Abstract
Memory failures are quite common in todays technology. When they occur, the whole memory bank has to be replaced, even if only few bytes of memory are faulty. With increasing sizes of memory chips the urge not to waste these ‘not quite properly working’ pieces of equipment becomes bigger and bigger. Operating systems such as Linux already provide mechanisms for memory management which could be utilized to avoid allocating bad memory blocks which have been identified earlier, allowing for a failure-free software operation despite hardware problems. The paper describes problems of detecting memory failures and OS mechanisms that can be used for bad block exclusion. It proposes modifications to Linux kernel allowing a software solution to hardware failures.
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Surmacz, T., Zawistowski, B. (2011). Bad Memory Blocks Exclusion in Linux Operating System. In: Zamojski, W., Kacprzyk, J., Mazurkiewicz, J., Sugier, J., Walkowiak, T. (eds) Dependable Computer Systems. Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, vol 97. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21393-9_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21393-9_17
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