Unit 7: Virtual Memory

 Background
 Demand Paging
 Page Replacement
 Page Replacement Algorithms
 Allocation of Frames
 Thrashing (only concept)

Operating System Concepts 10.1 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Background

 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.

 Virtual memory can be implemented via:

 Demand paging
 Demand segmentation

Operating System Concepts 10.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Virtual Memory That is Larger Than Physical Memory

Operating System Concepts 10.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 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

Operating System Concepts 10.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Transfer of a Paged Memory to Contiguous Disk Space

Operating System Concepts 10.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Valid-Invalid Bit
 With each page table entry a valid–invalid bit is associated
(1  in-memory, 0  not-in-memory)
 Initially valid–invalid but is set to 0 on all entries.
 Example of a page table snapshot.

Frame # valid-invalid bit

1
1
1
1
0


0
0
page table
 During address translation, if valid–invalid bit in page table
entry is 0  page fault.
Operating System Concepts 10.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
 Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main Memory

Operating System Concepts 10.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Page Fault
 If there is ever a reference to a page, first reference will trap to
OS  page fault
 OS looks at another table to decide:
 Invalid reference  abort.
 Just not in memory.
 Get empty frame.
 Swap page into frame.
 Reset tables, validation bit = 1.
 Restart instruction: Least Recently Used
 block move

 auto increment/decrement location

Operating System Concepts 10.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Steps in Handling a Page Fault

Operating System Concepts 10.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 What happens if there is no free frame?

 Page replacement – find some page in memory, but

not really in use, swap it out.
 algorithm
 performance – want an algorithm which will
result in minimum number of page faults.

 Same page may be brought into memory several

times.

Operating System Concepts 10.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 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.

Operating System Concepts 10.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Need For Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts 10.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Basic Page Replacement

1. Find the location of the desired page on disk.

2. Find a free frame:

- If there is a free frame, use it.
- If there is no free frame, use a page
replacement algorithm to select a victim frame.

3. Read the desired page into the (newly) free frame.

Update the page and frame tables.

4. Restart the process.

Operating System Concepts 10.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts 10.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Page Replacement Algorithms

 Want lowest page-fault rate.

 Evaluate algorithm by running it on a particular string of
memory references (reference string) and computing the
number of page faults on that string.
 In all our examples, the reference string is
1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Operating System Concepts 10.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Graph of Page Faults Versus The Number of Frames

Operating System Concepts 10.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm
 Reference string: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
 3 frames (3 pages can be in memory at a time per process)

1 1 4 5
2 2 1 3 9 page faults
 4 frames
3 3 2 4

1 1 5 4
2 2 1 5 10 page faults
 FIFO Replacement – Belady’s Anomaly
 more frames  less3page3faults
2
4 4 3

Operating System Concepts 10.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 FIFO Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts 10.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 FIFO Illustrating Belady’s Anamoly

Operating System Concepts 10.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Optimal Algorithm

 Replace page that will not be used for longest period of time.
 4 frames example
1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

1 4
2 6 page faults
3

4 5
 How do you know this?
 Used for measuring how well your algorithm performs.

Operating System Concepts 10.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Optimal Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts 10.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Least Recently Used (LRU) Algorithm

 Reference string: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

1 5
2

3 5 4
4 3

 Counter implementation
 Every page entry has a counter; every time page is
referenced through this entry, copy the clock into the
counter.
 When a page needs to be changed, look at the
counters to determine which are to change.

Operating System Concepts 10.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 LRU Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts 10.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 LRU Algorithm (Cont.)

 Stack implementation – keep a stack of page

numbers in a double link form:
 Page referenced:
 move it to the top
 requires 6 pointers to be changed
 No search for replacement

Operating System Concepts 10.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Use Of A Stack to Record The Most Recent Page References

Operating System Concepts 10.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Counting Algorithms

 Keep a counter of the number of references that

have been made to each page.

 LFU Algorithm: replaces page with smallest count.

 MFU Algorithm: based on the argument that the

page with the smallest count was probably just
brought in and has yet to be used.

Operating System Concepts 10.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Allocation of Frames

 Each process needs minimum number of pages.

 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.
 Two major allocation schemes.
 fixed allocation
 priority allocation

Operating System Concepts 10.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Fixed Allocation

 Equal allocation – e.g., if 100 frames and 5 processes,

give each 20 pages.
 Proportional allocation – Allocate according to the size of
process.
si  size of process pi
S   si
m  total number of frames
s
ai  allocation for pi  i  m
S
m  64
si  10
s2  127
10
a1   64  5
137
127
a2   64  59
137
Operating System Concepts 10.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
 Priority Allocation

 Use a proportional allocation scheme using priorities

rather than size.

