Design and implementation of a portable shared memory server

Processes communicate between one another using mechanisms like message passing, files, shared memory, etc. In current systems, shared memory is not commonly used even though it has many advantages over message passing and file sharing such as simplicity, efficiency, and lower space overhead. This thesis looks into the issues that limit the use of the shared memory paradigm in present day software. A study of various implementations for sharing memory was made to determine their advantages and limitations. Based on this survey, a shared memory server was designed and implemented to address some of the problems. The functionalities provided by this server include portability, a simple user interface, mapping at a fixed address, and support for transparent growth of shared regions. Two application programs were modified to use shared memory for interprocess communication and demonstrate its effectiveness as an alternate mechanism. The programs were shown to be simpler and more efficient when using shared memory.