Entries from June 2009

Page-Stealer process

On June 25, 2009 / By admin / In Unix / No Comments
What is Page-Stealer process? This is the Kernel process that makes rooms for the incoming pages, by swapping the memory pages that are not the part of the working set of a process. Page-Stealer is created by the Kernel at the system initialization and invokes it throughout the lifetime of the system. Kernel locks a Read More...

Phases of swapping a page from the memory

On June 25, 2009 / By admin / In Unix / No Comments
What are the phases of swapping a page from the memory? Page stealer finds the page eligible for swapping and places the page number in the list of pages to be swapped. Kernel copies the page to a swap device when necessary and clears the valid bit in the page table entry, decrements the pfdata Read More...

BSS(Block Started by Symbol)

On June 25, 2009 / By admin / In Unix / No Comments
What is BSS(Block Started by Symbol)? A data representation at the machine level, that has initial values when a program starts and tells about how much space the kernel allocates for the un-initialized data. Kernel initializes it to zero at run-time. Read More...

Difference between the fork() and vfork() system call

On June 25, 2009 / By admin / In Unix / No Comments
Explain difference between the fork() and vfork() system call. During the fork() system call the Kernel makes a copy of the parent process’s address space and attaches it to the child process. But the vfork() system call do not makes any copy of the parent’s address space, so it is faster than the fork() system call. Read More...