Chapter 9: Virtual Memory

Chapter 9: Virtual Memory

 Background
 Demand Paging – Page fault
 Copy-on-Write
 Page Replacement
 Allocation of Frames
 Thrashing
Objectives
 To describe the benefits of a virtual memory system

 To explain the concepts of demand paging, page-replacement algorithms, and

allocation of page frames

 To discuss the principle of the working-set model

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
Virtual Memory That is Larger Than Physical Memory


Virtual-address Space
Shared Library Using Virtual Memory
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
 Lazy swapper – never swaps a page into memory unless page will be needed
 Swapper that deals with pages is a pager
Transfer of a Paged Memory to Contiguous Disk Space
 Valid-Invalid Bit
 With each page table entry a valid–invalid bit is associated
(v  in-memory, i  not-in-memory)
 Initially valid–invalid 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 valid–invalid bit in page table entry

is I  page fault
Page Table When Some Pages Are Not in Main Memory
 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. Get empty frame
3. Swap page into frame
4. Reset tables
5. Set validation bit = v
6. Restart the instruction that caused the page fault
Page Fault (Cont.)
 Restart instruction
 block move

 auto increment/decrement location

Steps in Handling a Page Fault
Performance of Demand Paging
Memory access time – ma
ma ranges from 10 to 200 nanoseconds.
When no page faults, effective access time equals
ma.
If page fault occurs, read relevant page from disk
and then access the desired word.
 Page Fault Rate 0  p  1.0 (probability of a page fault)
 if p = 0 no page faults
 if p = 1, every reference is a fault

 Effective Access Time (EAT)

EAT = (1 – p) x memory access(ma)

+ p (page fault overhead
+ swap page out
+ swap page in
+ restart overhead
)
Demand Paging 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 + p x 7,999,800

 If one access out of 1,000 causes a page fault, then

EAT = 8.2 microseconds.

This is a slowdown by a factor of 40!!
Copy-on-Write
 Process creation – fork() and exec().
 Copy-on-Write (COW) allows both parent and child processes to initially share
the same pages in memory

If either process modifies a shared page, only then is the page copied

 COW allows more efficient process creation as only modified pages are copied

 Free pages are allocated from a pool of zeroed-out pages

Before Process 1 Modifies Page C
 Pool of free pages
 Free pages are allocated using a technique – zero-fill-on-demand.
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
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
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

3. Bring the desired page into the (newly) free frame; update the
page and frame tables

4. Restart the process

Page Replacement
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

 In all our examples, the reference string is

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Graph of Page Faults Versus The Number of Frames
 First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Algorithm
 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
 Belady’s Anomaly: more frames  more page faults
FIFO Page Replacement
FIFO Illustrating Belady’s Anomaly
Optimal Algorithm
 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 4
2 6 page faults
3

4 5

 How do you know this?

 Used for measuring how well your algorithm performs
Optimal Page Replacement
Least Recently Used (LRU) Algorithm
 Reference string: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

1 1 1 1 5
2 2 2 2 2
3 5 5 4 4
4 4 3 3 3

 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 determine
which are to change
LRU Page Replacement
LRU Algorithm (Cont.)
 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
 No search for replacement
Use Of A Stack to Record The Most Recent Page References
LRU Approximation Algorithms
 Reference bit
 With each page associate a bit, initially = 0
 When page is referenced bit set to 1
 Replace the one which is 0 (if one exists)
 We do not know the order, however.

 Additional reference bits

•
Record reference bits at regular intervals.
•8-bit byte for each page in a table.
•Timer interrupt transfers control to the O.S.
•
Reference bit is shifted to the high order bit, shifting other bits to the right
and discarding low-order bit.
 Second chance
 Need reference bit
 Clock replacement algorithm
 If page to be replaced (in clock order) has reference bit = 1 then:
 set reference bit 0
 leave page in memory
 replace next page (in clock order), subject to same rules
 Enhanced second chance

• reference bit and modify bit.

