Chapter 9: Main Memory
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Background
Program must be brought (from disk) into memory and placed within a process for it to be run
Main memory and registers are only storage CPU can access directly
Memory unit only sees a stream of:
addresses + read requests, or
address + data and write requests
Register access is done in one CPU clock (or less)
Main memory can take many cycles, causing a stall
Cache sits between main memory and CPU registers
Protection of memory required to ensure correct operation
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Protection
Need to censure that a process can access only access those addresses in it address space.
We can provide this protection by using a pair of base and limit registers define the logical address space of a process
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Hardware Address Protection
CPU must check every memory access generated in user mode to be sure it is between base and limit for that user
the instructions to loading the base and limit registers are privileged
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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?
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Binding of Instructions and Data to Memory
Address binding of instructions and data to memory addresses can happen at three different stages
Compile time: If memory location known a priori, absolute code can be generated; must recompile code if starting location changes
Load time: Must generate relocatable code if memory location is not known at compile time
Execution time: Binding delayed until run time if the process can be moved during its execution from one memory segment to another
Need hardware support for address maps (e.g., base and limit registers)
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Multistep Processing of a User Program
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Logical vs. Physical Address Space
The concept of a logical address space that is bound to a separate physical address space is central to proper memory management
Logical address – generated by the CPU; also referred to as virtual address
Physical address – address seen by the memory unit
Logical and physical addresses are the same in compile-time and load-time address-binding schemes; logical (virtual) and physical addresses differ in execution-time address-binding scheme
Logical address space is the set of all logical addresses generated by a program
Physical address space is the set of all physical addresses generated by a program
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Memory-Management Unit (Cont.)
Consider simple scheme. which is a generalization of the base-register scheme.
The base register now called relocation register
The value in the relocation register is added to every address
generated by a user process at the time it is sent to memory 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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Memory-Management Unit (Cont.)
Consider simple scheme. which is a generalization of the base-register scheme.
The base register now called relocation register
The value in the relocation register is added to every address
generated by a user process at the time it is sent to memory
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Dynamic Loading
The entire program does NOT need to be in memory to execute
Routine is not loaded until it is called
Better memory-space utilization; unused routine is never
loaded
All routines kept on disk in relocatable load format
Useful when large amounts of code are needed to handle infrequently occurring cases
No special support from the operating system is required
Implementedthroughprogramdesign
OScanhelpbyprovidinglibrariestoimplement dynamic loading
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Dynamic Linking
Static linking – system libraries and program code combined by the loader into the binary program image
Dynamic linking –linking postponed until execution time
Small piece of code, stub, used to locate the appropriate
memory-resident library routine
Stub replaces itself with the address of the routine, and executes the routine
Operating system checks if routine is in processes’ memory address
If not in address space, add to address space
Dynamic linking is particularly useful for libraries
System also known as shared libraries
Consider applicability to patching system libraries
Versioning may be needed
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Hardware Support for Relocation and Limit Registers
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Multiple-partition allocation
Variable Partition
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)
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Dynamic Storage-Allocation Problem
How to satisfy a request of size n from a list of free holes? First-fit: Allocate the first hole that is big enough
Best-fit: Allocate the smallest hole that is big enough; must search entire list, unless ordered by size
Produces the smallest leftover hole
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Fragmentation (Cont.)
Reduce external fragmentation by compaction
Shuffle memory contents to place all free memory
together in one large block
Compaction is possible only if relocation is dynamic, and is done at execution time
I/O problem
Latch job in memory while it is involved in I/O Do I/O only into OS buffers
Now consider that backing store has same fragmentation problems
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Avoids external fragmentation
Paging
Physical address space of a process can be noncontiguous; process is allocated physical memory whenever the latter is available
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
page number page offset
p
m-n n
For given logical address space 2m and page size 2n
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
d
Paging Hardware
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Paging Model of Logical and Physical Memory
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Paging Example
Logicaladdress: n=2and m=4.Usingapagesizeof4bytesanda physical memory of 32 bytes (8 pages)
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Paging — Calculating internal fragmentation
Page size = 2,048 bytes
Process size = 72,766 bytes
35 pages + 1,086 bytes
Internal fragmentation of 2,048 – 1,086 = 962 bytes Worst case fragmentation = 1 frame – 1 byte
On average fragmentation = 1 / 2 frame size
So small frame sizes desirable?
But each page table entry takes memory to track
Page sizes growing over time
Solaris supports two page sizes – 8 KB and 4 MB
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Free Frames
Before allocation After allocation
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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 translation look-aside buffers (TLBs) (also called associative memory).
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Translation Look-Aside Buffer
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Associative memory – parallel search Page # Frame #
Hardware
Address translation (p, d)
If p is in associative register, get frame # out
Otherwise get frame # from page table in memory
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Paging Hardware With TLB
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Effective Access Time
Hit ratio – percentage of times that a page number is found in the TLB
An 80% hit ratio means that we find the desired page number in the TLB 80% of the time.
