Operating Systems

Start Lecture #8

Running Multiple Programs Without a Memory Abstraction

This can be done via swapping if you have only one program loaded at a time. A more general version of swapping is discussed below.

One can also support a limited form of multiprogramming, similar to MFT (which is described next). In this limited version, the loader relocates all relative addresses, thus permitting multiple processes to coexist in physical memory the way your linker permitted multiple modules in a single process to coexist.

**Multiprogramming with Fixed Partitions

Two goals of multiprogramming are to improve CPU utilization, by overlapping CPU and I/O, and to permit short jobs to finish quickly.

• This scheme was used by IBM for system 360 OS/MFT (multiprogramming with a fixed number of tasks).
• An alternative would have a single input list instead of one queue for each partition.
  • With this alternative, if there are no big jobs, one can use the big partition for little jobs.
  • The single list is not a queue since would want to remove the first job for each partition.
  • I don't think IBM did this.
• You can think of the input lists(s) as the ready list(s) with a scheduling policy of FCFS in each partition.
• Each partition was monoprogrammed, the multiprogramming occurred across partitions.
• The partition boundaries are not movable (must reboot to move a job).
  • So the partitions are of fixed size.
  • MFT can have large internal fragmentation, i.e., wasted space inside a region of memory assigned to a process.
• Each process has a single segment (i.e., the virtual address space is contiguous). We will discuss segments later.
• The physical address space is also contiguous (i.e., the program is stored as one piece).
• No sharing of memory between process.
• No dynamic address translation.
• OS/MFT is an example of address translation during load time.
  • The system must establish addressability.
  • That is, the system must set a register to the location at which the process was loaded (the bottom of the partition). Actually this is done with a user-mode instruction so could be called execution time, but it is only done once at the very beginning.
  • This register (often called a base register by ibm) is part of the programmer visible register set. Soon we will meet base/limit registers, which, although related to the IBM base register above, have the important difference of being outside the programmer's control or view.
  • Also called relocation.
  • In addition, since the linker/assembler allow the use of addresses as data, the loader itself relocates these at load time.
• Storage keys are adequate for protection (the IBM method).
• An alternative protection method is base/limit registers, which are discussed below.
• An advantage of the base/limit scheme is that it is easier to move a job.
• But MFT didn't move jobs so this disadvantage of storage keys is moot.

3.2 A Memory Abstraction: Address Spaces

3.2.1 The Notion of an Address Space

Just as the process concept creates a kind of abstract CPU to run programs, the address space creates a kind of abstract memory for programs to live in.

This does for processes, what you so kindly did for modules in the linker lab: permit each to believe it has its own memory starting at address zero.

Base and Limit Registers

Base and limit registers are additional hardware, invisible to the programmer, that supports multiprogramming by automatically adding the base address (i.e., the value in the base register) to every relative address when that address is accessed at run time.

In addition the relative address is compared against the value in the limit register and if larger, the processes aborted since it has exceeded its memory bound. Compare this to your error checking in the linker lab.

The base and limit register are set by the OS when the job starts.

3.2.2 Swapping

Moving an entire processes between disk and memory is called swapping.

Multiprogramming with Variable Partitions

Both the number and size of the partitions change with time.

• OS/MVT (multiprogramming with a varying number of tasks).
  
  
• Also early PDP-10 OS.
  
  
• A process still has only one segment (as with MFT). That is, the virtual address space is contiguous.
  
  
• The physical address is also contiguous, that is, the process is stored as one piece in memory.
  
  
• The job can be of any size up to the size of the machine and the job size can change with time.
  
  
• A single ready list.
  
  
• A job can move (might be swapped back in a different place).
  
  
• This is dynamic address translation (during run time).
  
  
• Must perform an addition on every memory reference (i.e. on every address translation) to add the start address of the partition (the base register).
  
  
• Called a DAT (dynamic address translation) box by IBM.
  
  
• Eliminates Internal Fragmentation, which is defined to be unusable space within a process.
  • Find a region the exact right size.
  • Not quite true, can't get a piece with 108755 bytes. Would get say 108760. But internal fragmentation is much reduced compared to MFT. Indeed, we say that internal fragmentation has been eliminated.
  
  
• Introduces external fragmentation, i.e., holes outside any region of memory assigned to a process.
  
