The Page Fault
Explore how operating systems detect and manage page faults in virtual memory. Understand the role of the OS in swapping pages from disk to memory, updating page tables, and optimizing CPU utilization during I/O delays.
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Recall that with TLB misses, we have two types of systems: hardware-managed TLBs (where the hardware looks in the page table to find the desired translation) and software-managed TLBs (where the OS does). In either type of system, if a page is not present, the OS is put in charge to handle the page fault. The appropriately-named OS page-fault handler runs to determine what to do. Virtually all systems handle page faults in software; even with a hardware-managed TLB, the hardware trusts the OS to manage this important duty.
How the OS handles page fault
If a page is ...