Suppose that 10 nanoseconds to access memory.
If we find the desired page in TLB then a mapped-memory
access take 10 ns
Otherwise we need two memory access so it is 20 ns Effective Access Time (EAT)
EAT = 0.80 x 10 + 0.20 x 20 = 12 nanoseconds implying 20% slowdown in access time
Consider amore realistic hit ratio of 99%, EAT = 0.99 x 10 + 0.01 x 20 = 10.1ns
implying only 1% slowdown in access time.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Valid (v) or Invalid (i) Bit In A Page Table
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Shared Pages
Shared code
One copy of read-only (reentrant) code shared among
processes (i.e., text editors, compilers, window systems)
Similar to multiple threads sharing the same process space
Also useful for interprocess communication if sharing of read-write pages is allowed
Private code and data
Each process keeps a separate copy of the code and data
The pages for the private code and data can appear anywhere in the logical address space
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Shared Pages Example
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Structure of the Page Table
Memory structures for paging can get huge using straight-forward methods
Consider a 32-bit logical address space as on modern computers
Page size of 4 KB (212)
Page table would have 1 million entries (232 / 212)
If each entry is 4 bytes each process 4 MB of physical address space for the page table alone
Don’t want to allocate that contiguously in main memory One simple solution is to divide the page table into smaller
units
Hierarchical Paging Hashed Page Tables Inverted Page Tables
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Hierarchical Page Tables
Break up the logical address space into multiple page tables A simple technique is a two-level page table
We then page the page table
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Two-Level Paging Example
A logical address (on 32-bit machine with 1K page size) is divided into: a page number consisting of 22 bits
a page offset consisting of 10 bits
Since the page table is paged, the page number is further divided into: a 10-bit page number
a 12-bit page offset
Thus, a logical address is as follows:
where p1 is an index into the outer page table, and p2 is the displacement within the page of the inner page table
Known as forward-mapped page table
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Address-Translation Scheme
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
64-bit Logical Address Space
Even two-level paging scheme not sufficient If page size is 4 KB (212)
Then page table has 252 entries
If two level scheme, inner page tables could be 210 4-byte entries
Address would look like
Outer page table has 242 entries or 244 bytes
One solution is to add a 2nd outer page table
But in the following example the 2nd outer page table is still 234 bytes in size
And possibly 4 memory access to get to one physical memory location
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Three-level Paging Scheme
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Hashed Page Tables
Common in address spaces > 32 bits
The virtual page number is hashed into a page table
This page table contains a chain of elements hashing to the same location
Each element contains (1) the virtual page number (2) the value of the mapped page frame (3) a pointer to the next element
Virtual page numbers are compared in this chain searching for a match
If a match is found, the corresponding physical frame is extracted
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Hashed Page Table
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Inverted Page Table
Rather than each process having a page table and keeping track of all possible logical pages, track all physical pages
One entry for each real page of memory
Entry consists of the virtual address of the page stored in that real memory location, with information about the process that owns that page
Decreases memory needed to store each page table, but increases time needed to search the table when a page reference occurs
Usehashtabletolimitthesearchtoone—oratmostafew— page-table entries
TLB can accelerate access
But how to implement shared memory?
One mapping of a virtual address to the shared physical address
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Inverted Page Table Architecture
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Swapping (Cont.)
Does the swapped out process need to swap back in to same physical addresses?
Depends on address binding method
Plus consider pending I/O to / from process memory space
Modified versions of swapping are found on many systems (i.e., UNIX, Linux, and Windows)
Swapping normally disabled
Started if more than threshold amount of memory allocated
Disabled again once memory demand reduced below threshold
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Schematic View of Swapping
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Context Switch Time including Swapping
If next processes to be put on CPU is not in memory, need to swap out a process and swap in target process
Context switch time can then be very high
100MB process swapping to hard disk with transfer rate of
50MB/sec
Swap out time of 2000 ms
Plus swap in of same sized process
Total context switch swapping component time of 4000ms (4 seconds)
Can reduce if reduce size of memory swapped – by knowing how much memory really being used
System calls to inform OS of memory use via request_memory() and release_memory()
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Context Switch Time and Swapping (Cont.)
Other constraints as well on swapping
Pending I/O – can’t swap out as I/O would occur to wrong
process
Or always transfer I/O to kernel space, then to I/O device
Known as double buffering, adds overhead
Standard swapping not used in modern operating systems
But modified version common
Swap only when free memory extremely low
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Swapping on Mobile Systems
Not typically supported
Flash memory based
Small amount of space
Limited number of write cycles
Poor throughput between flash memory and CPU on mobile platform
Instead use other methods to free memory if low
iOS asks apps to voluntarily relinquish allocated memory
Read-only data thrown out and reloaded from flash if needed
Failure to free can result in termination
Android terminates apps if low free memory, but first writes
application state to flash for fast restart
Both OSes support paging as discussed below
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
Swapping with Paging
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 9.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
End of Chapter 9
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018