Virtual Memory

Dr. Sukanta Ghosh

System and Architecture
 Content to be discussed
 Background
 Demand Paging
 Page Replacement
 Allocation of Frames
 Thrashing
 Demand Segmentation
 Operating System Examples

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Virtual Memory That is Larger Than Physical Memory

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Shared Library Using Virtual Memory

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Transfer of a Paged Memory to Contiguous Disk Space

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main Memory

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Steps in Handling a Page Fault

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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
 If the page to be searched is found among the frames then,
this process is known as Page Hit.
 If the page to be searched is not found among the frames
then, this process is known as Page Fault.
 When Page Fault occurs the problem arises, then the Page
Replacement Algorithm comes into picture.

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm
 The fixed number of frames is filled up using first frames present.
 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
3 3 2 4
 4 frames

1 1 5 4
2 2 1 5 10 page faults
3 3 2

4 4 3
 FIFO Replacement – Belady’s Anomaly
 more frames  more page faults

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 FIFO Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 To Practice
 Reference string 6, 1, 1, 2, 0, 3, 4, 6, 0, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 3, 2, 1, 2, 0
 Frame Size: 3 and 4

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Optimal Algorithm
 Replace page that will not be used for longest period of time.
 If referred page is already present, increment hit count.
 If not present, find if a page that is never referenced in future. If such
a page exists, replace this page with new page. If no such page
exists, find a page that is referenced farthest in future. Replace this
page with new page.

 No. of hits = 11
 No. of misses = 9

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 For Practice
 Reference string 6, 1, 1, 2, 0, 3, 4, 6, 0, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 3, 2, 1, 4, 0
 Frame Size: 3

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Least Recently Used (LRU) Algorithm
 Replace the page with the page which is less dimension of time
recently used page in the past.
 Reference string 7 0 1 2 0 3 0 4 2 3 0 3 2

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 LRU Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 For Practice
 Reference string: 6, 1, 1, 2, 0, 3, 4, 6, 0, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 3, 2, 1, 2, 0
 Frame Size: 3

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Allocation of Frames

 If you have numerous processes, frame allocation techniques are

utilized to determine how many frames to provide to each process.

 Two major allocation schemes

 fixed allocation
 priority allocation

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Frame Allocation Constraints
 The Frames that can be allocated cannot be greater than total
number of frames.
 Each process should be given a set minimum amount of frames.
 When fewer frames are allocated then the page fault ration
increases and the process execution becomes less efficient
 There ought to be sufficient frames to accommodate all the many
pages that a single instruction may refer to

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Fixed Allocation

 Equal allocation – For example, if there are 100 frames and 5

processes, give each process 20 frames.
 We divide the number of frames by number of processes.
 We get the number of frames we must provide for each process.
 Proportional allocation – Allocate according to the size of process.
 Issues:
 Not Logical
 Unused frames will eventually be wasted

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Thrashing (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

 Windows XP
 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 Adapted by: Dr. Sukanta Ghosh ©2005

Thank You