Operatin

g
Systems:
Internals Lecture 7
and Memory
Design
Principles Management
Joram M. Makasa
 Table 7.1

Memory Management Terms

Memory Management
Requirements
 Memory management is intended to
satisfy the following requirements:
 Relocation
 Protection
 Sharing
 Logical organization
 Physical organization
 1.Relocatio
n
 Programmers typically do not know in advance which other
programs will be resident in main memory at the time of
execution of their program
 Active processes need to be able to be swapped in and out
of main memory in order to maximize processor utilization
 Specifying that a process must be placed in the same
memory region when it is swapped back in would be
limiting
 may need to relocate the process to a different area
of memory
 The reference
contains the
address of
the data – the
address in
the code has
to be
translated to
the physical
location

Execution
stack
 2.Protection
 Processes need to acquire permission to reference memory
locations for reading or writing purposes (protection against
accidental or intentional)
 Location of a program in main memory is unpredictable-
satisfying relocation makes it hard to satisfy protection
 Memory references generated by a process must be
checked at run time in order to refer to only memory space
allocated to the process at run time
 Mechanisms that support relocation also support protection
 Memory protection requirement is satisfied by the processor
but not the OS , it cannot anticipate future memory
references this could be time consuming e.g. by aborting a
3.Sharing
 Advantageous to allow each process access to the
same copy of the program rather than have their own
separate copy
 Memory management must allow controlled access to
shared areas of memory without compromising
protection
 Mechanisms used to support relocation support
sharing capabilities
 4. Logical Organization
 Memory is organized as linear(one dimensional address
space)

Programs are written in modules-Advantages:

•modules can be written and compiled independently

•different degrees of protection given to modules (read-only, execute-only)
•sharing on a module level corresponds to the user’s way of viewing the problem
 Segmentation (memory management technique) is the
tool that most readily satisfies the requirements above
 Physical
Organization
Cannot leave the Memory available Programmer does
programmer with for a program plus not know how
the responsibility to its data may be much space will be
manage memory insufficient available

overlaying allows
various modules to be
Highest level of assigned the same
region of memory but
memory is time consuming to The flow of information
organization: program
between these two types
-main of memories is of concern.
memory( for The programmer cannot
temporary use manage memory because
-secondary of the above reasons
memory (for
permanent use) Movement of data between the two memories is a task of
memory management
Memory Partitioning
 Memory management key operations is to bring
processes into main memory for execution by the
processor
 involves virtual memory
 Which is based on segmentation and paging
 Partitioning- is a simpler technique
 used in several variations in some now-obsolete
operating systems
 does not involve virtual memory
 Table 7.2

Memory
Management
Techniques

(Table is on page 315 in

textbook)
 Disadvantages
 A program may be too big to fit in a partition
 program needs to be designed with the use of
overlays (larger than RAM)
 Main memory utilization is inefficient
 any program, regardless of size, occupies an
entire partition
 internal fragmentation
 wasted space due to the block of data loaded
being smaller than the partition
 Note –
unequal
Use of a partitions
scheduling
queue for
each
partition is
required

Minimizes wasted memory within a partition but partitions that do not get
their size of processes remain unused
 Disadvantages
 Thenumber of partitions specified at
system generation time limits the
number of active processes in the
system
 Small jobs will not utilize partition space
efficiently
 Dynamic
Partitioning
 Partitions are of variable length and number
 Process is allocated exactly as much memory
as it requires
 This technique was used by IBM’s mainframe
operating system, OS/MVT
 Dynamic
Partitioning

External Fragmentation

• memory becomes more and more fragmented

• memory utilization declines

Compaction

• technique for overcoming external fragmentation

• OS shifts processes so that they are contiguous
• free memory is together in one block
• time consuming and wastes CPU time
 Placement
Algorithms

Best-fit First-fit Next-fit

•chooses •begins to •begins to scan
scan memory memory from
the block from the the location of
the last
that is beginning and
placement and
closest in chooses the chooses the
first available next available
size to the block that is block that is
request large enough large enough
 Buddy
System
 Fixed partitioning scheme limits the number of active
processes and may use space inefficiently and dynamic
partitioning is more complex to maintain and has
overhead of compaction
 Buddy is a better option which is comprised of fixed and
dynamic partitioning schemes
 Space available for allocation is treated as a single
block
 Memory blocks are available of size 2K words, L ≤ K ≤
U, where
 2L = smallest size block that is allocated
 2U = largest size block that is allocated; generally 2U is the size of
the entire memory available for allocation
Leaf nodes
represent
the current
partitioning
of memory
 Addresses
Logical address- is generated by the CPU

• reference to a memory location independent of the current assignment of

data to memory-requires translation to physical addresses

Relative-type of logical address

• address is expressed as a location relative to some known point,

usually a value in a processor register.

Physical or Absolute

• actual location in main memory

 Relative Address Translation
Addresses of
instructions and
Process is data
assigned to a
running state-
the BR has the
starting
address.BR is
a special
processor
register Indicates the
ending
location of a
program
If the address is
within bounds,
execution
continues
otherwise ,
interrupt to the OS
occurs
 Paging
 Both fixed-size and variable-size partitions are inefficient in
use of memory, say how
 Partitions of memory of equal fixed-size chunks that are
relatively small is called frames
 Process is also divided into small fixed-size chunks of the
same size called pages
Pages Frames
•chunks of •available
chunks of
a process memory
 Page Table
 Base address register is not sufficient but a page table
is maintained by operating system for each process
 Contains the frame location for each page in the
process
 Processor must know how to access for the current
process
 Page table is used by processor to produce a physical
address-translation of logical to physical address for
pages is done
Four
pages
Segmentation
A program can be subdivided into segments
 may vary in length
 there is a maximum length
 Addressing consists of two parts:
 segment number
 an offset
 Similar
to dynamic partitioning (because of
unequal size)
 Eliminates internal fragmentation
 Segmentation
 Usually visible to the programmer, he/she can
assign a program and data to different
segments
 Provided as a convenience for organizing
programs and data
 For purposes of modular programming the
program or data may be further broken down
into multiple segments
 the principal inconvenience of this service is that the
programmer must be aware of the maximum segment
size limitation
 Address Translation
 Another consequence of unequal size segments
is that there is no simple relationship between
logical addresses and physical addresses
 The following steps are needed for address
translation:

Extract the Use the segment Compare the offset, The desired
number as an index expressed in the physical address is
segment rightmost m bits, to
into the process the sum of the
number as the segment table to
the length of the
segment. If the offset starting physical
leftmost n bits of find the starting address of the
is greater than or
the logical physical address of equal to the length, segment plus the
address the segment the address is invalid offset
 Summary
 Memory management  Memory
requirements partitioning
 relocation
 fixed
 protection
 sharing
partitioning
 dynamic
 logical
organization partitioning
 physical  buddy system
organization  relocation
 Paging  Segmentation