Access control mechanisms in a distributed, persistent memory system
A distributed, persistent memory system is considered, which implements a form of segmentation with paging within the framework of the single-address-space paradigm of memory reference. A peculiar problem of a system of this type is the lack of protection of the private information items of any given process against unauthorized access attempts possibly performed by the other processes. We present a set of mechanisms able to enforce access control over the private virtual space areas. These mechanisms guarantee a degree of protection comparable to that typical of a multiple-address-space system, while preserving the advantages of ease of information sharing, typical of the single-address-space model. The resulting environment is evaluated from a number of salient viewpoints, including ease of distribution and revocation of access rights, strategies for virtual space reuse, and the storage requirements of the information for memory management.
access control protection memory management distributed system persistent system single address space