Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: glenn@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Glenn A. Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: sticky bit
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <8902221902.AA10232@frosted-flakes.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 6 Mar 89 02:12:55 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 11
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 14:02:22 EST
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 182, message 12 of 17

> I've often wondered just what the sticky bit does in a demand-paged VM
> system.  The documentation isn't what I would call descriptive about this.
> I have a vague idea what it's suppsed to do, but what does it *actually*
> do?  --wnl

At least under 4.3BSD, it is superfluous since freed text pages and text
page tables are kept around for reclaim unless memory demands are really
heavy.  See the discussion in Leffler's "4.3BSD Implementation" for more
details.  I'm almost certain Sun's OS maintains this reclaim policy also.

Glenn Adams