CH 9: VIRTUAL MEMORY

Virtual memory is a technique that allows execution of processes

that are not completely in memory. One of the major advantage of this scheme is that programs can be larger than the physical memory available.
separation of user logical memory from physical memory. Program would no longer be constrained by the amount of physical

memory that is available.

Bcz each program takes less space, more program could be run at

the same time.

Less I/O would be needed to load or swap each user program into

memory, Virtual memory can be implemented via:

Demand paging
Demand segmentation

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Transfer of a Paged Memory to Contiguous Disk Space

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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

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

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Valid-Invalid Bit

With each page table entry a validinvalid bit is associated (v in-memory, i not-in-memory) Initially validinvalid bit is set to i on all entries Example of a page table snapshot:
Frame # valid-invalid bit

v v v v i . i i
page table

During address translation, if validinvalid bit in page table entry

is I page fault
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Operating System Concepts 7th Edition, Feb 22, 2005

Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main Memory

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Page Fault
If there is a reference to a page, first reference to

that page will trap to operating system: page fault

1. Get empty frame

2. Swap page into frame

3. Reset tables 4. Set validation bit = v

5. Restart the instruction that caused the page fault

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Steps in Handling a Page Fault

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What happens if there is no free frame?

Page replacement find a page in memory and swap it out

Replacement algorithm selects the victim page want an algorithm which will result in minimum number of page faults

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Basic Page Replacement

1.

Find the location of the desired page on disk

2.

Find a free frame: - If there is a free frame, then use it - If there are no free frames, use a page replacement algorithm to select a victim frame Bring the desired page into the (newly) freed frame, and update the page and frame tables
Restart the interrupted instruction of the process

3.

4.

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Page Replacement
Use modify (dirty) bit to reduce overhead of page transfers

If victim page is unmodified, then no need to write it back to disk

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Page Replacement Algorithms

Want lowest page-fault rate

Subsequently low page-fault service time too

Evaluate algorithm by running it on a particular fixed

string of memory references (reference string) and computing the number of page faults on that string
FIFO page replacement Optimal page replacement LRU page replacement LRU approximation page replacement

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FIFO Page Replacement

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FIFO Hit ratio(H),missing ratio(M)

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Graph of Page Faults vs Number of Frames

Expected behavior of a good page replacement algorithm.

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First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm

Reference string (12 total refs / 5 unique): 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

3 frames (3 pages can be in memory per process)

1 2 3

1 2 3

4 1 2

5 3 4 9 page faults

4 frames (3 pages can be in memory per process)

1 2 3 4

5 1 2 3

4 5 10 page faults

2
3 4

Beladys Anomaly: More frames may yield more page faults

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FIFO Illustration of Beladys Anomaly

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Optimal Algorithm (Called OPT or MIN)

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 2 3 4 5 4 6 page faults

How do we know which page will be used latest?

We dont! OPT is impossible to implement accurately unless the order of page references is known a priori

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Optimal

Future requirement
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Reference to page 2 replaces page 7, because page 7 will not be used until reference 18, whereas page 0 will be used at 5, and page 1 at 14. The reference to page 3 replaces page 1, as page 1 will be the last of the 3 pages in the memory to be referenced again. With only 9 page faults, OPT is much better than FIFO algo. Which results in 15 faults.

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LRU replacement
The key distinction between FIFO and OPT(other than

looking backward versus forward in time) is that FIFO algo uses the time when a page was brought into the memory whereas Opt algo uses the time when a page is to be used.
If we use recent past as an approximation of the near future,

thus we can replace a page that has not been used for the longest period of time.
This approach is LEAST RECENTLY USED(LRU) algorithm. LRU replacement associates with each page the time of the

pages last use. When a page is to be replaced, LRU chooses the page that has not been used for the longest period of time.

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Least Recently Used (LRU) Algorithm

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

1 2 3 4

1 2 5 4

1 2 5 3

1 2 4 3

2
4 3

Considered good, but difficult to implement

LRU does not suffer from Beladys anomaly

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LRU

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LRU Page Replacement

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LRU Algorithm Implementations

Counter implementation

Every page entry has a counter; every time page is referenced through this entry, copy the clock value into the counter When a page needs to be replaced, linear search the counters and select the minimum value as the victim

Stack implementation

Keep a stack of page numbers in a doubly-linked form: Page referenced:

move it to the top

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Stack Records Most Recent Page References

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LRU Approximation Algorithms

Few computers provide sufficient hardware support for

true LRU page replacement. Some systems provide no hardware support, and other page replacement algorithms must have to be used. Many systems provide help, however, in the form of reference bit.
Reference bit (modified by hardware)

With each page associate a reference bit, initially = 0 When page is referenced, set reference bit to 1 Replace any victim page with reference bit = 0

The replacement sequence is partially ordered

Can be enhanced to have a sequence of reference bits

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LRU Approximation Algorithms

Second chance

Need reference bit

Treat pages as a circular queue using clock replacement If the page to be replaced has bit 0 then replace that page. If page to be replaced (in clock order) has bit = 1 then:

set reference bit 0 leave page in memory replace next page (in clock order), subject to same rules

Can be enhanced be including a modify (dirty) bit as well

(0,0) neither recently used, nor modified (best choice) (0,1) not recently used, but modified (need write-back) (1,0) recently used, but not modified (might need soon) (1,1) recently used and modified (worst choice)

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Second-Chance (Clock) Page-Replacement Algorithm

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Counting Algorithms
Keep a counter of the number of references that have been

made to each page

Least Frequently Used (LFU) Algorithm:

Replaces page with the smallest reference count Intuition is that active pages have high reference counts

A problem arises, however, when a page is used heavily during the initial phase of the process and may never used again. But because of its large count it remains in the memory. Replaces the page with the highest reference count
Intuition is that pages with small reference counts were probably just paged into memory recently and have yet to be used in the active working set

Most Frequently Used (MFU) Algorithm:

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Global vs. Local Allocation

Local replacement

Each process selects only from its set of allocated frames Pages in memory for process P is only affected by the paging behavior of process P itself. Number of frames allocated per process doesnt change

Global replacement

Replacement frames selected from the set of all frames

Processes can steal frames from each other

Higher-priority processes may increase frame allocation Usually results in better system throughput

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Thrashing
If the number of frames allocated to a low priority process falls

below the minimum number required by the computer architecture , If a process does not have enough pages in memory, it will quickly page fault at this point it must replace some page. Since all the pages are active in use, it must replace a page that will be needed again right away. Consequently, it page faults again, and again and again. the page-fault rate can be very high. This leads to:

Low CPU utilization and low throughput OS attempts to increase the degree of multiprogramming Another process added to the system Even more page faults ensue.

Thrashing a process is busy swapping pages in and out This high paging activity is called thrashing.

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Thrashing

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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

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Prepaging
Prepaging

To reduce the large number of page faults that occurs at process startup Prepage all or some of the pages a process will need, before they are referenced But if prepaged pages are unused, I/O and memory was wasted

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End of Chapter 9