Virtual Memory (OS)

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An abstraction that gives each process the illusion of a large, contiguous, private address space. The OS and hardware translate virtual addresses to physical addresses, enabling memory isolation, overcommitment, and efficient sharing.

Key Properties

• Address Translation
• Page Tables
• Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)

Related

• Paging (mechanism that implements virtual memory)
• Kernel vs User Space (virtual memory enforces privilege separation)

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operating-systems memory virtual-memory