Operating Systems Lecture Notes
Operating Systems Lecture Notes
Lecture Notes
OS is a resource allocator
Manages all resources
Decides between conflicting requests for efficient and fair resource
use OS is a control program
Controls execution of programs to prevent errors and improper use of the computer
No universally accepted definition
Everything a vendor ships when you order an operating system” is good
approximation But varies wildly
“The one program running at all times on the computer” is the kernel. Everything else is either
system program (ships with the operating system) or an application program
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Computer Startup
bootstrap program is loaded at power-up or reboot
Typically stored in ROM or EPROM, generally known as firmware
Initializes all aspects of system
Loads operating system kernel and starts execution
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Figure 1.3 Interrupt Timeline for a single process doing output
System call – request to the operating system to allow user to wait for I/O completion Device-status
table contains entry for each I/O device indicating its type, address, and state Operating system
indexes into I/O device table to determine device status and to modify table entry to include interrupt
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Figure 1.4 Storage Device Hierarchy
Caching
Important principle, performed at many levels in a computer (in hardware, operating system,
software) Information in use copied from slower to faster storage temporarily
Faster storage (cache) checked first to determine if information is there
If it is, information used directly from the cache (fast)
If not, data copied to cache and used there
Cache smaller than storage being cached
Cache management important design problem
Cache size and replacement policy
Computer-System Architecture
Most systems use a single general-purpose processor (PDAs through mainframes)
Most systems have special-purpose processors as well
Multiprocessors systems growing in use and importance
Also known as parallel systems, tightly-coupled systems
Advantages include
1.Increased throughput
2.Economy of scale
3.Increased reliability – graceful degradation or fault tolerance
Two types
1.Asymmetric Multiprocessing
2.Symmetric Multiprocessing
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Figure 1.5 How a Modern Computer Works Symmetric Multiprocessing Architecture
Clustered Systems
Operating-System Operations
Interrupt driven by hardware
Software error or request creates exception or trap
Division by zero, request for operating system service
Other process problems include infinite loop, processes modifying each Other or the operating system
Dual-mode operation allows OS to protect itself and other system components
User mode and kernel mode
Mode bit provided by hardware
Provides ability to distinguish when system is running user code or kernel code
Some instructions designated as privileged, only executable in kernel mode
System call changes mode to kernel, return from call resets it to user
Transition from User to Kernel Mode
Timer to prevent infinite loop / process hogging resources
Set interrupt after specific period
Operating system decrements counter
When counter zero generate an interrupt
Set up before scheduling process to regain control or terminate program that exceeds allotted time
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Figure 1.8 Transition from user to kernel mode
Process Management
A process is a program in execution. It is a unit of work within the system. Program is a passive entity,
process is an active entity.
Process needs resources to accomplish its task
CPU, memory, I/O, files
Initialization data
Process termination requires reclaim of any reusable resources
Single-threaded process has one program counter specifying location of next instruction to execute
Process executes instructions sequentially, one at a time, until completion
Multi-threaded process has one program counter per thread
Typically system has many processes, some user, some operating system running concurrently on one or
more CPUs
Concurrency by multiplexing the CPUs among the processes / threads
Memory Management
All data in memory before and after processing
All instructions in memory in order to execute
Memory management determines what is in memory when
Optimizing CPU utilization and computer response to users
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Memory management activities
Keeping track of which parts of memory are currently being used and by whom
Deciding which processes (or parts thereof) and data to move into and out of memory
Allocating and deallocating memory space as needed
Storage Management
OS provides uniform, logical view of information storage
Abstracts physical properties to logical storage unit - file
Each medium is controlled by device (i.e., disk drive, tape drive)
Varying properties include access speed, capacity, data-transfer rate, access method (sequential or
random)
File-System management
Files usually organized into directories
Access control on most systems to determine who can access what
OS activities include
Creating and deleting files and directories
Primitives to manipulate files and dirs
Mapping files onto secondary storage
Backup files onto stable (non-volatile) storage media
Mass-Storage Management
Usually disks used to store data that does not fit in main memory or data that must be kept for a
“long” period of time
Proper management is of central importance
Entire speed of computer operation hinges on disk subsystem and its algorithms
MASS STORAGE activities
Free-space management
Storage allocation
Disk scheduling
Some storage need not be fast
Tertiary storage includes optical storage, magnetic tape
Still must be managed
Varies between WORM (write-once, read-many-times) and RW (read-write)
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Figure 1.9 Performances of Various Levels of Storage
I/O Subsystem
One purpose of OS is to hide peculiarities of hardware devices from the user
I/O subsystem responsible for
Memory management of I/O including buffering (storing data temporarily while it is being transferred),
caching (storing parts of data in faster storage for performance), spooling (the overlapping of output of
one job with input of other jobs)
General device-driver interface
Drivers for specific hardware devices
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Protection and Security
Protection – any mechanism for controlling access of processes or users to resources defined by the OS
