this is a simple program to illustrate how page tables work in x86_64 linux. the best explanation i've found for x86_64 page tables is https://os.phil-opp.com/page-tables/ the pagetables program uses CR3 (the register that points to the top level page table to resolve a virtual memory address (one of the program's functions. unfortunately, (unless you are security concious then you would be super happy!) so we need a kernel module to allow us to access CR3 and the physical memory. when you build and insmod cr3.ko in the kernel-module directory you will get /proc/cr3 and /proc/page_reader that will give you access to CR3 and physical pages. pagetable.c will use those two files to resolve virtual addresses. /proc/page_reader doesn't totally compromise the OS, so you will need to run pagetable as root. here is a sample execution after your git clone: $ make $ cd kernel-module $ make $ sudo insmod ./cr3.ko $ cd .. $ sudo ./pagetables ... lots of interesting data ...