What is Page table?

A table recording the mapping from virtual page numbers to physical page numbers. The OS builds one per process, and the CPU's MMU walks it to translate addresses. Each entry also holds protection bits.

Field: OS & Hardware

Page table in the explanations

Questions that mention Page table (6)

  1. What is the role of a page table?
  2. With 32-bit virtual addresses, 4 KB pages and 4-byte page-table entries, how large is a single-level page table?
  3. With 48 virtual address bits in use, 4 KB pages and 512-entry (9-bit) tables at each level, how many levels must a multilevel page table walk?
  4. During a context switch, what must be saved for the process being switched out?
  5. With 4 KB pages, which pair gives the page number and offset of the 32-bit virtual address 0x00403ABC?
  6. On a multicore system, when the OS modifies a page-table entry to revoke a mapping, what must be done?

Related terms

TLB (translation lookaside buffer) Virtual memory Context switch Stack pointer TLB shootdown ASID Copy-on-write Demand paging Device driver Hypervisor

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