  
• What do you do if no hole is big enough for the request?
  • Can compactify
    • Transition from bar 3 to bar 4 in diagram below.
    • This is expensive.
    • Not suitable for real time (MIT ping pong).
  • Can swap out one process to bring in another, e.g., bars 5-6 and 6-7 in the diagram.
  
  
• There are never two more holes than processes. Why?
  • Because next to a process there might be a process or a hole but next to a hole there must be a process.
  • So can have runs of processes, but not of holes.
  • If after a process one is equally likely to have a process or a hole, you get about twice as many processes as holes.
  
  
• Base and limit registers are used.
  • Storage keys would not good since compactifying or moving would require changing many keys.
  • Storage keys might need a fine granularity to permit the boundaries to move by small amounts (to reduce internal fragmentation). Hence many keys would need to be changed.

Homework: A swapping system eliminates holes by compaction. Assume a random distribution of holes and data segments, assume the data segments are much bigger than the holes, and assume a time to read or write a 32-bit memory word of 10ns. About how long does it take to compact 128 MB? For simplicity, assume that word 0 is part of a hole and the highest word in memory conatains valid data.

3.2.3 Managing Free Memory

MVT Introduces the Placement Question

That is, which hole (partition) should one choose?

• There are various algorithms for choosing a hole including best fit, worst fit, first fit, circular first fit, quick fit, and Buddy.
  • Best fit doesn't waste big holes, but does leave slivers and is expensive to run.
  • Worst fit avoids slivers, but eliminates all big holes so a big job will require compaction. Even more expensive than best fit (best fit stops if it finds a perfect fit).
  • Quick fit keeps lists of some common sizes (but has other problems, see Tanenbaum).
  • Buddy system
    • Round request to next highest power of two (causes internal fragmentation).
    • Look in list of blocks this size (as with quick fit).
    • If list empty, go higher and split into buddies.
    • When returning coalesce with buddy.
    • Do splitting and coalescing recursively, i.e. keep coalescing until can't and keep splitting until successful.
    • See Tanenbaum (look in the index) or an algorithms book for more details.
  
  
• A current favorite is circular first fit, also known as next fit.
  • Use the first hole that is big enough (first fit) but start looking where you left off last time.
  • Doesn't waste time constantly trying to use small holes that have failed before, but does tend to use many of the big holes, which can be a problem.
  
  
• Buddy comes with its own implementation. How about the others?

Homework: Consider a swapping system in which memory consists of the following hole sizes in memory order: 10K, 4K, 20K, 18K 7K, 9K, 12K, and 15K. Which hole is taken for successive segment requests of

1. 12K
2. 10K
3. 9K

Memory Management with Bitmaps

Divide memory into blocks and associate a bit with each block, used to indicate if the corresponding block is free or allocated. To find a chunk of size N blocks need to find N consecutive bits indicating a free block.

The only design question is how much memory does one bit represent.

• Big: Serious internal fragmentation.
• Small: Many bits to store and process.

Memory Management with Linked Lists

Instead of a bit map, use a linked list of nodes where each node corresponds to a region of memory either allocated to a process or still available (a hole).

• Each item on list gives the length and starting location of the corresponding region of memory and says whether it is a hole or Process.
• The items on the list are not taken from the memory to be used by processes.
• The list is kept in order of starting address.
• Merge adjacent holes when freeing memory.
• Use either a singly or doubly linked list.

MVT also introduces the Replacement Question

That is, which victim should we swap out?

This is an example of the suspend arc mentioned in process scheduling.

We will study this question more when we discuss demand paging in which case we swap out only part of a process.

Considerations in choosing a victim

• Cannot replace a job that is pinned, i.e. whose memory is tied down. For example, if Direct Memory Access (DMA) I/O is scheduled for this process, the job is pinned until the DMA is complete.
• Victim selection is a medium term scheduling decision
  • A job that has been in a wait state for a long time is a good candidate.
  • Often choose as a victim a job that has been in memory for a long time.
• Another question is how long should it stay swapped out.
• For demand paging, where swaping out a page is not as drastic as swapping out a job, choosing the victim is an important memory management decision and we shall study several policies.

1. So far the schemes presented so far have had two properties:
   1. Each job is stored contiguously in memory. That is, the job is contiguous in physical addresses.
   2. Each job cannot use more memory than exists in the system. That is, the virtual addresses space cannot exceed the physical address space.
   
