Study Guide Operating

Systems Midterm
Introduction

• An OS is a program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the computer hardware
• Goals: Execute user programs, make the comp. system easy to use, utilize hardware efficiently
• Computer system: Hardware ↔ OS ↔ Applications ↔ Users (↔ = 'uses')
• OS is:
◦ Resource allocator: decides between conflicting requests for efficient and fair resource use
◦ Control program: controls execution of programs to prevent errors and improper use of computer
• Kernel: the one program running at all times on the computer
• Bootstrap program: loaded at power-up or reboot
◦ Stored in ROM or EPROM (known as firmware), Initializes all aspects of system, loads OS kernel and
starts execution
• I/O and CPU can execute concurrently
• Device controllers inform CPU that it is finished w/ operation by causing an interrupt
◦ Interrupt transfers control to the interrupt service routine generally, through the interrupt vector,
which contains the addresses of all the service routines
◦ Incoming interrupts are disabled while another interrupt is being processed
◦ Trap is a software generated interrupt caused by error or user request
◦ OS determines which type of interrupt has occurred by polling or the vectored interrupt system
• 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
◦ OS indexes into the I/O device table to determine device status and to modify the table entry to
include interrupt
• Storage structure:
◦ Main memory – random access, volatile
◦ Secondary storage – extension of main memory That provides large non-volatile storage
◦ Disk – divided into tracks which are subdivided into sectors. Disk controller determines logical
interaction between the device and the computer.
• Caching – copying information into faster storage system
• Multiprocessor Systems: Increased throughput, economy
of scale, increased reliability
◦ Can be asymmetric or symmetric
◦ Clustered systems – Linked multiprocessor systems
• Multiprogramming – Provides efficiency via job scheduling
◦ When OS has to wait (ex: for I/O), switches to another job
• Timesharing – CPU switches jobs so frequently that each user
can interact with each job while it is running (interactive computing)
• Dual-mode operation allows OS to protect itself and other system components – User mode and kernel mode
◦ Some instructions are only executable in kernel mode, these are privileged
• Single-threaded processes have one program counter, multi-threaded processes have one PC per thread
• Program counter stores the address of the next instruction to be executed in a process. The program counter is
essential to resume the paused process, as it indicates where to continue.
• Protection – mechanism for controlling access of processes or users to resources defined by the OS
• Security – defense of a system against attacks
• User IDs (UID), one per user, and Group IDs, determine which users and groups of users have which privileges
OS Structures
• User Interface (UI) – Can be Command-Line (CLI) or Graphics User Interface (GUI) or Batch
◦ These allow for the user to interact with the system services via system calls (typically written in C/C++)
• Other system services that a helpful to the user include: program execution, I/O operations, file-
system manipulation, communications, and error detection
• Services that exist to ensure efficient OS operation are: resource allocation, accounting, protection and security
• Most system calls are accessed by Application Program Interface (API) such as Win32, POSIX, Java
• Usually there is a number associated with each system call
◦ System call interface maintains a table indexed according to these numbers
• Parameters may need to be passed to the OS during a system call, may be done by:
◦ Passing in registers, address of parameter stored in a block, pushed onto the stack by the program and
popped off by the OS
◦ Block and stack methods do not limit the number
or length of parameters being passed
• Process control system calls include: end, abort, load,
execute, create/terminate process, wait, allocate/free
memory
• File management system calls include: create/delete
file, open/close file, read, write, get/set attributes
• Device management system calls: request/release
device, read, write, logically attach/detach devices
• Information maintenance system calls: get/set time,
get/set system data, get/set process/file/device attributes
• Communications system calls: create/delete
communication connection, send/receive, transfer status
information
• OS 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
• Virtual machine: uses layered approach, treats hardware and the OS kernel as though they were all hardware.
◦ Host creates the illusion that a process has its own processor and own virtual memory
◦ Each guest provided with a 'virtual' copy of the underlying computer
• Application failures can generate core dump file capturing memory of the process
• Operating system failure can generate crash dump file containing kernel memory
Processes
• Process contains a program counter, stack, and data section.
◦ Text section: program code itself
◦ Stack: temporary data (function parameters, return addresses, local
variables)
◦ Data section: global variables
◦ Heap: contains memory dynamically allocated during run-time
• Process Control Block (PCB): contains information associated with each
process: process state, PC, CPU registers, scheduling information,
accounting information, I/O status information
• Types of processes:
◦ I/O Bound: spends more time doing I/O than computations, many
short CPU bursts
◦ CPU Bound: spends more time doing computations, few very
long CPU bursts
• When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the
state of the old process (to PCB) and load the saved state (from PCB)
for the new process via a context switch
◦ Time of a context switch is dependent on hardware
• Parent processes create children processes (form a tree)
◦ PID allows for process management
◦ Parents and children can share all/some/none resources
◦ Parents can execute concurrently with children or wait until
children terminate
◦ fork() system call creates new process
▪ exec() system call used after a fork to replace the processes' memory space with a new program
• Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC): shared memory or message passing
• Message passing may be blocking or non-blocking
◦ Blocking is considered synchronous
▪ Blocking send has the sender block until the message is received
▪ Blocking receive has the receiver block until a message is available
◦ Non-blocking is considered asynchronous
▪ Non-blocking send has the sender send the message and continue
▪ Non-blocking receive has the receiver receive a valid message or null
Threads
• Threads are fundamental unit of CPU utilization that forms the basis of multi-threaded computer systems
• Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is light-weight
◦ Can simplify code and increase efficiency
• Kernels are generally multi-threaded
• Multi-threading models include: Many-to-One, One-to-One, Many-to-Many
◦ Many-to-One: Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread
◦ One-to-One: Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
◦ Many-to-Many: Many user-level threads mapped to many kernel threads
• Thread library provides programmer with API for creating and managing threads
• Issues include: thread cancellation, signal handling (synchronous/asynchronous), handling thread-specific data,
and scheduler activations.
◦ Cancellation:
▪ Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread immediately
▪ Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically check if it should be canceled
◦ Signal handler processes signals generated by a particular event, delivered to a process, handled
◦ Scheduler activations provide upcalls – a communication mechanism from the kernel to the thread library.
▪ Allows application to maintain the correct number of kernel threads
Process Synchronization
• Race Condition: several processes access and manipulate the same data concurrently, outcome depends on
which order each access takes place.
• Each process has critical section of code, where it is manipulating data
◦ To solve critical section problem each process must ask permission to enter critical section in entry
section, follow critical section with exit section and then execute the remainder section
◦ Especially difficult to solve this problem in preemptive kernels
• Peterson's Solution: solution for two processes
◦ Two processes share two variables: int turn and Boolean flag[2]
◦ turn: whose turn it is to enter the critical section
◦ flag: indication of whether or not a process is ready to enter critical section
▪ flag[i] = true indicates that process Pi is ready
◦ Algorithm for process Pi:
do {
flag[i] = TRUE;
turn = j;
while (flag[j] && turn == j)
critical section
flag[i] = FALSE;
remainder section
} while (TRUE);
• Modern machines provide atomic hardware instructions: Atomic = non-interruptable
• Solution using Locks:
do {
acquire lock
critical section
release lock
remainder section
} while (TRUE);
• Solution using Te st-And-Set: Shared boolean variable lock, initialized to FALSE
do {
boolean TestAndSet (boolean *target){ while ( TestAndSet (&lock ))
boolean rv = *target; ; // do
*target = TRUE;" nothing
return rv: // critical section
} lock = FALSE;
// remainder section
} while (TRUE);

