Conversion provides processes with version-controlled memory, allowing both strong isolation and the ability to update to receive modifications from others. Generally speaking, Conversion can be thought of us a system for controlling memory propogation between processes.
You can read more about Conversion here:
http://eurosys2013.tudos.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/paper/Merryfield.pdf
Begin by getting the conversion enabled kernel (v. 2.6.37) available here:
https://github.com/tmerrifi/conversion_linux
Compile, install and boot it before continuing.
Once this is complete, cd into the root of the conversion project (this one) and type:
make; //does an install automatically make tests;
See the file tests/simple_test/simple.c for an example of how to use Conversion.
Conversion used to be called ksnap....so some of the libraries and header files still use that name.
Creates a new conversion segment
conv_seg * conv_checkout_create(int size_of_segment,
char * segment_name, void * desired_address);Performs a commit of any modifications and retrieves all modifications to the repository since the last update. If no local modications exist, an update is still performed
void conv_fence(conv_seg * seg);The original paper described an update/commit API, but the fence call handles both case in a cleaner way.
does the same thing as conv_fence (just a longer and more specific name). Kept around to support some earlier software that used this function.
void conv_commit_and_update(conv_seg * seg);The garbage collector won't collect any versions with a higher version number than minimum version number for all "active" threads. For example, if the parent thread goes to is sleeping (waiting on a condition variable or joining) than any subsequent versions won't be collected. By calling conv_sleep, that is a hint to conversion that we don't need to worry about concurrent updates from this thread. We can collect obsolete versions without considering this thread's version number. conv_wake undoes this bahavior.
void conv_sleep(conv_seg * seg);
void conv_wake(conv_seg * seg);how many pages are currently dirty
unsigned int conv_get_dirty_page_count(conv_seg * seg); how many pages did we retrieve on our last commit?
unsigned int conv_get_updated_page_count(conv_seg * seg);how many pages were merged on our last commit?
unsigned int conv_get_merged_page_count(conv_seg * seg);