Andrew login ID:

Full Name:

Recitation Section:

CS 15-213, Spring 2009

Exam 2
Tues., April 7th, 2009

Instructions:

• Make sure that your exam is not missing any sheets, then write your full name, Andrew login ID, and
recitation section (A–J) on the front.

• Do not write any part of your answers outside of the space given below each question. Write
clearly and at a reasonable size. If we have trouble reading your handwriting you will receive
no credit on that problem.

• The exam has a maximum score of 100 points.

• The problems are of varying difficulty. The point value of each problem is indicated. Pile up the easy
points quickly and then come back to the harder problems.

• This exam is OPEN BOOK. You may use any books or notes you like. No calculators or other
electronic devices are allowed.

• Good luck!

1 (20):

2 (15):

3 (15):

4 (15):

5 (10):

6 (25):

TOTAL (100):

Page 1 of 11
Problem 1. (20 points):
We consider the following program:

typedef double matrix[2][8]

double comp(matrix A) {
int i;
double t = 1000.0;

for (i = 0; i < 7; i++) { // note: 7 not 8 because of the boundary

t = t/(A[0][i] + A[0][i+1]);
t = t/(A[1][i] + A[1][i+1]);
}

return t;
}

We assume that a double requires 8 bytes, and that the array is cache aligned (that is A[0][0] is mapped to
the first set and the first position in a cache block. Further, A has been initialized to contain only positive
numbers.
We assume a cold cache and ignore i and t in the cache analysis (they are held in registers). Recall that the
misses .
miss rate is defined as ##accesses
Hint: It helps to draw the cache and the array.

1. How many times is A accessed in this program?

2. The cache is direct mapped, has a size of 64 bytes, and 4 sets.

(a) How many doubles fit into one cache block?

(b) What is the miss rate of the above program?

3. The cache is 2-way set associative, has a size of 128 bytes, and 4 sets.

(a) How many doubles fit into one cache block?

(b) What is the miss rate of the above program?

Page 2 of 11
Problem 2. (15 points):

1. What is the purpose of the TLB?

(a) Offers read/write protection to critical parts of memory

(b) Speeds up the process of swapping pages to and from disk storage
(c) Acts as a cache in the virtual to physical address translation
(d) Manages the two-level page table system

2. You have a 32-bit virtual memory system with 4KB page frames, with a TLB with 4 sets, each of
which is 8-way set associative. How many bits of the virtual address form the TLBi (TLB index)?

(a) 2
(b) 4
(c) 8
(d) 12

3. Which of these features in a system best justifies the use of a two level page table structure, as opposed
to a one level page table structure?

(a) Small page sizes

(b) Frequent memory accesses
(c) High degree of spatial locality in programs
(d) Sparse memory usage patterns

4. Which section of an ELF file is initialized to zeros upon program startup?

(a) .data
(b) .rodata
(c) .text
(d) .bss

5. Which of the following is true?

(a) Every signal that is sent is also received

(b) Signals are always received immediately since they cause an interrupt
(c) Signals can only be received after a context switch
(d) Signals can only be received upon return from system mode

Page 3 of 11
 6. Consider a 32-bit x86 computer with 2-level address translation; page directory, page tables, and pages
are all 4KB in size. How much total memory will be used by the page directory and page table(s) of
a process that has the minimum amount of address space mapped for the following addresses to be
valid: 0x01234000, 0x01235678, 0x01234567, 0xdeadbeef.

(a) 8KB
(b) 12KB
(c) 16KB
(d) 20KB

7. Consider a theoretical computer architecture with 50-bit virtual addresses and 16kb pages. What is
the maximum number of levels of page tables that could be used in the virtual memory system?

(a) 16
(b) 36
(c) 2
(d) 50

8. If a process contains if(!fork()) execve(...), what aspects of virtual memory do the child and parent
share after execve()?

