International Business Machines Corporation

Justin R Butwell

Casper A Scalzi

Carl Edward Clark

Richard J Schmalz

Kenneth E Plambeck

Michael Gerard Mall

Richard I Baum

Alan G Ganek

Terry L Borden

James Lum

John Ted Rodell

Ronald M Smith

David E Stucki

Julian Thomas

David Richard Page

John L Burk

A program authorization mechanism for authorizing access to an address space in the main memory of a computer system by a program being run under a multiple address space facility. An access-list entry is associated with each address space, each access-list entry being designated by an access-list-entry token contained in an access register. Each access-list entry includes a private indicator which indicates if the associated address space can be accessed by all programs from this access-list entry or if the associated address space can only be accessed by an authorized program. For program to be authorized, an extended authorization index in a control register must match an access-list extended authorization index in the access-list entry, or the extended authorization index value must be authorized in an authority table associated with the address space. An instruction for testing a given extended authorization index for a given access-list-entry is also disclosed.

Authorization for selective program access to data in multiple address

A method and apparatus is provided to translate the contents of access registers into information for use in performing addressing functions for multiple virtual address spaces. The access registers represent the full addressing capability of the system but do not directly contain the addressing information. The system has a plurality of general purpose registers, a plurality of access registers associated with the general registers, an access list having access list entries which is addressed by the contents of the access register, memory storage for holding address space number second table entries (ASTE), where the contents of the access list entry locate the ASTE and where the ASTE contains the addressing information needed to translate a virtual address when combined with the contents of a general purpose register. Access register translation (ART) consists of the process of determining addressing information by using the access list entry and the ASTE. The results of the ART process are stored in an ART lookaside buffer (ALB) which stores the results of ART while valid for later use.

Multiple address space token designation, protection controls,

The embodiment provides selective supervisory disablement of fetch protection for a special storage subarea (such as for the first half of the first 4KB block) while fetch protection is enabled for an area containing the subarea by a single storage protect key. That is, the fetch protect for the subarea (normally provided in the fetch protect for the entire area) by the area's protect key is overriden by the selective subarea disablement control, so that accesses to the subarea are not fetch protected by the storage key. The override protection control is secured by its enablement via a field position in a control register only accessible to supervisory programming. Thus, while fetch protection is set on for a predefined 4KB block, the fetch protect override controls can disable the fetch protection for a portion of the block's real addresses (e.g. addresses 0-2047).

Storage fetch protect override controls

The detailed embodiment associates access registers (AR's) with the general purpose registers (GPR's) in a data processor. The AR's are each loaded with a unique STD (segment table descriptor). The STD comprises a segment table address in main storage and a segment table length field. There are 15 AR's associated respectively with 15 GPR's in a processor to define a subset of up to 15 data address spaces. The STD in an AR is selected for address translation when the associated GPR is selected as a storage operand base register, such as being the GPR selected by the B-field in an IBM System/370 instruction. The invention allows each AR to specify that it does not use the STD in its associated AR to define its data address space, but instead uses the STD in the program address space AR. However, the STD content of an AR is not selected for an address translation if the associated GPR is selected for a purpose other than as a storage operand base register, such as if a GPR is selected as an index (X) register or as a data source or sink register (R) for an instruction. A sixteenth AR may be provided to define and control the executing program address space, which may also contain data. The embodiment obtains authority and other control for access to and use of the content in each address space by also associating an AR Control Vector (ARCV) register with each AR.

Address generating mechanism for multiple virtual spaces

Growing community of inventors

Milton, NY, United States of America

Justin R Butwell