• Solution using Swap: Shared bool variable lock initialized to FALSE; Each process has local bool variable key
void Swap (boolean *a, boolean *b){ do {
boolean temp = *a; key = TRUE;
*a = *b; while ( key == TRUE)
*b = temp: Swap (&lock,
} &key );
// critical section
lock = FALSE;
// remainder section
} while (TRUE);

• Semaphore: Synchronization tool that does not require busy waiting

◦ Standard operations: wait() and signal() ← these are the only operations that can access semaphore S
◦ Can have counting (unrestricted range) and binary (0 or 1) semaphores
• Deadlock: Two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an event that can be caused by only one of the
waiting processes (most OSes do not prevent or deal with deadlocks)
◦ Can cause starvation and priority inversion (lower priority process holds lock needed by higher-
priority process)
Process Synchronization (Continued)
• Other synchronization problems include Bounded-Buffer Problem and Readers-Writers Problem
• Monitor is a high-level abstraction that provides a convenient and effective mechanism for process synchronization
◦ Only one process may be active within the monitor at a time
◦ Can utilize condition variables to suspend a resume processes (ex: condition x, y;)
▪ x.wait() – a process that invokes the operation is suspended until x.signal()
▪ x.signal() – resumes one of processes (if any) that invoked x.wait()
◦ Can be implemented with semaphore