Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition, Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Review

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Chapter 2: Operating-System Structures

 Operating System Services

 User Operating System Interface
 System Calls
 Types of System Calls
 System Programs
 Operating System Design and Implementation
 Operating System Structure
 Virtual Machines
 Operating System Debugging
 Operating System Generation
 System Boot

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Objectives
 To describe the services an operating system provides to
users, processes, and other systems
 To discuss the various ways of structuring an operating
system
 To explain how operating systems are installed and
customized and how they boot

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services
 One set of operating-system services provides
functions that are helpful to the user:
 User interface - Almost all operating systems have a user
interface (UI)
 Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User
Interface (GUI), Batch
 Program execution - The system must be able to load a
program into memory and to run that program, end
execution, either normally or abnormally (indicating error)
 I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which
may involve a file or an I/O device
 File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular
interest. Obviously, programs need to read and write files
and directories, create and delete them, search them, list
file Information, permission management.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Layered vs Module

 Why OS is layered?
Typed from keyboard

User Input
Data copied 1kbyte Source Address (32bit)/
Data 8 (bit)/Destination
Frames/ 1byte = Address (32bit)
1000 frames
Error Correction
Code
Network Interface card
Circuitry (MC)

- Suppose still having network issues

(Msgs can’t reach)- Need error correction
code (ECC)
- Also need security patches etc.
- Code another layer
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont)
 One set of operating-system services provides
functions that are helpful to the user (Cont):
 Communications – Processes may exchange information,
on the same computer or between computers over a
network
 Communications may be via shared memory or through
message passing (packets moved by the OS)
 Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of
possible errors
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O
devices, in user program
 For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate
action to ensure correct and consistent computing
 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont)
 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.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - CLI

Command Line Interface (CLI) or command interpreter

allows direct command entry
 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes
by systems program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented –
shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and
executes it
– Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes
just names of programs
» If the latter, adding new features doesn’t
require shell modification

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - CLI

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - GUI
 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface
 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
 Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
 Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface
cause various actions (provide information, options,
execute function, open directory (known as a folder)
 Invented at Xerox PARC
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
 Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
 Apple Mac OS X as “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel
underneath and shells available
 Solaris is CLI with optional GUI interfaces (Java Desktop,
KDE)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - GUI

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - GUI

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Calls
 Programming interface to the services provided by the OS
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application
Program Interface (API) rather than direct system call use
 Three most common APIs are Win32 API for Windows, POSIX
API for POSIX-based systems (including virtually all versions
of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X), and Java API for the Java
virtual machine (JVM)
 Why use APIs rather than system calls?

(Note that the system-call names used throughout this text

are generic)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Implementation

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Implementation

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to
another file

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of Standard API
 Consider the ReadFile() function in the
 Win32 API—a function for reading from a file

 A description of the parameters passed to ReadFile()

 HANDLE file—the file to be read
 LPVOID buffer—a buffer where the data will be read into and written from
 DWORD bytesToRead—the number of bytes to be read into the buffer
 LPDWORD bytesRead—the number of bytes read during the last read
 LPOVERLAPPED ovl—indicates if overlapped I/O is being used

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Implementation
 Typically, a number associated with each system call
 System-call interface maintains a table indexed
according to these numbers
 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)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls
write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Parameter Passing
 Often, more information is required than simply identity of
desired system call
 Exact type and amount of information vary according to OS
and call
 Three general methods used to pass parameters to the OS
1. Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
 In some cases, may be more parameters than registers
2. Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory, and
address of block passed as a parameter in a register
 This approach taken by Linux and Solaris
3. Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the
program and popped off the stack by the operating system
 Block and stack methods do not limit the number or length
of parameters being passed

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Parameter Passing

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls
 Process control
 File management
 Device management
 Information maintenance
 Communications
 Protection

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Calls- Process Control

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Calls- Process Control

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 MS-DOS execution

(a) At system startup (b) running a

program

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 FreeBSD Running Multiple Programs

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs (cont’d)
 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
 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 Concepts – 8th Edition 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Design and Implementation (Cont)

 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 MS-DOS Layer Structure

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 MS-DOS

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Traditional UNIX System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Layered Approach

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Layered Operating System

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much from the kernel into “user” space
 Communication takes place between user modules using
message passing
 Benefits:
 Easier to extend a microkernel
 Easier to port the operating system to new architectures
 More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode)
 More secure
 Detriments:
 Performance overhead of user space to kernel space
communication

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modules
 Most modern operating systems implement kernel modules
 Uses object-oriented approach
 Each core component is separate
 Each talks to the others over known interfaces
 Each is loadable as needed within the kernel
 Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modules

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Solaris Modular Approach

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Generation

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.55 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.56 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Boot

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.57 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 2

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition, Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne