Chapter 4: Threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 4: Threads
● Overview
● Multithreading Models
● Thread Libraries
● Threading Issues

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Motivation

● Most modern applications are multithreaded

● Threads run within application
● Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by separate
threads
● Update display
● Fetch data
● Spell checking
● Answer a network request
● Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is
light-weight
● Can simplify code, increase efficiency
● Kernels are generally multithreaded

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Multithreaded Server Architecture

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 Benefits

● Responsiveness – may allow continued execution if part of process is

blocked, especially important for user interfaces
● Resource Sharing – threads share resources of process, easier than
shared memory or message passing
● Economy – cheaper than process creation, thread switching lower
overhead than context switching
● Scalability – process can take advantage of multiprocessor architectures

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Multithreading Models

● Many-to-One

● One-to-One

● Many-to-Many

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Many-to-One

● Many user-level threads mapped to single

kernel thread
● One thread blocking causes all to block
● Multiple threads may not run in parallel on
muticore system because only one may be in
kernel at a time
● Few systems currently use this model
● Examples:
● Solaris Green Threads
● GNU Portable Threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 One-to-One
● Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
● Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
● More concurrency than many-to-one
● Number of threads per process sometimes restricted due
to overhead
● Examples
● Windows
● Linux
● Solaris 9 and later

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Many-to-Many Model
● Allows many user level threads to be
mapped to many kernel threads
● Allows the operating system to create a
sufficient number of kernel threads
● Solaris prior to version 9
● Windows with the ThreadFiber package

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Two-level Model
● Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be bound
to kernel thread
● Examples
● IRIX
● HP-UX
● Tru64 UNIX
● Solaris 8 and earlier

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread Libraries

● Thread library provides programmer with API for creating and

managing threads
● Two primary ways of implementing
● Library entirely in user space
● Kernel-level library supported by the OS

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Pthreads

● May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

● A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
● Specification, not implementation
● API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is up to
development of the library
● Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X)

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 Pthreads Example

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 Pthreads Example (Cont.)

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 Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads

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 Java Threads

● Java threads are managed by the JVM

● Typically implemented using the threads model provided by
underlying OS
● Java threads may be created by:

● Extending Thread class

● Implementing the Runnable interface

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Java Multithreaded Program

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 Java Multithreaded Program (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Threading Issues
● Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
● Signal handling
● Synchronous and asynchronous
● Thread cancellation of target thread
● Asynchronous or deferred
● Thread-local storage
● Scheduler Activations

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Semantics of fork() and exec()

● Does fork()duplicate only the calling thread or all threads?

● Some UNIXes have two versions of fork
● exec() usually works as normal – replace the running process
including all threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Signal Handling
● Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
● A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
1. default
2. user-defined
● Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when handling
signal
● User-defined signal handler can override default
● For single-threaded, signal delivered to process

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Signal Handling (Cont.)
● Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
● Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
● Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
● Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
● Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the process

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread Cancellation
● Terminating a thread before it has finished
● Thread to be canceled is target thread
● Two general approaches:
● Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread immediately
● Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically check if
it should be cancelled
● Pthread code to create and cancel a thread:

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread Cancellation (Cont.)
● Invoking thread cancellation requests cancellation, but actual
cancellation depends on thread state

● If thread has cancellation disabled, cancellation remains pending until

thread enables it
● Default type is deferred
● Cancellation only occurs when thread reaches cancellation point
4 I.e. pthread_testcancel()
4 Then cleanup handler is invoked
● On Linux systems, thread cancellation is handled through signals

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread-Local Storage

● Thread-local storage (TLS) allows each thread to have its own copy
of data
● Useful when you do not have control over the thread creation process
(i.e., when using a thread pool)
● Different from local variables
● Local variables visible only during single function invocation
● TLS visible across function invocations
● Similar to static data
● TLS is unique to each thread

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Scheduler Activations
● Both M:M and Two-level models require
communication to maintain the appropriate number
of kernel threads allocated to the application
● Typically use an intermediate data structure
between user and kernel threads – lightweight
process (LWP)
● Appears to be a virtual processor on which
process can schedule user thread to run
● Each LWP attached to kernel thread
● How many LWPs to create?
● Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a
communication mechanism from the kernel to the
upcall handler in the thread library
● This communication allows an application to
maintain the correct number kernel threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 4

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