Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 Generation
 System Boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Services
 Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs
and services to programs and users
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Services (Cont.)

 One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to the
user (Cont.):
 File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular interest.
Programs need to read and write files and directories, create and delete
them, search them, list file Information, permission management.
 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 – 9th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 - CPU cycles, main memory, file storage,
I/O devices.
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 User Operating System Interface - CLI

CLI or command interpreter allows direct command entry

 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by systems program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
( Bourne shell, C shell, Korn shell etc.)
Most of the shells provide same functionality with minor differences
 Primarily fetches a command from user and executes it
 There are two ways of implementing the commands.
Method1: jump to the particular section of the code that sets up the
parameters and makes appropriate system call.
Method2 :command interpreter does not understand the command; it uses
the command to identify the file to be loaded into the memory and
executed ( Ex: rm file.txt - searches for the file rm and executes it with
the parameter file.txt)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 User Operating System Interface - GUI

 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface

 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
 GUI provides mouse based window-and- menu s/m as an interface
 Icons represent files, directories, programs, system functions, etc
 Depending upon the mouse pointer location you can invoke a
program, select file in directory, pull down menu for commands.
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
 Microsoft Windows provide GUI
 Apple Mac OS provide GUI interface
 Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI interfaces (CDE, KDE,
GNOME)
 User interface vary from system to system and even from user to
user

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Touchscreen Interfaces

 Touchscreen devices require new

interfaces
 Mouse not possible or not desired
 Actions and selection based on
gestures
 Virtual keyboard for text entry
 Voice commands.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Calls
 System calls provide interface to the services that are made available by the OS
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file

Example of System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
  Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application
Programming Interface (API) rather than direct system call use.
 API specifies a set of functions that are available to an
application programmer, including the parameters that are
passed to each function and return values.
 Three most common APIs
-- 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)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Call Implementation

 Run time support s/m provides system call interface that serves as a link
to system calls which are made available by OS.
 Typically, a number associated with each system call
 System-call interface maintains a table indexed according to these
numbers
 The system call interface invokes the 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
of execution of system 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 – 9th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Call Parameter Passing
 Three general methods used to pass parameters to the OS
 Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
 In some cases, may be more parameters than registers
 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
 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 – 9th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls
 Process control
 create process, terminate process
 end, abort
 load, execute
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 wait for time
 wait event, signal event
 allocate and free memory
 Dump memory if error
 Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
 Locks for managing access to shared data between processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls

 File management
 create file, delete file
 open, close file
 read, write, reposition
 get and set file attributes
 Device management
 request device, release device
 read, write, reposition
 get device attributes, set device attributes
 logically attach or detach devices

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Information maintenance
 get time or date, set time or date
 get system data, set system data
 get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
 create, delete communication connection
 send, receive messages if message passing model to host
name or process name
 From client to server
 Shared-memory model create and gain access to memory
regions
 transfer status information
 attach and detach remote devices

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example: MS-DOS

 Single-tasking
 Shell invoked when system
booted
 Simple method to run
program
 No process created
 Single memory space
 Loads program into memory,

At system startup running a program

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example: FreeBSD
 Unix variant (BERkeley UNIX)
 Multitasking
 User login -> invoke user’s choice of shell
 Shell executes fork() system call to create
process
 Executes exec() to load program into
process
 Shell waits for process to terminate or
continues with user commands
 Process exits with:
 code = 0 – no error
 code > 0 – error code

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution. They can be divided into:
 File management
 Status information
 File modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Most users’ -view of the operation system is defined by system
programs, not the actual system calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 support a registry - used to store and retrieve
configuration information

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs (Cont.)
 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 Concepts – 9th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs (Cont.)