• 4 possible classes,
► (0,0) – neither recently used nor modified
► (0,1) – not recently used but modified
► (1,0) – recently used but not modified
► (1,1) – recently used and modified
Second-Chance (clock) Page-Replacement Algorithm
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
Allocation of Frames
 Each process needs minimum number of pages.
 Good performance.
Allocation algorithms
 Equal allocation – For example, if there are 100 frames and 5 processes, give
each process 20 frames.
 Proportional allocation – Allocate according to the size of process
si  size of process pi
S   si
m  total number of frames
si
ai  allocation for pi  m
S
m  64
si  10
s2  127
10
a1   64  5
137
127
a2   64  59
137
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.
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

Thrashing (Cont.)
Locality In A Memory-Reference Pattern
Local replacement algorithm

If one process starts thrashing, it cannot steal frames

from another process.
Hence other processes do not thrash.
But, thrashing processes queue for the paging device.
Locality model
As process executes it moves from one locality to
another.
Locality- set of pages that are actively used together.
Working-Set Model
   working-set window  a fixed number of page references
Example: 10,000 instruction
 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 (overlap)
 if  =   will encompass entire program
 D =  WSSi  total demand frames
 if D > m  Thrashing
 Policy if D > m, then suspend one of the processes
Working-set model
Keeping Track of the Working Set
 Approximate with interval timer + a reference bit
 Example:  = 10,000
 Timer interrupts after every 5000 time units
 Keep in memory 2 bits for each page
 Whenever a timer interrupts copy and sets the values of all reference bits to
0
 If one of the bits in memory = 1  page in working set
 Why is this not completely accurate?
 Improvement = 10 bits and interrupt every 1000 time units
 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
Memory-Mapped Files
 Memory-mapped file I/O allows file I/O to be treated as routine memory access
by mapping a disk block to a page in memory

 A file is initially read using demand paging. A page-sized portion of the file is
read from the file system into a physical page. Subsequent reads/writes to/from
the file are treated as ordinary memory accesses.

 Simplifies file access by treating file I/O through memory rather than read()
write() system calls

 Also allows several processes to map the same file allowing the pages in
memory to be shared
Memory Mapped Files
Memory-Mapped Shared Memory in Windows
Allocating Kernel Memory
 Treated differently from user memory
 Often allocated from a free-memory pool
 Kernel requests memory for structures of varying sizes
 Some kernel memory needs to be contiguous
Buddy System
 Allocates memory from fixed-size segment consisting of physically-contiguous
pages
 Memory allocated using power-of-2 allocator
 Satisfies requests in units sized as power of 2
 Request rounded up to next highest power of 2
 When smaller allocation needed than is available, current chunk split into
two buddies of next-lower power of 2
 Continue until appropriate sized chunk available
Buddy System Allocator
Slab Allocator
 Alternate strategy
 Slab is one or more physically contiguous pages
 Cache consists of one or more slabs
 Single cache for each unique kernel data structure
 Each cache filled with objects – instantiations of the data structure
 When cache created, filled with objects marked as free
 When structures stored, objects marked as used
 If slab is full of used objects, next object allocated from empty slab
 If no empty slabs, new slab allocated
 Benefits include no fragmentation, fast memory request satisfaction
Slab Allocation
Other Issues -- 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
 Assume s pages are prepaged and α of the pages is used
 Is cost of s * α save pages faults > or < than the cost of prepaging
s * (1- α) unnecessary pages?
 α near zero  prepaging loses
Other Issues – Page Size
 Page size selection must take into consideration:
 fragmentation
 table size
 I/O overhead
 locality
Other Issues – TLB Reach
 TLB Reach - The amount of memory accessible from the TLB
 TLB Reach = (TLB Size) X (Page Size)
 Ideally, the working set of each process is stored in the TLB
 Otherwise there is a high degree of page faults
 Increase the Page Size
 This may lead to an increase in fragmentation as not all
applications require a large page size
 Provide Multiple Page Sizes
 This allows applications that require larger page sizes the
opportunity to use them without an increase in fragmentation
Other Issues – Program Structure
 Program structure
 Int[128,128] data;
 Each row is stored in one page
 Program 1
for (j = 0; j <128; j++)
for (i = 0; i < 128; i++)
data[i,j] = 0;

128 x 128 = 16,384 page faults

 Program 2
for (i = 0; i < 128; i++)
for (j = 0; j < 128; j++)
data[i,j] = 0;

128 page faults

Other Issues – I/O interlock
 I/O Interlock – Pages must sometimes be locked into memory

 Consider I/O - Pages that are used for copying a file from a
device must be locked from being selected for eviction by a
page replacement algorithm
Reason Why Frames Used For I/O Must Be In Memory
Operating System Examples
 Windows XP

 Solaris
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
Solaris
 Maintains a list of free pages to assign faulting processes
 Lotsfree – threshold parameter (amount of free memory) to begin paging
 Desfree – threshold parameter to increasing paging
 Minfree – threshold parameter to being swapping
 Paging is performed by pageout process
 Pageout scans pages using modified clock algorithm
 Scanrate is the rate at which pages are scanned. This ranges from slowscan to
fastscan
 Pageout is called more frequently depending upon the amount of free memory
available
Solaris 2 Page Scanner
End of Chapter 9