OPERATING SYSTEMS

UNIT IV
VIRTUAL MEMORY

Dr.R.C.Suganthe
Professor
Kongu Engineering College
 Virtual Memory
Background
Demand Paging
Page Replacement
Allocation of Frames
Thrashing
 Background
Code needs to be in memory to execute, but
entire program rarely used
 Error code, unusual routines
 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
 Virtual memory
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

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
Shared Library Using Virtual
Memory
 Demand Paging
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
 Valid-Invalid Bit
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
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:

During MMU address translation,

 if valid–invalid bit in page table entry is i  page fault
Page Table When Some Pages Are Not
in Main Memory
 Steps in Handling Page
Fault
1. If there is a reference to a page, first reference to
that page will trap to operating system
 Page fault
2. Operating system looks at another table to decide:
 Invalid reference  abort
 Just not in memory
3. Find a free frame
4. Bring referred page into the identified free frame
5. Reset tables to indicate page now in memory
Set validation bit = v
6. Restart the instruction that caused the page fault
Steps in Handling a Page Fault
(Cont.)
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
 Performance of Demand
Paging
Page Fault Rate 0  p  1
 if p = 0 no page faults
 if p = 1, every reference is a fault
Effective Access Time (EAT) of main memory
EAT = [(1 – p) x memory access ] +
[ p x (page fault overhead + swap page out + swap page in ) ]
Example
 Memory access time = 200 nanoseconds
 Average page-fault service time = 8 milliseconds
 EAT = (1 – p) x 200 + p (8 milliseconds)
= (1 – p) x 200 + p x 8,000,000 = 200-200p+8,000,000p
= 200 + p x 7,999,800
If one access out of 1,000 causes a page fault, then
EAT = 200 +1/1000 x 7,999,800 = 200+7999.8=8199.8 nanoseconds
= 8.1998 microseconds=8.2 microseconds
What Happens if There is no Free Frame?

Used up by process pages

Also in demand from the kernel, I/O buffers, etc
How much to allocate to each?
Page replacement – find some page in memory, but
not really in use, page it out (replace that page)
 Algorithm – needed to find the optimal page for

replacement
 Performance – want an algorithm which will result

in minimum number of page faults

Same page may be brought into memory several
times
 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
If we have a process of twenty pages, have to execute it in ten
frames simply by using demand paging and using a replacement
algorithm to find a free frame whenever necessary.
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
 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
- Write victim frame to disk if dirty
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
2 page transfers for each page fault – increasing EAT
Page Replacement
Page and Frame Replacement Algorithms

Frame-allocation algorithm determines

 How many frames to give each process
 Which frames to replace
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
Graph of Page Faults Versus the Number of Frames
First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm
Just use a FIFO queue
Reference string:
7,0,1,2,0,3,0,4,2,3,0,3,0,3,2,1,2,0,1,7,0,1
FIFO Illustrating Belady’s Anomaly
Belady’s Anomaly
Adding more frames can cause more page faults!
Can vary by reference string: consider
1,2,3,4,1,2,5,1,2,3,4,5
Optimal(OPT) Algorithm
Replace page that will not be used for longest period of time
How do you know this?
 Can’t read the future
Used for comparing how well other 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 ( i.e. the page that is not recently used is replaced
first )
Associate time of last use with each page

12 faults – better than FIFO but worse than OPT

Generally good algorithm and frequently used
But how to implement?
 LRU Algorithm (Cont.)
Counter implementation
 Every page entry has a counter; every time page is referenced through this
entry, copy the clock (current time) into the counter
 When a page needs to be changed, look at the counters to find smallest
value(i.e least recently referred)

Stack implementation
 Keep a stack of page numbers in a double
link form:
 Page referenced: move it to the top
 Always recently used pages available at
the top of the stack and least recently used
available at the bottom of the stack
 But each update more expensive
 No search for replacement , page at the
bottom of the stack is the victim page for
replacement
LRU Approximation Algorithms
LRU needs special hardware and still slow
Reference bit
 With each page associate a bit, initially = 0
 When page is referenced bit set to 1
 Replace any page with reference bit = 0 (if one exists)

We do not know the order, however
Second-chance algorithm
 Generally FIFO, plus hardware-provided reference bit
 Clock replacement
 If page to be replaced has

Reference bit = 0 -> replace it

reference bit = 1 then:
 set reference bit 0, leave page in memory
 replace next page, subject to same rules
Second-chance Algorithm
 Enhanced Second-Chance
Algorithm
Improve algorithm by using reference bit and modify bit (if available) in
concert
Take ordered pair (reference, modify):
 (0, 0) neither recently used not modified – best page to replace

 (0, 1) not recently used but modified – not quite as good, must write out

before replacement
 (1, 0) recently used but clean – probably will be used again soon

 (1, 1) recently used and modified – probably will be used again soon and

need to write out before replacement

When page replacement called for, use the same scheme as in the clock
algorithm, but instead of examining whether the page to which we are pointing
has the reference bit set to 1, we examine the class to which that page belongs.
 Might need to search circular queue several times
 Counting-Based Page Replacement

Can keep a counter of the number of references that

have been made to each page
Two schemes.
The least frequently used (LFU) page-
replacement algorithm:
 requires that the page with the smallest count be replaced.
 actively used page should have a large reference count
 A problem arises, when a page is used heavily during the initial
phase of a process but then is never used again.
 Solution is to shift the counts right by 1 bit at regular intervals.
The most frequently used (MFU) page-
replacement algorithm
 is based on the argument that the page with the smallest count
was probably just brought in and has yet to be used.

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 Course Outcome
On completion of the course, the students will be able
to
CO1 : outline operating system structure, services
and system calls
CO2 : demonstrate various process scheduling
algorithms and describe multithreading models
CO3 : apply different methods for process
synchronization and for handling deadlocks
CO4 : illustrate memory management
strategies and demonstrate various page
replacement algorithms
CO5 : summarize the features of file systems and
apply various disk scheduling algorithms
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Thank you…..

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 Allocation of Frames
Each process needs minimum number of
frames
Maximum available is total frames in the
system
Two major allocation schemes
 fixed allocation
 priority allocation
Many variations
 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

Proportional allocation – Allocate according to the size of

process
 Dynamic as degree of multiprogramming, process sizes change
si size of process pi
S   si
m total number of frames
s
ai allocation for pi  i m
S
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
 Thrashing
If a process does not have “enough” pages, the page-fault rate
is very high.
 Page fault to get page , Replace existing frame and need replaced frame back
 This leads to:

Low CPU utilization

OS thinking 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

Since thrashing reduces system performance, to find out

actual no. of frames to be allocated to a process, 2 methods
proposed
 Working Set model
 Page Fault Frequency
 Working-Set Model
  working-set window  a fixed number of page references
WS (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 or swap out one of the processes
 Page-Fault Frequency
More direct approach than Working set model
Establish “acceptable” page-fault frequency
(PFF) rate and use local replacement policy
 If PFF too low, process has more frames , so it loses frame
 If PFF too high, process has less frames, so it gains frame