 Application programs
 Don’t pertain to system
 Run by users
 Not typically considered part of OS
 Launched by command line, mouse click
 EX: web browsers, database systems, statistical analysis
packages etc.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 the design by defining goals and specifications

 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system (single user, batch,

multiuser, real time, general purpose)

 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
 Specifying and designing an OS is a creative task.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 (example – timer)
 Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task of
software engineering

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Implementation
 Much variation
 Early OSes in assembly language
 Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
 Now C, C++
 Actually usually a mix of languages
 Lowest levels in assembly
 Main body in C
 Systems programs in C, C++, scripting languages like PERL,
Python, shell scripts
 More high-level language easier to port to other hardware
 But slower
 Emulation can allow an OS to run on non-native hardware

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Structure
 General-purpose OS is very large program
 Various ways to structure ones
 Simple structure – MS-DOS
 More complex -- UNIX
 Layered – an abstrcation
 Microkernel -Mach

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Simple Structure -- MS-DOS

 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
 Application programs write
directly to the display and
disk drives
 Vulnerable to errant
/malicious programs

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Non Simple Structure -- 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 – 9th Edition 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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.
 Advantage of this approach is
simplicity of construction
 layers are selected such that
each uses functions (operations)
and services of only lower-level
layers
 Each layer hides the existence of
certain data structures, operations
and hardware from higher layers.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Microkernel System Structure
 Moves non essential components from the kernel and implements
them as system and user programs
 Mach example of microkernel
 Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) partly based on Mach
 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
 Demerits:
 Performance decreases due to increased system function
overhead

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement loadable 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
 Linux, Solaris, etc

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solaris Modular Approach

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Hybrid Systems

 Most modern operating systems are actually not one pure model
 Hybrid combines multiple approaches to address performance,
security, usability needs
 Apple Mac OS X uses hybrid structure.

 Top layers include application environments and a set of services

providing graphical user interface to applications
 Below layer is kernel environment consisting of Mach microkernel
and BSD Unix parts.
 Mach provides RPCs,IPC facilities and thread scheduling
 BSD provides command line interface, support for networking and
file systems, POSIX APIs
 Kernel Env also provides I/O kit and dynamically loadable
modules (called kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Mac OS X Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Virtual Machines

 The fundamental idea behind a virtual machine  is to abstract the hardware of

a single computer into several different execution environments, thereby
creating the illusion that each separate execution environment is running its
own private computer.

  Virtual machine approach does not provide any additional functionality but
rather provides an interface that is identical  to the underlying hardware.

 Each process is provided with a copy(virtual) of the underlying hardware.

  Major difficulty with the virtual machine approach involves disk systems.

 Minidisks are allocated to processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Computing Environments - Virtualization

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Virtual Machines Contd…

Implementation :
•Difficult to implement virtual machines.

•Work required is to provide the exact duplicate of the underlying machine.

•Underlying machine operates in two modes (kernel mode, User mode)

•Virtual machine software runs in kernel mode.

•The Virtual machine itself can run in only user mode.

•Virtual user mode and virtual kernel mode, both run in physical user mode.

•The actions that cause a transfer from user mode to kernel mode on a real machine
must cause a transfer from virtual user mode to virtual kernel mode on a virtual
machine

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Virtual Machines Contd…
Benefits :
Complete protection of the various system resources.

Each virtual machine is completely isolated from other virtual machines- No protection
problems

Approaches are provided for communication between processes.

Examples :
The Java Virtual machine :
JVM is a specification for an abstract computer.

It consists of a class loader and java interpreter 

The class loader loads the compiled .class files from both Java program and java API
for execution by the Java interpreter.

JVM manages memory by garbage collection

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Virtual Machines Contd…
 JVM may be implemented in software on top of a host operating
system such as Windows, Linux, etc.

JVM can also be implemented in hardware on a chip specifically
designed to run  JAVA programs.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
 Used to build system-specific compiled kernel or system-
tuned
 Can general more efficient code than one general kernel

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Boot
 When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed
memory location
 Firmware ROM used to hold initial boot code
 Operating system must be made available to hardware so hardware
can start it
 Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, stored in ROM or
EEPROM locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
 Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed
location loaded by ROM code, which loads bootstrap loader
from disk
 Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of kernel from
multiple disks, versions, kernel options
 Kernel loads and system is then running

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 2

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013