Security – defense of the system against internal and external attacks
Huge range, including denial-of-service, worms, viruses, identity theft, theft of service
Systems generally first distinguish among users, to determine who can do what
User identities (user IDs, security IDs) include name and associated number, one per user
User ID then associated with all files, processes of that user to determine access control
Group identifier (group ID) allows set of users to be defined and controls managed, then also associated
with each process, file
Privilege escalation allows user to change to effective ID with more rights
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Computing Environments
Traditional computer
Blurring over time
Office environment
PCs connected to a network, terminals attached to mainframe or minicomputers providing batch
and timesharing
Now portals allowing networked and remote systems access to same
resources Home networks
Used to be single system, then modems
Now firewalled, networked
Client-Server Computing
Dumb terminals supplanted by smart PCs
Many systems now servers, responding to requests generated by clients
Compute-server provides an interface to client to request services (i.e. database)
File-server provides interface for clients to store and retrieve files
Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient operation of the system itself via
resource sharing
Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running concurrently, resources must be
allocated to each of them
Many types of resources - Some (such as CPU cycles, main memory, and file storage) may have special
allocation code, others (such as I/O devices) may have general request and release code
Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what kinds of computer resources
Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a multiuser or networked computer
system may want to control use of that information, concurrent processes should not interfere with each
other
Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is controlled
Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication, extends to defending external
I/O devices from invalid access attempts
If a system is to be protected and secure, precautions must be instituted throughout it. A chain is only as
strong as its weakest link.
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The Mac OS X GUI
System Calls
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Example of Standard API
Consider the ReadFile() function in the
Win32 API—a function for reading from a file
The system call interface invokes intended system call in OS kernel and returns status of the system call
and any return values
The caller need know nothing about how the system call is implemented
Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will do as a result call
Most details of OS interface hidden from programmer by API
Managed by run-time support library (set of functions built into libraries included with
compiler) API – System Call – OS Relationship
Figure 2.2 The handling of a user application invoking the open() system call
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Standard C Library Example
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Types of System Calls
Process control
File management
Device management
Information maintenance
Communications
Protection
Figure 2.5 MS-DOS execution (a) At system startup (b) running a program
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System Programs
System programs provide a convenient environment for program development and execution. The can be
divided into:
File manipulation
Status information
File modification
Programming language support
Program loading and execution
Communications
Application programs
Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by system programs, not the actual system calls
Provide a convenient environment for program development and execution
Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others are considerably more complex
File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, dump, list, and generally manipulate files and
directories
Status information
Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available memory, disk space, number of users
Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging information
Typically, these programs format and print the output to the terminal or other output devices
Some systems implement a registry - used to store and retrieve configuration information
File modification
Text editors to create and modify files
Special commands to search contents of files or perform transformations of the text
Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers, debuggers and interpreters
sometimes provided
Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-
loaders, debugging systems for higher-level and machine language
Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual connections among processes, users,
and computer systems
Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse web pages, send electronic-mail
messages, log in remotely, transfer files from one machine to another
Operating System Design and Implementation
Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but some approaches have proven successful
Internal structure of different Operating Systems can vary widely
Start by defining goals and specifications
Affected by choice of hardware, type of system
User goals and System goals
User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, easy to learn, reliable, safe, and fast
System goals – operating system should be easy to design, implement, and maintain, as well as
flexible, reliable, error-free, and efficient
Important principle to separate
Policy: What will be done?
Mechanism: How to do it?
Mechanisms determine how to do something, policies decide what will be done
The separation of policy from mechanism is a very important principle, it allows maximum flexibility
if policy decisions are to be changed later
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Operating System Structure
Simple Structure
MS-DOS – written to provide the most functionality in the least
space Not divided into modules
Although MS-DOS has some structure, its interfaces and levels of Functionality are not well separated
Layered Approach
The operating system is divided into a number of layers (levels), each built on top of lower layers. The
bottom layer (layer 0), is the hardware; the highest (layer N) is the user interface.
