Operating Systems

Main Memory
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 in one CPU clock (or less)
❏ Main memory can take many cycles, causing a stall, since it does not have the data required to
complete the instruction that it is executing
❏ Cache sits between main memory and CPU registers for fast access
❏ Protection of memory required to ensure correct operation
Base and Limit Registers
● A pair of base and limit registers define the logical address space
● CPU must check every memory access generated in user mode to be sure it is between base and limit for that
user
Hardware Address Protection
Operating Systems
Address Space
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
Memory-Management Unit (MMU)
● MMU - Hardware device that at run time maps virtual to
physical address
● consider simple scheme where the value in the relocation register
is added to every address generated by a user process at the time
it is sent to memory
○ Base register now called relocation register
○ MS-DOS on Intel 80x86 used 4 relocation registers
● 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
Dynamic Loading
● 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
○ Implemented through program design
○ OS can help by providing libraries to implement
dynamic loading
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

 Operating Systems
Contiguous Allocation
Contiguous Allocation
❑ Main memory must accommodate both OS and user processes

❑ Limited resource, must allocate efficiently

❑ Contiguous allocation is one early method

❑ Main memory usually divided 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

Contiguous Allocation
● 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
Multiple-partition allocation
● Multiple-partition allocation:
○ Fixed-sized 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 Systems
Dynamic Memory
Allocation
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
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
● For First fit, statistical analysis reveals that given N blocks allocated,
another 0.5 N blocks lost to fragmentation
○ 1/3 may be unusable -> 50-percent rule
● 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
Operating Systems
Segmentation
Segmentation
● Memory-management scheme that supports user view of
memory

● A program is a collection of segments

○ A segment is a logical unit such as:
main program
procedure
function
method
object
local variables, global variables
common block
stack
symbol table
arrays
Logical View of Segmentation
1

4
1

3 2

4
3

user space physical memory space

Segmentation Architecture
● Logical address consists of a two tuple:
<segment-number, offset>,

● Segment table – maps two-dimensional physical addresses; each table entry has:
○ base – contains the starting physical address where the segments reside in memory
○ limit – specifies the length of the segment

● Segment-table base register (STBR) points to the segment table’s location in memory

● Segment-table length register (STLR) indicates number of segments used by a program;

segment number s is legal if s < STLR
Segmentation Architecture
● Protection
○ With each entry in segment table associate:
■ validation bit = 0 ⇒ illegal segment
■ read/write/execute privileges
● Protection bits associated with segments; code
sharing occurs at segment level
● Since segments vary in length, memory allocation
is a dynamic storage-allocation problem
● A segmentation example is shown in the following
diagram
Operating Systems
Paging
Paging
● Physical address space of a process can be noncontiguous; process is
allocated physical memory whenever the latter is available
○ Avoids external fragmentation
○ 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

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

○ For given logical address space 2m and page size 2n

Paging Hardware
Paging Model of Logical and Physical Memory
Paging Example

n=2 and m=4

32-byte memory
and 4-byte pages
Size of Page
● 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

● Process view and physical memory now very different

● By implementation process can only access its own memory

Free Frames

Before allocation After allocation

Operating Systems
Implementation
of Page Table
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 associative memory or translation
look-aside buffers (TLBs)
Associative Memory
● Associative memory – parallel search

● Address translation (p, d)

○ If p is in associative register, get frame # out
○ Otherwise get frame # from page table in memory
Paging Hardware With TLB
Effective Access Time
● Associative Lookup = ε time unit
○ Can be < 10% of memory access time

● Hit ratio = α
○ Hit ratio – percentage of times that a page number is found in the
associative registers;

● Consider α = 80%, ε = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for memory access

● Effective Access Time (EAT):

● Consider α = 80%, ε = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for memory access
○ EAT = 0.80 x 120 + 0.20 x 200 = 136ns

● Consider more realistic hit ratio -> α = 99%, ε = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for
memory access
○ EAT = 0.99 x 120 + 0.01 x 200 = 120.8ns
Operating Systems
Shared Pages
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 inter-process 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
Shared Pages Example