Storage Protection Keys on AIX Version 5.3

Most application programmers have experienced the inadvertent memory overlay problem where a piece of code in one code component accidentally wrote to a memory location that is not part of the component’s memory domain. This paper will describe a new hardware feature called storage protection keys, or storage keys for short, that will assist the application programmer in locating these inadvertent memory overlays. The storage protection keys application programming interface (API) for user space applications is available in AIX® Technology Level 5300-06 and is supported on all IBM System p™ POWER6™ processor-based servers running this technology level.