   
2. Tanenbaum now attacks the second item. I wish to do both and start with the first.
   
   
3. Tanenbaum (and most of the world) uses the term paging to mean what I call demand paging. This is unfortunate as it mixes together two concepts.
   1. Paging (dicing the address space) to solve the placement problem and essentially eliminate external fragmentation.
   2. Demand fetching, to permit the total memory requirements of all loaded jobs to exceed the size of physical memory.
   
   
4. Most of the world uses the term virtual memory as a synonym for demand paging. Again I consider this unfortunate.
   1. Demand paging is a fine term and is quite descriptive.
   2. Virtual memory should be used in contrast with physical memory to describe any virtual to physical address translation.

** (non-demand) Paging

Simplest scheme to remove the requirement of contiguous physical memory.

• Chop the program into fixed size pieces called pages, which are invisible to the user. Tanenbaum sometimes calls pages virtual pages.
  
  
• Chop the real memory into fixed size pieces called page frames or simply frames.
  
  
• The size of a page (the page size) = size of a frame (the frame size).
  
  
• Sprinkle the pages into the frames.
  
  
• Keep a table (called the page table) having an entry for each page. The page table entry or PTE for page p contains the number of the frame f that contains page p.

Example: Assume a decimal machine with page size = frame size = 1000.
Assume PTE 3 contains 459.
Then virtual address 3372 corresponds to physical address 459372.

Properties of (non-demand) paging (without segmentation).

• The entire process must be memory resident to run.
• No holes, i.e., no external fragmentation.
• If there are 50 frames available and the page size is 4KB than any job requiring ≤ 200KB will fit, even if the available frames are scattered over memory.
• Hence (non-demand) paging is useful.
• Indeed, it was used (but no longer).
• Introduces internal fragmentation approximately equal to 1/2 the page size for every process (really every segment).
• Can have a job unable to run due to insufficient memory and have some (but not enough) memory available. This is not called external fragmentation since it is not due to memory being fragmented.
• Eliminates the placement question. All pages are equally good since don't have external fragmentation.
• The replacement question remains.
• Since page boundaries occur at random points and can change from run to run (the page size can change with no effect on the program—other than performance), pages are not appropriate units of memory to use for protection and sharing. But if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Segmentation, which is discussed later, is sometimes more appropriate for protection and sharing.
• Virtual address space remains contiguous.

Address translation

• Each memory reference turns into 2 memory references
  1. Reference the page table
  2. Reference central memory
• This would be a disaster!
• Hence the MMU caches page#→frame# translations. This cache is kept near the processor and can be accessed rapidly.
• This cache is called a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) or translation buffer (TB).
• For the above example, after referencing virtual address 3372, there would be an entry in the TLB containing the mapping 3→459.
• Hence a subsequent access to virtual address 3881 would be translated to physical address 459881 without an extra memory reference. Naturally, a memory reference for location 459881 itself would be required.

Choice of page size is discuss below.

Homework: Using the page table of Fig. 3.9, give the physical address corresponding to each of the following virtual addresses.

1. 20
2. 4100
3. 8300

3.3: Virtual Memory (meaning Fetch on Demand)

The idea is to enable a program to execute even if only the active portion of its address space is memory resident. That is, we are to swap in and swap out portions of a program. In a crude sense this could be called automatic overlays.

Advantages

• Can run a program larger than the total physical memory.
• Can increase the multiprogramming level since the total size of the active, i.e. loaded, programs (running + ready + blocked) can exceed the size of the physical memory.
• Since some portions of a program are rarely if ever used, it is an inefficient use of memory to have them loaded all the time. Fetch on demand will not load them if not used and will (hopefully) unload them during replacement if they are not used for a long time.
• Simpler for the user than overlays or aliasing variables (older techniques to run large programs using limited memory).

Disadvantages

• More complicated for the OS.
• Execution time less predictable (depends on other jobs).
• Can over-commit memory.

The Memory Management Unit and Virtual to Physical Address Translation

The memory management unit is a piece of hardware in the processor that translates virtual addresses (i.e., the addresses in the program) into physical addresses (i.e., real hardware addresses in the memory). The memory management unit is abbreviated as and normally referred to as the MMU.

(The idea of an MMU and virtual to physical address translation applies equally well to non-demand paging and in olden days the meaning of paging and virtual memory included that case as well. Sadly, in my opinion, modern usage of the term paging and virtual memory are limited to fetch-on-demand memory systems, typically some form of demand paging.)