With modularity, layers are selected such that each uses functions (operations) and services of only
lower-level layers
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UNIX
UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the original UNIX operating system had limited structuring.
The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts
Systems programs
The kernel
Consists of everything below the system-call interface and above the physical hardware
Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory management, and other operating-system
functions; a large number of functions for one level
More secure
Detriments:
Performance overhead of user space to kernel space communication
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Modules
Virtual Machines
A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its logical conclusion. It treats hardware and the
operating system kernel as though they were all hardware
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“Open Virtual Machine Format”, standard format of virtual machines, allows a VM to run within many
different virtual machine (host) platforms
Para-virtualization
Presents guest with system similar but not identical to hardware
Guest must be modified to run on paravirtualized hardwareF
Guest can be an OS, or in the case of Solaris 10 applications running in containers
Solaris 10 with Two Containers
VMware Architecture
Operating-System Debugging
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Operating System Generation
Operating systems are designed to run on any of a class of machines; the system must be configured for
each specific computer site
SYSGEN program obtains information concerning the specific configuration of the hardware
system Booting – starting a computer by loading the kernel
Bootstrap program – code stored in ROM that is able to locate the kernel, load it into memory, and start
its execution
System Boot
Operating system must be made available to hardware so hardware can start it
Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location loads bootstrap loader
When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed memory location Firmware used to hold
initial boot code
Process Concept
An operating system executes a variety of programs:
Batch system – jobs
Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks
Process State
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Figure 3.2 Diagram of Process State
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Process Scheduling Queues
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Schedulers
Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should be brought into the ready
queue
Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should be executed next and
allocates CPU
Context Switch
When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state of the old process and load the
saved state for the new process via a context switch
Context of a process represented in the PCB Context-switch time is overhead; the
system does no useful work while switching Time dependent on hardware
support
Process Creation
Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create other processes, forming a tree of
processes
Generally, process identified and managed via a process identifier (pid)
Resource sharing
Parent and children share all resources
Children share subset of parent’s resources
Parent and child share no resources
Execution
Parent and children execute concurrently
Parent waits until children terminate
Address space
Child duplicate of parent
Child has a program loaded into it
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UNIX examples
fork system call creates new process
exec system call used after a fork to replace the process’ memory space with a new program
int main()
{
pid_t pid;
/* fork another process */
pid = fork();
if (pid < 0) { /* error occurred */
fprintf(stderr, "Fork Failed");
exit(-1);
}
else if (pid == 0) { /* child process */
execlp("/bin/ls", "ls", NULL);
}
else { /* parent process */
/* parent will wait for the child to complete */
wait (NULL);
printf ("Child Complete");
exit(0);
}
}
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Figure 3.8 A tree of processes on a typical Solaris
Process Termination
Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to delete it (exit)
Output data from child to parent (via wait)
Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort)
Child has exceeded allocated resources
Task assigned to child is no longer required
If parent is exiting Some operating system do not allow child to continue if its parent
terminates All children terminated - cascading termination
Interprocess Communication
Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating
Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes, including sharing data
Reasons for cooperating processes:
Information sharing
Computation speedup
Modularity
Convenience
Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
Two models of IPC
Shared memory
Message passing
Cooperating Processes
Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution of another process
Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of another process
Advantages of process cooperation
Information sharing
Computation speed-up
Modularity
Convenience
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Producer-Consumer Problem
Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer process produces information that is consumed by a
consumer process
unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of the
buffer bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size
Bounded-Buffer – Shared-Memory Solution
Shared data
#define BUFFER_SIZE 10
typedef struct {
...
} item;
item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0;
Solution is correct, but can only use BUFFER_SIZE-1 elements
Bounded-Buffer – Producer
while (true) {
/* Produce an item */
while (((in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE count) == out)
; /* do nothing -- no free buffers
*/ buffer[in] = item;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;
}
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Direct Communication
Processes must name each other explicitly:
send (P, message) – send a message to process P
receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q
Properties of communication link Links are established
automatically
A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating processes
Between each pair there exists exactly one link
The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional
Indirect Communication
Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred to as ports)
Each mailbox has a unique id
Processes can communicate only if they share a
mailbox Properties of communication link
Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
A link may be associated with many processes
Each pair of processes may share several communication links
Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional Operations
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Buffering
Queue of messages attached to the link; implemented in one of three ways
1. Zero capacity – 0 messages
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Local Procedure Calls in Windows XP
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Execution of RPC
Marshalling Parameters
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