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
• 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
Parameter Passing via Table
 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
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)
▪ 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
 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
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)
▪ Protection
• Control access to resources
• Get and set permissions
• Allow and deny user access
 Standard C Library Example
C program invoking
printf() library call,
which calls write()
system call
 System Programs
▪ System programs provide a convenient environment for program development
and execution. They can be divided into:
• File manipulation
• Status information sometimes stored in a file
• Programming language support
• Program loading and execution
• Communications
• Background services
• Application programs
▪ Most users’ view of the operating system is defined by system programs, not
the actual system calls
 System Programs(Cont…)
▪ 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
 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
 System Programs (Cont.)
▪ Background Services
• Launch at boot time
 Some for system startup, then terminate
 Some from system boot to shutdown
• Provide facilities like disk checking, process scheduling, error logging,
printing
• Run in user context not kernel context
• Known as services, subsystems, daemons
▪ Application programs
• Don’t pertain to system
• Run by users
• Not typically considered part of OS
• Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke
 Design and Implementation
▪ Design and Implementation of OS is 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
▪ 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 highly creative task of software
engineering
 Policy and Mechanism

▪ Policy: What needs to be done?

• Example: Interrupt after every 100 seconds
▪ Mechanism: How to do something?
• Example: timer
▪ Important principle: separate policy from mechanism
▪ The separation of policy from mechanism is a very important principle, it allows
maximum flexibility if policy decisions are to be changed later.
• Example: change 100 to 200
 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