** 3.3.1 Paging (Meaning Demand Paging)

The idea is to fetch pages from disk to memory when they are referenced,hoping to get the most actively used pages in memory. The choice of page size is discussed below.

Demand paging is very common: More complicated variants, multilevel-level paging and paging plus segmentation (both of which we will discuss), have been used and the former dominates modern operating systems.

Started by the Atlas system at Manchester University in the 60s (Fortheringham).

Each PTE continues to contain the frame number if the page is loaded. But what if the page is not loaded (i.e., the page exists only on disk)?

The PTE has a flag indicating if the page is loaded (can think of the X in the diagram on the right as indicating that this flag is not set). If the page is not loaded, the location on disk could be kept in the PTE, but normally it is not (discussed below).

When a reference is made to a non-loaded page (sometimes called a non-existent page, but that is a bad name), the system has a lot of work to do. We give more details below.

1. Choose a free frame, if one exists.
2. What if there is no free frame?
   Make one!
   1. Choose a victim frame. This is the replacement question about which we will have much more to say latter.
   2. Write the victim back to disk if it is dirty,
   3. Update the victim PTE to show that it is not loaded.
   4. Now we have a free frame.
3. Copy the referenced page from disk to the free frame.
4. Update the PTE of the referenced page to show that it is loaded and give the frame number.
5. Do the standard paging address translation (p#,off)→(f#,off).

Really not done quite this way

• There is always a free frame because ...
• ... there is a deamon active that checks the number of free frames and if this number is too small, chooses victims and pages them out (writing them back to disk if dirty).
• The deamon is reactivated when the low water mark passed and is suspended when the high water mark is passed.

Homework: 9.

3.3.2: Page tables

A discussion of page tables is also appropriate for (non-demand) paging, but the issues are more acute with demand paging and the tables can be much larger.
Why?

1. The total size of the active processes is no longer limited to the size of physical memory. Since the total size of the processes is greater, the total size of the page tables is greater and hence concerns over the size of the page table are more acute.
2. With demand paging an important question is the choice of a victim page to page out. Data in the page table can be useful in this choice.

We must be able access to the page table very quickly since it is needed for every memory access.

Unfortunate laws of hardware.

• Big and fast are essentially incompatible.
• Big and fast and low cost is hopeless.

So we can't just say, put the page table in fast processor registers, and let it be huge, and sell the system for $1000.

The simplest solution is to put the page table in main memory. However it seems to be both too slow and two big.

• This solution seems too slow since all memory references now require two reference.
• We will soon see how to largely eliminate the extra reference by using a TLB.
• This solution seems too big.
  • Currently we are considering contiguous virtual addresses ranges (i.e. the virtual addresses have no holes).
  • One often puts the stack at one end of the virtual address space and the global (or static) data at the other end and let them grow towards each other.
  • The virtual memory in between is unused.
  • That does not sound so bad. Why should we care about virtual memory?
  • This unused virtual memory can be huge (in address range) and hence the page table (which is stored in real memory) will mostly contain unneeded PTEs.
  • Works fine if the maximum virtual address size is small, which was once true (e.g., the PDP-11 of the 1970s) but is no longer the case.
• A fix is to use multiple levels of mapping. We will see two examples below: multilevel page tables and segmentation plus paging.

Structure of a Page Table Entry

Each page has a corresponding page table entry (PTE). The information in a PTE is used by the hardware and its format is machine dependent; thus the OS routines that access PTEs are not portable. Information set by and used by the OS is normally kept in other OS tables.

(Actually some systems, those with software TLB reload, do not require hardware access to the page table.)

The page table is indexed by the page number; thus the page number is not stored in the table.

The following fields are often present in a PTE.

1. The Frame Number. This field is the main reason for the table. It gives the virtual to physical address translation. It is the only field in the page table for (non-demand) paging.
   
   
2. The Valid bit. This tells if the page is currently loaded (i.e., is in a frame). If set, the frame number is valid. It is also called the presence or presence/absence bit. If a page is accessed whose valid bit is unset, a page fault is generated by the hardware.
   
   
3. The Modified or Dirty bit. Indicates that some part of the page has been written since it was loaded. This is needed when the page is evicted so that the OS can tell if the page must be written back to disk.
   
   
4. The Referenced or Used bit. Indicates that some word in the page has been referenced. Used to select a victim: unreferenced pages make good victims by the locality property (discussed below).
   