(a) stack space

(b) heap space
(c) read only space
(d) nothing

9. Which of the following caches (all having the same size) will have the least number of conflict misses:

(a) A direct-mapped cache

(b) A fully associative cache
(c) The associativity does not matter for conflict misses

10. Give two functions that can return twice.

11. A handler will not stop which of the following signals

(a) SIGALRM
(b) SIGKILL
(c) SIGTERM
(d) SIGABRT

Page 4 of 11
Problem 3. (15 points):
Suppose we have the following two .c files:
alarm.c

int counter;

void sigalrm_handler (int num) {

counter += 3;
}

int main (void) {

signal(SIGALRM, &sigalrm_handler);
counter = 4;
alarm(1);
sleep(1);
counter -= 2;
exit(counter);
return 0;
}

fork.c

int counter;

void sigchld_handler(int num) {

int i;
wait(&i);
counter += WEXITSTATUS(i);
}

int main (void) {

signal(SIGCHLD, &sigchld_handler);
counter = 1;
if (!fork()) {
counter++;
execl("alarm", "alarm", NULL);
}
sleep(2);
counter *= 2;
printf("%d\n", counter);
exit(0);
}

Assume that all system calls succeed and that all C arithmetic statements are atomic.
The files are compiled as follows:
gcc -o alarm alarm.c
gcc -o fork fork.c
Suppose we run ./fork at the terminal. What are the possible outputs to the terminal?

Page 5 of 11
Problem 4. (15 points):
Harry Q. Bovik builds and runs a C program from the following two files:

----------------------------------------
main.c:

#include <stdio.h>

long a = 1;
const long b = 2;
long c;
long d = -1;

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {

printf("a: %p\nb: %p\nc: %p\nd: %p\n", &a, &b, &c, &d);
printf("%ld\n", c);
return 0;
}
----------------------------------------
data.c:

unsigned int c[2] = {...};

----------------------------------------

And sees this output:

a: 0x601020
b: 0x400650
c: 0x601030
d: 0x601028
4294967297

Harry was expecting the variables to be in order, one after another. Obviously, he was very wrong. Help
him figure out what’s happening using your knowledge of linking and executable layouts. Be specific but
concise with your answers.
(a) How many symbols does main.c generate in the executable program’s symbol table?

(b) What are the strong symbols from main.c, and what are the weak symbols from main.c?

Page 6 of 11
(c) Note the address of b. Why is it far removed from the addresses of the other variables?

(d) Why is c located after d in memory, even though it’s before d in Harry’s program?

(e) Note the output given by the final printf. Was Harry compiling and running the code on x86 or x86-64?
How do you know?

(f) Given that 4294967297 = 232 + 1, what would be output by

printf("{%d, %d}", c[0], c[1]);

if it were executed in data.c?

Page 7 of 11
Problem 5. (10 points):
Assume a System that has

1. A two way set associative TLB

2. A TLB with 8 total entries

3. 28 byte page size

4. 216 bytes of virtual memory

5. one (or more) boats

TLB
Index Tag Frame Number Valid
0x27 0xC6 1
0
0x29 0x73 1
0x11 0xFF 0
1
0x0A 0xEC 1
0x29 0xCD 1
2
0x3A 0xAB 1
0x32 0xFB 0
3
0x23 0x46 0

Use the TLB to fill in the table. Strike out anything that you don’t have enough information to fill in.

Virtual Address Physical Address

0x8F0F
0x4690
0x7300
0x2933
0x2839

Page 8 of 11
Problem 6. (25 points):
Suppose a processor can support up to 64-bits of physical memory, but for binary backwards-compatibility
uses 32-bit virtual addresses. You have been assigned the task of designing a virtual memory scheme for
this processor.
You must meet the following requirements:

1. The scheme must be able to map any 32-bit virtual address to any 64-bit physical address.

2. The scheme must use a 16KB page size.

You must meet the following performance constraints in addition to the above requirements:

1. The scheme must minimize the number of physical memory accesses needed to resolve a virtual
address (that is, the scheme must minimize the number of levels of page tables).

2. The size of a page table at any level must not exceed 512 bytes.

This is your design. You may specify anything not already defined, including the size of page tables, the
size of page table entries, etc. Design your system, and then answer the following questions:
How many levels of page tables are there?

What is the size of the table at each level?

Page 9 of 11
Show the mapping of the bits of a virtual address to each level. To illustrate the notation we expect, please
follow the convention shown in the example below (the mapping for standard two-level Intel x86-32 virtual
memory). Notice that the first set of bits maps into the top level page table, the second set maps into the
second level page table, etc.

31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| | | |
| VPN 1 | VPN 2 | OFFSET |
| | | |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

Draw your mapping here:

31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| |
| |
| |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

What is the size of a page table entry at each level?

Page 10 of 11