Chapter 2: Processes

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 Chapter 3: Processes
 Process Concept
 Process Scheduling
 Operations on Processes
 Interprocess Communication
 Examples of IPC Systems
 Communication in Client-Server Systems
 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
 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
 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
Process in Memory
 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
Diagram of Process State
 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
 I/O status information – I/O devices
allocated to process, list of open files
CPU Switch From Process to Process
 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
 Representation of Process Scheduling

 Queueing diagram represents queues, resources, flows

 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) Þ (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) Þ (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
 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
 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
 Interprocess Communication
 Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating
 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes,
including sharing data
 Reasons for cooperating processes:
 Information sharing
 Computation speedup
 Modularity
 Convenience

 Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)

 Two models of IPC
 Shared memory
 Message passing
 Communications Models
(a) Message passing. (b) shared memory.
 Cooperating Processes
 Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution of
another process
 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of
another process
 Advantages of process cooperation
 Information sharing
 Computation speed-up
 Modularity
 Convenience
 Producer-Consumer Problem
 Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer process
produces information that is consumed by a consumer
process
 unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of
the buffer
 bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size
 Interprocess Communication – Shared Memory

 An area of memory shared among the processes that wish to

communicate
 The communication is under the control of the users
processes not the operating system.
 Major issues is to provide mechanism that will allow the user
processes to synchronize their actions when they access
shared memory.
 Interprocess Communication – Message Passing

 Mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize

their actions

 Message system – processes communicate with each other

without resorting to shared variables

 IPC facility provides two operations:

 send(message)
 receive(message)

 The message size is either fixed or variable

 Message Passing (Cont.)

 If processes P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:

 Establish a communication link between them
 Exchange messages via send/receive
 Implementation issues:
 How are links established?
 Can a link be associated with more than two processes?
 How many links can there be between every pair of communicating
processes?
 What is the capacity of a link?
 Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or
variable?
 Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?
 Message Passing (Cont.)

 Implementation of communication link

 Physical:
 Shared memory
 Hardware bus
 Network
 Logical:
 Direct or indirect
 Synchronous or asynchronous
 Automatic or explicit buffering
 Direct Communication
 Processes must name each other explicitly:
 send (P, message) – send a message to process P
 receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q

 Properties of communication link

 Links are established automatically
 A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating
processes
 Between each pair there exists exactly one link
 The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional
 Indirect Communication
 Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred
to as ports)
 Each mailbox has a unique id
 Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox

 Properties of communication link

 Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
 A link may be associated with many processes
 Each pair of processes may share several communication links
 Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional
 Indirect Communication
 Operations
 create a new mailbox (port)
 send and receive messages through mailbox
 destroy a mailbox

 Primitives are defined as:

send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
receive(A, message) – receive a message from mailbox A
 Indirect Communication
 Mailbox sharing
 P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A
 P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive
 Who gets the message?

 Solutions
 Allow a link to be associated with at most two processes
 Allow only one process at a time to execute a receive
operation
 Allow the system to select arbitrarily the receiver. Sender
is notified who the receiver was.
 Synchronization
 Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking
 Blocking is considered synchronous
 Blocking send -- the sender is blocked until the message is
received
 Blocking receive -- the receiver is blocked until a message is
available
 Non-blocking is considered asynchronous
 Non-blocking send -- the sender sends the message and
continue
 Non-blocking receive -- the receiver receives:
 A valid message, or
 Null message
 Different combinations possible
 If both send and receive are blocking, we have a rendezvous
 Buffering

 Queue of messages attached to the link.

 implemented in one of three ways
1. Zero capacity – no messages are queued on a link.
Sender must wait for receiver (rendezvous)
2. Bounded capacity – finite length of n messages
Sender must wait if link full
3. Unbounded capacity – infinite length
Sender never waits
End of Chapter 3

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 References:
» Abraham Silberschatz, Greg Gagne, and Peter Baer Galvin,
"Operating System Concepts, Ninth Edition “
» Operating Systems, by Dhananjay Dhamdhere

17EECC304_OS&ESD
 Thank you

17EECC304_OS&ESD