   
5. Protection bits. For example one can mark text pages as execute only. This requires that boundaries between regions with different protection are on page boundaries. Normally many consecutive (in logical address) pages have the same protection so many page protection bits are redundant. Protection is more naturally done with segmentation, but in many current systems, it is done with paging (since the systems don't utilize segmentation, even though the hardware supports it).

Why are the disk addresses of non-resident pages not in the PTE?
On most systems the PTEs are accessed by the hardware automatically on a TLB miss (see immediately below). Thus the format of the PTEs is determined by the hardware and contains only information used on page hits. Hence the disk address, which is only used on page faults, is not present.

3.3.3 Speeding Up Paging

As mentioned above, the simple scheme of storing the page table in its entirety in central memory alone appears to be both too slow and too big. We address both these issues here, but note that a second solution to the size question (segmentation) is discussed later.

Translation Lookaside Buffers (and General Associative Memory)

Note: Tanenbaum suggests that associative memory and translation lookaside buffer are synonyms. This is wrong. Associative memory is a general concept of which translation lookaside buffer is a specific example.

An associative memory is a content addressable memory. That is you access the memory by giving the value of some field (called the index) and the hardware searches all the records and returns the record whose index field contains the requested value.

For example

    Name  | Animal | Mood     | Color
    ======+========+==========+======
    Moris | Cat    | Finicky  | Grey
    Fido  | Dog    | Friendly | Black
    Izzy  | Iguana | Quiet    | Brown
    Bud   | Frog   | Smashed  | Green
  

If the index field is Animal and Iguana is given, the associative memory returns

    Izzy  | Iguana | Quiet    | Brown
  

A Translation Lookaside Buffer or TLB is an associate memory where the index field is the page number. The other fields include the frame number, dirty bit, valid bit, etc.

Note that, unlike the situation with a the page table, the page number is stored in the TLB; indeed it is the index field.

A TLB is small and expensive but at least it is fast. When the page number is in the TLB, the frame number is returned very quickly.

On a miss, a TLB reload is performed. The page number is looked up in the page table. The record found is placed in the TLB and a victim is discarded (not really discarded, dirty and referenced bits are copied back to the PTE). There is no placement question since all TLB entries are accessed at the same time and hence are equally suitable. But there is a replacement question.

Homework: 15.

Multilevel Page Tables

Recall the diagram above showing the data and stack growing towards each other. Most of the virtual memory is the unused space between the data and stack regions. However, with demand paging this space does not waste real memory. But the single large page table does waste real memory.

The idea of multi-level page tables (a similar idea is used in Unix i-node-based file systems, which we study later when we do I/O) is to add a level of indirection and have a page table containing pointers to page tables.

• Imagine one big page table, which we will (eventually) call the second level page table.
  
  
• We want to apply paging to this large table, viewing it as simply memory not as a page table. So we (logically) cut it into pieces each the size of a page. Note that many (typically 1024 or 2048) PTEs fit in one page so there are far fewer of these pages than PTEs.
  
  
• Now construct a first level page table containing PTEs that point to the pages produced in the previous bullet.
  
  
• This first level PT is small enough to store in memory. It contains one PTE for every page of PTEs in the 2nd level PT, which reduces space by a factor of one or two thousand.
  
  
• But since we still have the 2nd level PT, we have made the world bigger not smaller!
  
  
• Don't store in memory those 2nd level page tables all of whose PTEs refer to unused memory. That is use demand paging on the (second level) page table!

This idea can be extended to three or more levels. The largest I know of has four levels. We will be content with two levels.

Address Translation With a 2-Level Page Table

For a two level page table the virtual address is divided into three pieces

    +-----+-----+-------+
    | P#1 | P#2 | Offset|
    +-----+-----+-------+
  

• P#1, page number sub 1, gives the index into the first level page table.
  
  
• Follow the pointer in the corresponding PTE to reach the frame containing the relevant 2nd level page table.
  
  
• P#2 gives the index into this 2nd level page table.
  
  
• Follow the pointer in the corresponding PTE to reach the frame containing the (originally) requested page.
  
  
• Offset gives the offset in this frame where the originally requested word is located.

Do an example on the board

The VAX used a 2-level page table structure, but with some wrinkles (see Tanenbaum for details).

Naturally, there is no need to stop at 2 levels. In fact the SPARC has 3 levels and the Motorola 68030 has 4 (and the number of bits of Virtual Address used for P#1, P#2, P#3, and P#4 can be varied). More recently, x86-64 also has 4-levels.