System for locking down part of portion of memory and updating page directory with entry corresponding to part of portion of the memory locked down

A data processing system for providing exchange of data between a peripheral device having a paging mechanism and application operating in a virtual machine, wherein said virtual machine is running on said data processing system and contains a block of memory having a plurality of sections of memory, said apparatus comprising:

• means for providing a page directory for exclusive use by said paging mechanism of said peripheral device in response to said application requiring usage of said peripheral device;
• means for selectively locking down a section of said block of memory within said data processing system in response to a usage of said section of memory by said application;
• and
• means for updating said page directory with an entry corresponding to said section of said block of memory locked down to allow said peripheral device access to said section of said block of memory, wherein data within said section of said block of memory is unswappable;
• and
• means for selectively updating thereafter said page directory by mapping an entry into said page directory in response to said usage of said section of said memory in order to track memory usage within said block of memory utilized by said virtual machine.

A data processing system for providing exchange of data between a peripheral device and an application, said data processing system comprising:

• a system memory;
• a peripheral device, wherein said peripheral device access data in said system memory utilizing fixed locations within said system memory;
• a page directory, wherein said page directory is for use by said peripheral device;
• a virtual machine located within said system memory, wherein said virtual machine utilizes a portion of said system memory;
• an application executing within said virtual machine, wherein said application utilizes a part of said portion of said system memory;
• locking means, responsive to use of said peripheral device by said application, for locking down said part of said portion of said system memory utilized by said application, wherein said part of said portion of system memory that is locked down is unswappable;
• and
• updating means for updating said page directory with an entry corresponding to said part of said portion of system memory that is locked down by said locking means, wherein said peripheral device utilizes said page directory to access said part of said portion of system memory that is locked down.