Operating Systems · Memory virtualization

Address spaces

Each process's private view of memory, starting at zero, that the OS maps onto real physical RAM.

Also known as: virtual address space, memory virtualization.

Start a lesson on Address spaces

Learn first

• The process abstraction: A running program's isolated illusion of its own CPU and memory, tracked by the OS as a process control block.

Leads to

• Free-space memory allocation: How the OS carves up physical memory among processes, and tracks the resulting free space.
• Paging: Splitting memory into fixed-size pages so a process's address space doesn't need to sit in one contiguous block.
• Virtual machines and containers: Running an entire guest OS, or a lightweight container, on top of a host OS or hypervisor.

Related topics

• Paging: Splitting memory into fixed-size pages so a process's address space doesn't need to sit in one contiguous block.
• Free-space memory allocation: How the OS carves up physical memory among processes, and tracks the resulting free space.