Virtual Memory

2.1 Explain how a virtual address is converted into a physical address using a multi-level page table. You may use a concrete example e.g. a 64bit machine with 4KB pages.

• How long is the offset?
• Page size: 4KB = 2^12B -> offset bits points to each Byte -> need 2^12 different address from offset bits -> offset is log_2⁡〖2^12〗 = 12 bits
• You take the rest of the bits and split it up evenly among the level of page tables. |——–VPN1——–|——–VPN2——–|——–VPN3——–|——–Offset——–|

top_level = top_levels[process] level1 = top_level[VPN1] level2 = level1[VPN2] level3 = level2[VPN3] address = level3 + Offset

2.5 What is a page fault? When is it an error? When is it not an error?

• Page fault – When a running program tries to access some virtual memory in its address space that is not mapped to physical memory. There are three types
• Major - The page is on disk and needs to be loaded into memory (disk I/O)
• Minor – No mapping for the page, but valid address (no disk I/O)
• Invalid - If the memory that is trying to be accessed is not part of the memory mapping (virtual address space), meaning there cannot be a page in memory corresponding to it, then this kind of error is generated. The operating system usually segfault
• When it’s an Error - Invalid
• When it’s not an Error - Major or Minor

2.6 What is Spatial and Temporal Locality? Swapping? Swap file? Demand Paging?

• Spatial Locality - Objects in adjacent memory addresses get used (think arrays). That is why a page table is a certain size.
• Temporal Locality - Objects get used over time the TLB is where takes advantage of that
• Swapping - Taking a page in memory and burns to disk.
• Swap File - It is a specific file on disk that the pages get written to. Another solution is to have swap space partition.
• Demand Paging - Only allocate pages as the process requests them