 If process Pi generates a page fault,

 select for replacement one of its frames.
 select for replacement a frame from a process
with lower priority number.

Operating System Concepts 10.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 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.
 Local replacement – each process selects from
only its own set of allocated frames.

Operating System Concepts 10.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Thrashing

 If a process does not have “enough” pages, the

page-fault rate is very high. This leads to:
 low CPU utilization.
 operating system thinks that it needs to
increase the degree of multiprogramming.
 another process added to the system.

 Thrashing  a process is busy swapping pages

in and out.

Operating System Concepts 10.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Thrashing

 Why does paging work?

Locality model
 Process migrates from one locality to another.
 Localities may overlap.
 Why does thrashing occur?
 size of locality > total memory size

Operating System Concepts 10.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Locality In A Memory-Reference Pattern

Operating System Concepts 10.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Working-Set Model

   working-set window  a fixed number of page

references
Example: 10,000 instruction
 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
 if D > m  Thrashing
 Policy if D > m, then suspend one of the processes.

Operating System Concepts 10.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Working-set model

Operating System Concepts 10.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Keeping Track of the Working Set

 Approximate with interval timer + a reference bit

 Example:  = 10,000
 Timer interrupts after every 5000 time units.
 Keep in memory 2 bits for each page.
 Whenever a timer interrupts copy and sets the values of all
reference bits to 0.
 If one of the bits in memory = 1  page in working set.
 Why is this not completely accurate?
 Improvement = 10 bits and interrupt every 1000 time
units.

Operating System Concepts 10.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Page-Fault Frequency Scheme

 Establish “acceptable” page-fault rate.

 If actual rate too low, process loses frame.
 If actual rate too high, process gains frame.

Operating System Concepts 10.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Other Considerations

 Prepaging

 Page size selection

 fragmentation
 table size
 I/O overhead
 locality

Operating System Concepts 10.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Other Considerations (Cont.)

 TLB Reach - The amount of memory accessible from the

TLB.

 TLB Reach = (TLB Size) X (Page Size)

 Ideally, the working set of each process is stored in the

TLB. Otherwise there is a high degree of page faults.

Operating System Concepts 10.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Increasing the Size of the TLB

 Increase the Page Size. This may lead to an increase in

fragmentation as not all applications require a large page
size.

 Provide Multiple Page Sizes. This allows applications

that require larger page sizes the opportunity to use them
without an increase in fragmentation.

Operating System Concepts 10.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Other Considerations (Cont.)

 Program structure
 int A[][] = new int[1024][1024];
 Each row is stored in one page
 Program 1 for (j = 0; j < A.length; j++)
for (i = 0; i < A.length; i++)
A[i,j] = 0;
1024 x 1024 page faults

 Program 2 for (i = 0; i < A.length; i++)

for (j = 0; j < A.length; j++)
A[i,j] = 0;

1024 page faults

Operating System Concepts 10.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Other Considerations (Cont.)

 I/O Interlock – Pages must sometimes be locked into

memory.

 Consider I/O. Pages that are used for copying a file from
a device must be locked from being selected for eviction
by a page replacement algorithm.

Operating System Concepts 10.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Reason Why Frames Used For I/O Must Be In Memory

Operating System Concepts 10.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Operating System Examples

 Windows NT

 Solaris 2

Operating System Concepts 10.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Windows NT

 Uses demand paging with clustering. Clustering brings

in pages surrounding the faulting page.
 Processes are assigned working set minimum and
working set maximum.
 Working set minimum is the minimum number of pages
the process is guaranteed to have in memory.
 A process may be assigned as many pages up to its
working set maximum.
 When the amount of free memory in the system falls
below a threshold, automatic working set trimming is
performed to restore the amount of free memory.
 Working set trimming removes pages from processes
that have pages in excess of their working set minimum.

Operating System Concepts 10.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Solaris 2

 Maintains a list of free pages to assign faulting processes.

 Lotsfree – threshold parameter to begin paging.

 Paging is peformed by pageout process.

 Pageout scans pages using modified clock algorithm.

 Scanrate is the rate at which pages are scanned. This

ranged from slowscan to fastscan.

 Pageout is called more frequently depending upon the

amount of free memory available.

Operating System Concepts 10.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Solar Page Scanner

Operating System Concepts 10.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002