Chapter 9: Virtual Memory

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Background
Code needs to be in memory to execute, but entire program rarely
used
Error code, unusual routines, large data structures
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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Background (Cont.)
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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Virtual Memory That is Larger Than Physical Memory

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Background (Cont.)
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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Shared Library Using Virtual Memory

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Demand Paging
Could bring entire process into memory
at load time
Or 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
Swapper that deals with pages is a
pager

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main Memory

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 fault

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Steps in Handling a Page Fault

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 9.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Need For Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 now potentially 2 page transfers for page fault – increasing Effective
Access Time

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Page Replacement

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Graph of Page Faults Versus The Number of Frames

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm
Reference string: 7,0,1,2,0,3,0,4,2,3,0,3,0,3,2,1,2,0,1,7,0,1
3 frames (3 pages can be in memory at a time per process)

15 page faults
Can vary by reference string: consider 1,2,3,4,1,2,5,1,2,3,4,5
Adding more frames can cause more page faults!
 Belady’s Anomaly
How to track ages of pages?
Just use a FIFO queue

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 FIFO Illustrating Belady’s Anomaly

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Optimal Algorithm
Replace page that will not be used for longest period of time
9 is optimal for the example
How do you know this?
Can’t read the future
Used for measuring how well your algorithm performs

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Least Recently Used (LRU) Algorithm
Use past knowledge rather than future
Replace page that has not been used in the most amount of time
Associate time of last use with each page

12 faults – better than FIFO but worse than OPT

Generally good algorithm and frequently used

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 LRU Algorithm (Cont.)
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 find
smallest value
 Search through table needed
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
But each update more expensive
No search for replacement
LRU and OPT are cases of stack algorithms that don’t have
Belady’s Anomaly

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Second-Chance (clock) Page-Replacement Algorithm

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Enhanced Second-Chance Algorithm

Improve algorithm by using reference bit and modify bit (if

available) in concert
Take ordered pair (reference, modify)
1. (0, 0) neither recently used not modified – best page to replace
2. (0, 1) not recently used but modified – not quite as good, must
write out before replacement
3. (1, 0) recently used but clean – probably will be used again soon
4. (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 clock scheme but
use the four classes replace page in lowest non-empty class
Might need to search circular queue several times

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Counting Algorithms

Keep a counter of the number of references that have been made

to each page
Not common

Least Frequently Used (LFU) Algorithm: replaces page with

smallest count

Most Frequently Used (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 – 9th Edition 9.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Page-Buffering Algorithms
Keep a pool of free frames, always
Then frame available when needed, not found at fault time
Read page into free frame and select victim to evict and add
to free pool
When convenient, evict victim
Possibly, keep list of modified pages
When backing store otherwise idle, write pages there and set
to non-dirty
Possibly, keep free frame contents intact and note what is in them
If referenced again before reused, no need to load contents
again from disk
Generally useful to reduce penalty if wrong victim frame
selected

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thrashing
If a process does not have “enough” pages, the page-fault rate is
very high
Page fault to get page
Replace existing frame
But quickly need replaced frame back
This leads to:
 Low CPU utilization
 Operating system 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Demand Paging and Thrashing
Why does demand paging work? Locality model
Process migrates from one locality to another

Locality In A Memory-Reference Pattern ->

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Working-Set Model
  working-set window  a fixed number of page references
Example: 10,000 instructions
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
Approximation of locality
if D > m  Thrashing
Policy if D > m, then suspend or swap out one of the processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Page-Fault Frequency
More direct approach than WSS
Establish “acceptable” page-fault frequency (PFF) rate
and use local replacement policy
If actual rate too low, process loses frame
If actual rate too high, process gains frame

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 9.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013