CS 4284 Systems Capstone Virtual Memory Paging Techniques

CS 4284 Systems Capstone Virtual Memory – Paging Techniques Godmar Back

Demand paging • Idea: only keep data in memory that’s being used – Needed for virtualization – don’t use up physical memory for data processes don’t access • Requires that actual allocation of physical page frames be delayed until first access • Many variations – Lazy loading of text & data, mmapped pages & newly allocated heap pages – Copy-on-write CS 4284 Spring 2015

Lazy Loading FFFF P 1 Pintos loads the first process … C 0400000 1 GB Pintos then starts the first process … C 0000000 Process faults because code page is not present … kheap kbss kdata kcode ustack (1) Process faults when touching address in data segment … 3 GB stack page was allocated eagerly udata (1) ucode (1) data + code pages are noted in page table, but no physical frame has been allocated 0 CS 4284 Spring 2015 free user (1) kernel used

Stack Growth FFFF P 1 Pintos loads the first process … C 0400000 1 GB Pintos then starts the first process … kheap kbss kdata kcode ustack (1) ustack (2) 3 GB C 0000000 Process faults because code page is not present … Process calls recursive function or allocates large local variable page fault at about here udata (1) ucode (1) 0 CS 4284 Spring 2015 free user (1) kernel used

Microscopic View of Stack Growth 0 x 8000 esp = 0 x 8004 esp = 0 x 8000 push $ebp sub $20, $esp push $eax push $ebx esp = 0 x 7 FEC esp = 0 x 7 FE 8 esp = 0 x 7 FE 4 • Page Fault! intr 0 e_stub: … call page_fault() … iret void page_fault() { get fault addr if it’s close to user $espunless f eip Can resumedetermine after page fault (and Yes: allocate page frame changed) this will retry the faulting instruction install page in page table (here: push $eax) No: terminate process } – MMU will walk hardware page table again CS 4284 Spring 2015 is

Fault Resumption • Requires that faulting CPU instruction be restartable – Most CPUs are designed this way • Very powerful technique – Entirely transparent to user program: user program is frozen in time until OS decides what to do • Can be used to emulate lots of things – Programs that just ignore segmentation violations (!? ) (here: resume with next instruction – retrying would fault again) – Subpage protection (protect entire page, take fault on access, check if address was to an valid subpage region) – Virtual machines (original IBM/360 design was fully virtualizable; vmware, qemu – run entire OS on top of another OS) – Garbage collection (detect how recently objects have been accessed) – Distributed Shared Memory CS 4284 Spring 2015

Distributed Shared Memory • Idea: allows accessing other machine’s memory as if it were local • Augment page table to be able to keep track of network locations: – local virtual address (remote machine, remote address) • On page fault, send request for data to owning machine, receive data, allocate & write to local page, map local page, and resume – Process will be able to just use pointers to access all memory distributed across machines – fully transparent • Q. : how do you guarantee consistency? – Lots of options CS 4284 Spring 2015

Heap Growth FFFF P 1 Pintos loads the first process … C 0400000 1 GB Pintos then starts the first process … 3 GB C 0000000 Process faults because code page is not present … kheap kbss kdata kcode ustack (1) udata (2) udata (1) ucode (1) Process needs memory to place malloc() objects in Process faults when touching new memory Process calls sbrk(addr) 0 CS 4284 Spring 2015 free user (1) kernel used

mmap() FFFF P 1 Pintos loads the first process … C 0400000 1 GB Pintos then starts the first process … 3 GB C 0000000 Process faults because code page is not present … kheap kbss kdata kcode ustack (1) ummap (1) Process opens file, calls mmap(fd, addr) Process faults when touching mapped file Page fault handler allocs page, maps it, reads data from disk: udata (1) ucode (1) 0 CS 4284 Spring 2015 free user (1) kernel used

Copy-On-Write • Sometimes, want to create a copy of a page: – Example: Unix fork() creates copies of all parent’s pages in the child • Optimization: – Don’t copy pages, copy PTEs – now have 2 PTEs pointing to frame – Set all PTEs read-only – Read accesses succeed – On Write access, copy the page into new frame, update PTEs to point to new & old frame • Looks like each have their own copy, but postpone actual copying until one is writing the data – Hope is at most one will ever touch the data – never have to make actual copy CS 4284 Spring 2015

