Address Spaces

The address space of a processor is split into two subsets: the supervisor address space and the user address space. A separate user address space is associated with each user actor. The address space of an actor is also called the memory context of the actor.

A memory management module supports several different user address spaces, and performs memory context switches when required in thread scheduling.

The supervisor address space is shared by every actor, but is only accessible to threads running with the supervisor privilege level. The microkernel code and data are located in the supervisor address space.

In addition, some privileged actors, that is, supervisor actors, also use the supervisor address space. No user address space is allocated to supervisor actors.