Chapter 3: Processes

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Chapter 3: Processes
 Process Concept
 Process Scheduling
 Operations on Processes
 Interprocess Communication
 Examples of IPC Systems
 Communication in Client-Server Systems

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Objectives
 To introduce the notion of a process -- a program
in execution, which forms the basis of all
computation
 To describe the various features of processes,
including scheduling, creation and termination,
and communication
 To explore interprocess communication using
shared memory and message passing
 To describe communication in client-server
systems

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Process Concept
 An operating system executes a variety of programs:
 Batch system – jobs
 Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks
 Textbook uses the terms job and process almost
interchangeably
 Process – a program in execution; process execution
must progress in sequential fashion
 Multiple parts
 The program code, also called text section
 Current activity including program counter,
processor registers
 Stack containing temporary data
 Function parameters, return addresses, local
variables
 Data section containing global variables
 Heap containing memory dynamically allocated
during run time
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Process Concept (Cont.)
 Program is passive entity stored on disk (executable
file), process is active
 Program becomes process when executable file
loaded into memory
 Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks,
command line entry of its name, etc
 One program can be several processes
 Consider multiple users executing the same
program

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 Process in Memory

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 Process State

 As a process executes, it changes state

 new: The process is being created
 running: Instructions are being executed
 waiting: The process is waiting for some event to
occur
 ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a
processor
 terminated: The process has finished execution

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 Diagram of Process State

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 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each
process
(also called task control block)
 Process state – running,
waiting, etc
 Program counter – location of
instruction to next execute
 CPU registers – contents of all
process-centric registers
 CPU scheduling information-
priorities, scheduling queue
pointers
 Memory-management
information – memory allocated
to the process
 Accounting information – CPU
used, clock time elapsed since
start, time limits

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 CPU Switch From Process to Process

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Threads
 So far, process has a single thread of execution
 Consider having multiple program counters per
process
 Multiple locations can execute at once
 Multiple threads of control -> threads
 Must then have storage for thread details, multiple
program counters in PCB
 See next chapter

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Process Representation in Linux

Represented by the C structure task_struct

pid t_pid; /* process identifier */

long state; /* state of the process */
unsigned int time_slice /* scheduling information */
struct task_struct *parent; /* this process’s parent */
struct list_head children; /* this process’s children */
struct files_struct *files; /* list of open files */
struct mm_struct *mm; /* address space of this process */

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Process Scheduling

 Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto

CPU for time sharing
 Process scheduler selects among available
processes for next execution on CPU
 Maintains scheduling queues of processes
 Job queue – set of all processes in the system
 Ready queue – set of all processes residing in
main memory, ready and waiting to execute
 Device queues – set of processes waiting for an
I/O device
 Processes migrate among the various queues

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 Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues

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 Representation of Process Scheduling

 Queueing diagram represents queues, resources,

flows

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 Schedulers
 Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which
process should be executed next and allocates CPU
 Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
 Short-term scheduler is invoked frequently (milliseconds)
 (must be fast)
 Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which
processes should be brought into the ready queue
 Long-term scheduler is invoked infrequently (seconds,
minutes)  (may be slow)
 The long-term scheduler controls the degree of
multiprogramming
 Processes can be described as either:
 I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than
computations, many short CPU bursts
 CPU-bound process – spends more time doing
computations; few very long CPU bursts
 Long-term scheduler strives for good process mix

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 Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
 Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of
multiple programming needs to decrease
 Remove process from memory, store on disk,
bring back in from disk to continue execution:
swapping

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 Multitasking in Mobile Systems
 Some mobile systems (e.g., early version of iOS)
allow only one process to run, others suspended
 Due to screen real estate, user interface limits iOS
provides for a
 Single foreground process- controlled via user
interface
 Multiple background processes– in memory,
running, but not on the display, and with limits
 Limits include single, short task, receiving
notification of events, specific long-running tasks
like audio playback
 Android runs foreground and background, with fewer
limits
 Background process uses a service to perform
tasks
 Service can keep running even if background
process is suspended

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition
Service has no user interface,
3.18
small memory use
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 Context Switch
 When CPU switches to another process, the system
must save the state of the old process and load the
saved state for the new process via a context
switch
 Context of a process represented in the PCB
 Context-switch time is overhead; the system does
no useful work while switching
 The more complex the OS and the PCB  the
longer the context switch
 Time dependent on hardware support
 Some hardware provides multiple sets of
registers per CPU  multiple contexts loaded at
once

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operations on Processes

 System must provide mechanisms for:

 process creation,
 process termination,
 and so on as detailed next

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 Process Creation
 Parent process create children processes, which,
in turn create other processes, forming a tree of
processes
 Generally, process identified and managed via a
process identifier (pid)
 Resource sharing options
 Parent and children share all resources
 Children share subset of parent’s resources
 Parent and child share no resources
 Execution options
 Parent and children execute concurrently
 Parent waits until children terminate

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 A Tree of Processes in Linux

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 Process Creation (Cont.)
 Address space
 Child duplicate of parent
 Child has a program loaded into it
 UNIX examples
 fork() system call creates new process
 exec() system call used after a fork() to replace
the process’ memory space with a new program

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 C Program Forking Separate Process

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 Creating a Separate Process via Windows API

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