Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Memory segmentation is an operating system memory management technique of dividing a computer's primary memory into segments or sections.In a computer system using segmentation, a reference to a memory location includes a value that identifies a segment and an offset (memory location) within that segment.
The Multics operating system is probably the best known system implementing segmented memory. Multics segments are subdivisions of the computer's physical memory of up to 256 pages, each page being 1K 36-bit words in size, resulting in a maximum segment size of 1MiB (with 9-bit bytes, as used in Multics). A process could have up to 4046 segments.
Segmentation cannot be turned off on x86-32 processors (this is true for 64-bit mode as well, but beyond the scope of discussion), so many 32-bit operating systems simulate a flat memory model by setting all segments' bases to 0 in order to make segmentation neutral to programs.
Flat memory model or linear memory model refers to a memory addressing paradigm in which "memory appears to the program as a single contiguous address space." [1] The CPU can directly (and linearly) address all of the available memory locations without having to resort to any sort of bank switching, memory segmentation or paging schemes.
Operating systems may use a technique called zero-fill-on-demand to efficiently implement the bss segment. [1] In embedded software, the bss segment is mapped into memory that is initialized to zero by the C run-time system before main() is entered. Some C run-time systems may allow part of the bss segment not to be initialized; C variables ...
The address is checked against the contents of the bounds register to prevent a process from accessing memory beyond its assigned segment. The operating system is not constrained by the hardware and can access all of physical memory. This technique protects memory used by one process against access or modification by another.
Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern instruction set architectures and operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that has not been allocated to it. This prevents a bug or malware within a process from affecting other ...
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, [1] is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as segmentation, virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking designed to increase an operating system's control over application software.