Time including Swapping
8.11
Context Switch Time and Swapping (Cont.)
8.12
Contiguous Allocation
Main memory must support both OS and user processes
Limited resource, must allocate efficiently
Contiguous allocation is one early method
Main memory usually into two partitions:
Resident operating system, usually held in low memory with
interrupt vector
User processes then held in high memory
Each process contained in single contiguous section of
memory
8.13
Contiguous Allocation (Cont.)
Relocation registers used to protect user processes from each
other, and from changing operating-system code and data
Base register contains value of smallest physical address
Limit register contains range of logical addresses – each
logical address must be less than the limit register
MMU maps logical address dynamically
Can then allow actions such as kernel code being transient
and kernel changing size
8.14
Hardware Support for Relocation and Limit Registers
8.15
Multiple-partition allocation
Multiple-partition allocation
Degree of multiprogramming limited by number of partitions
Variable-partition sizes for efficiency (sized to a given process’ needs)
Hole – block of available memory; holes of various size are scattered
throughout memory
When a process arrives, it is allocated memory from a hole large enough to
accommodate it
Process exiting frees its partition, adjacent free partitions combined
Operating system maintains information about:
a) allocated partitions b) free partitions (hole)
8.16
Dynamic Storage-Allocation Problem
How to satisfy a request of size n from a list of free holes?
Worst-fit: Allocate the largest hole; must also search entire list
Produces the largest leftover hole
First-fit and best-fit better than worst-fit in terms of speed and storage
utilization
8.17
Fragmentation
External Fragmentation – total memory space exists to
satisfy a request, but it is not contiguous
Internal Fragmentation – allocated memory may be slightly
larger than requested memory; this size difference is memory
internal to a partition, but not being used
First fit analysis reveals that given N blocks allocated, 0.5 N
blocks lost to fragmentation
1/3 may be unusable -> 50-percent rule
8.18
Fragmentation (Cont.)
8.19
Segmentation
Memory-management scheme that supports user view of memory
A program is a collection of segments
A segment is a logical unit such as:
main program
procedure
function
method
object
local variables, global variables
common block
stack
symbol table
arrays
8.20
User’s View of a Program
8.21
Logical View of Segmentation
4
1
3 2
4
8.22
Segmentation Architecture
Logical address consists of a two tuple:
<segment-number, offset>,
8.23
Segmentation Architecture (Cont.)
Protection
With each entry in segment table associate:
validation bit = 0 illegal segment
read/write/execute privileges
Protection bits associated with segments; code sharing
occurs at segment level
Since segments vary in length, memory allocation is a
dynamic storage-allocation problem
A segmentation example is shown in the following diagram
8.24
Segmentation Hardware
8.25
Paging
Physical address space of a process can be noncontiguous;
process is allocated physical memory whenever the latter is
available
Avoids external fragmentation
Avoids problem of varying sized memory chunks
Divide physical memory into fixed-sized blocks called frames
Size is power of 2, between 512 bytes and 16 Mbytes
Divide logical memory into blocks of same size called pages
Keep track of all free frames
To run a program of size N pages, need to find N free frames and
load program
Set up a page table to translate logical to physical addresses
Backing store likewise split into pages
Still have Internal fragmentation
8.26
Address Translation Scheme
Address generated by CPU is divided into:
Page number (p) – used as an index into a page table which
contains base address of each page in physical memory
Page offset (d) – combined with base address to define the
physical memory address that is sent to the memory unit
8.27
Paging Hardware
8.28
Paging Model of Logical and Physical Memory
8.29
Paging Example
8.30
Paging (Cont.)
8.31
Free Frames
8.32
Implementation of Page Table
Page table is kept in main memory
Page-table base register (PTBR) points to the page table
Page-table length register (PTLR) indicates size of the page
table
In this scheme every data/instruction access requires two
memory accesses
One for the page table and one for the data / instruction
The two memory access problem can be solved by the use of
a special fast-lookup hardware cache called associative
memory or translation look-aside buffers (TLBs)
8.33
Implementation of Page Table (Cont.)
Some TLBs store address-space identifiers (ASIDs) in each
TLB entry – uniquely identifies each process to provide
address-space protection for that process
Otherwise need to flush at every context switch
TLBs typically small (64 to 1,024 entries)
On a TLB miss, value is loaded into the TLB for faster access
next time
Replacement policies must be considered
Some entries can be wired down for permanent fast
access
8.34
Associative Memory
Page # Frame #
8.35
Paging Hardware With TLB
8.36
8.37
Effective Access Time
Associative Lookup = time unit
Can be < 10% of memory access time
Hit ratio =
Hit ratio – percentage of times that a page number is found in the
associative registers; ratio related to number of associative
registers
Consider = 80%, = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for memory access
Consider = 80%, = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for memory access
EAT = 0.80 x 100 + 0.20 x 200 = 120ns
Consider more realistic hit ratio -> = 99%, = 20ns for TLB search,
100ns for memory access
EAT = 0.99 x 100 + 0.01 x 200 = 101ns
8.38
Memory Protection
Memory protection implemented by associating protection bit
with each frame to indicate if read-only or read-write access is
allowed
Can also add more bits to indicate page execute-only, and
so on
Valid-invalid bit attached to each entry in the page table:
“valid” indicates that the associated page is in the
process’ logical address space, and is thus a legal page
“invalid” indicates that the page is not in the process’
logical address space
Or use page-table length register (PTLR)
Any violations result in a trap to the kernel
8.39
Valid (v) or Invalid (i) Bit In A Page Table
8.40
Virtual Memory
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
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
Virtual Memory That is Larger Than Physical Memory
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
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
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:
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
Page Replacement
Page and Frame Replacement Algorithms
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
FIFO Illustrating Belady’s Anomaly
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
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
The disk arm starts at one end of the disk, and moves toward the
other end, servicing requests until it gets to the other end of the
disk, where the head movement is reversed and servicing
continues.
SCAN algorithm Sometimes called the elevator algorithm
Illustration shows total head movement of 236 cylinders
But note that if requests are uniformly dense, largest density at
other end of disk and those wait the longest
SCAN (Cont.)
C-SCAN
Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN
The head moves from one end of the disk to the other, servicing
requests as it goes
When it reaches the other end, however, it immediately
returns to the beginning of the disk, without servicing any
requests on the return trip
Treats the cylinders as a circular list that wraps around from the
last cylinder to the first one
Total number of cylinders?
C-SCAN (Cont.)
C-LOOK
LOOK a version of SCAN, C-LOOK a version of C-SCAN
Arm only goes as far as the last request in each direction,
then reverses direction immediately, without first going all
the way to the end of the disk
Total number of cylinders?
C-LOOK (Cont.)