Virtual Memory

• Background
• Demand Paging
• Copy-on-Write
• Page Replacement
• Allocation of Frames
• Thrashing
 What is Virtual Memory?
• Technique that allows the execution
of processes that are not completely
in memory.
• Abstracts main memory into an
extremely large, uniform array of
storage.
• Allows processes to share files easily
and to implement shared memory.
 Background
• For a program to get executed the
entire logical address space should
be placed in physical memory
• But it need not be required or also
practically possible. Few examples
are
– Error codes seldom occur
– Size of array is not fully utilized
– Options and features which are rarely
used
 Virtual
memory is
implemented
using DEMAND
PAGING
 Demand Paging
• Bring a page into memory only when it is needed
– Less I/O needed
– Less memory needed
– Faster response
– More users

• 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
Transfer of a Paged Memory to Contiguous Disk
Space
 Basic concepts
• When a process is to be swapped in,
the pager guesses which pages will
be used before the process is
swapped out again
• The pager brings only those pages
into memory
• Valid-invalid bit scheme determines
which pages are there in the memory
and which are there in the disk.
 Valid-Invalid Bit
• With each page table entry a valid–invalid bit is
associated
(v  in-memory, i  not-in-memory)
• Initially valid–invalid bit is set to i on all entries
• Example of a page table
Frame # snapshot:
valid-invalid bit
v
v
v
v
i
….

i
i
page table

• During address translation, if valid–invalid bit in

page table entry
Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main
Memory
 Page Fault
• If there is a reference to a page, first
reference to that page will trap to operating
system:
page fault
1. Operating system looks at another table to
decide:
– Invalid reference  abort
– Just not in memory
2. Find free frame
3. Swap page into frame via scheduled disk
operation
4. Reset tables to indicate page now in memory
Set validation bit = v
5. Restart the instruction that caused the page
Steps in Handling a Page
Fault
 Aspects of Demand Paging
• Extreme case – start process with no pages in memory
– OS sets instruction pointer to first instruction of process, non-
memory-resident -> page fault
– And for every other process pages on first access
– Pure demand paging

• Actually, a given instruction could access multiple pages ->

multiple page faults
– Consider fetch and decode of instruction which adds 2
numbers from memory and stores result back to memory
– Pain decreased because of locality of reference

• Hardware support needed for demand paging

– Page table with valid / invalid bit
– Secondary memory (swap device with swap space)
– Instruction restart
 Copy-on-Write
• Copy-on-Write (COW) allows both parent
and child processes to initially share the
same pages in memory
– If either process modifies a shared page,
only then is the page copied
• COW allows more efficient process creation as
only modified pages are copied
• When is a page going to be duplicated using
copy-on-write?
– Depends on the location from where a free
page is allocated
• OS uses Zero-fill-on-demand technique to
allocate these pages.
• UNIX uses vfork() instead of fork() command
Before Process 1 Modifies
Page C
After Process 1 Modifies
Page C
 Page Replacement
• Prevent over-allocation of memory by
modifying page-fault service routine to
include page replacement
• Use modify (dirty) bit to reduce
overhead of page transfers – only
modified pages are written to disk
• Page replacement completes
separation between logical memory and
physical memory – large virtual
memory can be provided on a smaller
physical memory
Need For Page
Replacement

If no frame is free, we find one that

is not currently being used and
free it.
Page Replacement

Use modify (dirty) bit to reduce overhead of page transfers

– only modified pages are written to disk
 Page replacement
algorithms
• FIFO
• Optimal
• LRU
 First In First Out(FIFO)
• Associates with each page the time
when that page was brought into
memory
• When a page must be replaced, the
oldest page is replaced
• FIFO queue is maintained to hold all
pages in memory
• The one at the head of Q is replaced
and the page brought into memory is
inserted at the tail of Q
 FIFO Page Replacement

Page faults:15
Page replacements:12
 Adv and Disadv of FIFO
Adv
Easy to understand and program
Disadv
• Performance not always good
• The older pages may be
initialization files which would be
required throughout
• Increases the page fault rate and
slows process execution.
 What is belady’s anomaly
123412512345
Compute using 4 frames
Compare the page faults by using
frame size 3
Difference is because of belady’s
anomaly
 Optimal Algorithm
• Result of discovery of Belady’s
anomaly was optimal page
replacement algorithm
• Has the lowest page-fault rate of all
algorithms
• Algorithm does not exist. Why?
Optimal Page Replacement

Number of page faults:- 9

Number of replacements:-6
 Adv and Disadv of Optimal
Page replacement algorithm
• Gives the best result.
• Reduces page fault
• But difficult ot implement because it
requires future knowledge of the
reference string.
• Mainly used for comparison studies.
 LRU page replacement
algorithm
• Use the recent past as an
approximation of near future then we
replace the page that has not been
used for the longest period of time.
(Least Recently Used)
LRU Page Replacement

Number of page faults:- 12

Number of page replacements:- 9