What is Copy-on-write?

Sharing duplicated memory with the original at first and copying a page only when either side tries to write it. It speeds process creation and saves memory.

Field: OS & Hardware

Copy-on-write in the explanations

Questions that mention Copy-on-write (5)

  1. What is the advantage of using copy-on-write when duplicating a process?
  2. When 100 processes use the same shared library, how is physical memory used?
  3. With FIFO page replacement, adding physical pages can sometimes increase page faults. What is this phenomenon called?
  4. What mechanism mainly lets the OS reclaim the CPU at regular intervals, even from programs that never give it up voluntarily, and switch to other processes?
  5. What is it called when a guest OS executes a privileged instruction, control passes to the hypervisor, and the hypervisor reproduces the instruction's effect on its behalf?

Related terms

Page fault Shared library Thrashing Interrupt Interrupt handler Hypervisor Demand paging ASID Context switch Device driver

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