Lazy Loading & Prefetching • Typically want to do some prefetching when faulting in page – Reduces latency on subsequent faults • Q. : how many pages? which pages? – Too much: waste time & space fetching unused pages – Too little: pay (relatively large) page fault latency too often • Predict which pages the program will access next (how? ) • Let applications give hints to OS – If applications knows – Example: madvise(2) – Usual conflict: what’s best for application vs what’s best for system as a whole CS 4284 Spring 2015

maps to page-in mapping in currently inactive page table (1 set per process) user virtual page in a process‘s address space, page is present/resident page-out mmap sbrk(POS) kernel space user space mapping in currently active page table (1 set per CPU for current process) page (frame) of physical DRAM Process 1 vaddr munmap sbrk(NEG) user virtual page in a process‘s address space, page is not present; OS will page-in on demand unused virtual address space accesses here lead to SIGSEGV kernel virtual address space; accesses here lead to SIGSEGV CS 4284 Spring 2015

kernel space user space Process 1 vaddr Physical DRAM Process 2 vaddr CS 4284 Spring 2015 Process 3 vaddr

kernel space user space Process 1 vaddr Physical DRAM Process 2 vaddr CS 4284 Spring 2015 Process 3 vaddr

kernel space user space Process 1 vaddr Physical DRAM Process 2 vaddr CS 4284 Spring 2015 Process 3 vaddr

kernel space user space Process 1 vaddr Physical DRAM On-demand Paging Process 2 vaddr CS 4284 Spring 2015 Process 3 vaddr

kernel space user space mmap() Process 1 vaddr Physical DRAM Process 2 vaddr CS 4284 Spring 2015 Process 3 vaddr

kernel space user space read from file Process 1 vaddr evicted to swap Physical DRAM Process 2 vaddr CS 4284 Spring 2015 Process 3 vaddr

Page Eviction • Suppose page fault occurs, but no free physical frame is there to allocate • Must evict frame – Find victim frame (how – later) – Find & change old page table entry pointing to the victim frame – If data in it isn’t already somewhere on disk, write to special area on disk (“swap space”) – Install in new page table entry – Resume • Requires check on page fault if page has been swapped out – fault in if so • Some subtleties with locking: – How do you prevent a process from writing to a page some other process has chosen to evict from its frame? – What do you do if a process faults on a page that another process is in the middle of paging out? CS 4284 Spring 2015

Page Eviction Example PTE: process id = ? (if appl. ), virtual addr = ? , dirty bit = ? , accessed bit = ? , Process A needs a frame decides it wants this frame Q. : how will it find the PTE, if any, that points to it? victim frame: phys addr = … Linux uses a so-called “rmap” for that links frames to PTE CS 4284 Spring 2015

Managing Swap Space • Continuous region on disk – Preferably on separate disk, but typically a partition on same disk • Different allocation strategies are possible – Simplest: when page must be evicted, allocate swap space for page; deallocate when page is paged back in – Or: allocate swap space upfront – Should page’s position in swap space change? What if same page is paged out multiple times? • Can be managed via bitmap 0100100000001 – Free/used bits for each page that can be stored – Pintos: note 1 page == 8 sectors CS 4284 Spring 2015

Locking Frames • Aka “pinned” or “wired” pages or frames • If another device outside the CPU (e. g. , DMA by network controller) accesses a frame, it cannot be paged out – Device driver must tell VM subsystem about this • Also required if you want to avoid a page fault while kernel code is accessing a user address, such as during a system call. CS 4284 Spring 2015

Accessing User Pointers & Paging • Kernel must check that user pointers are valid – P 2: easy, just check range & page table • Harder when swapping: – validity of a pointer may change between check & access (if another process sneaks in and selects frame mapped to an already checked page for eviction) • Possible solution: – verify & lock, then access, then unlock • (Alternative is to certain handle page faults on user addresses in kernel mode) • Read 4. 3. 5 carefully. if (verify_user(addr)) process_terminate(); // what if addr’s frame is just now // swapped out by another process? *addr = value; CS 4284 Spring 2015