Chapter 2: Operating-System Structures

 Operating System Services

 User Operating System Interface

Chapter 2: Operating-System  System Calls

 Types of System Calls
Structures  System Programs
 Operating System Design and Implementation
 Operating System Structure
 Operating System Debugging
 Operating System Generation
 System Boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Objectives Operating System Services

 Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs
 To describe the services an operating system provides to
and services to programs and users
users, processes, and other systems
 One set of operating-system services provides functions that are
 To discuss the various ways of structuring an operating helpful to the user:
system User interface - Almost all operating systems have a user

 To explain how operating systems are installed and interface (UI).
customized and how they boot  Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User
Interface (GUI), Batch
 Program execution - The system must be able to load a
program into memory and to run that program, end execution,
either normally or abnormally (indicating error)
 I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which may
involve a file or an I/O device

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Operating System Services (Cont.) Operating System Services (Cont.)

 One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to  Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient operation of the
system itself via resource sharing
the user (Cont.):
 Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running
 File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular interest. concurrently, resources must be allocated to each of them
Programs need to read and write files and directories, create and delete
 Many types of resources - CPU cycles, main memory, file storage,
them, search them, list file Information, permission management.
I/O devices.
 Communications – Processes may exchange information, on the same  Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what
computer or between computers over a network kinds of computer resources
 Communications may be via shared memory or through message  Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a
passing (packets moved by the OS) multiuser or networked computer system may want to control use of
 Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of possible errors that information, concurrent processes should not interfere with each
other
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O devices, in user
 Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is
program controlled
 For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate action to  Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication,
ensure correct and consistent computing extends to defending external I/O devices from invalid access
 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and attempts
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

1
 A View of Operating System Services User Operating System Interface - CLI

CLI or command interpreter allows direct command entry

 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by systems
program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and executes it
 Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes just names of
programs
 If the latter, adding new features doesn’t require shell
modification

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

User Operating System Interface - GUI Touchscreen Interfaces

 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface  Touchscreen devices require new

 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor interfaces
 Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc  Mouse not possible or not desired

 Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface cause  Actions and selection based on
gestures
various actions (provide information, options, execute function,
open directory (known as a folder)  Virtual keyboard for text entry
 Voice commands.
 Invented at Xerox PARC
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
 Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
 Apple Mac OS X is “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel
underneath and shells available
 Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI interfaces (CDE,
KDE, GNOME)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

System Calls Example of System Calls

 Programming interface to the services provided by the OS
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level
Application Programming Interface (API) rather than
direct system call use
 Three most common APIs are Win32 API for Windows,
POSIX API for POSIX-based systems (including virtually
all versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X), and Java API
for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

Note that the system-call names used throughout this

text are generic

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

2
 Example of Standard API System Call Implementation

 Typically, a number associated with each system call

 System-call interface maintains a table indexed according to
these numbers
 The system call interface invokes the intended system call in OS
kernel and returns status of the system call and any return values
 The caller need know nothing about how the system call is
implemented
 Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will do as a
result call
 Most details of OS interface hidden from programmer by API
 Managed by run-time support library (set of functions built
into libraries included with compiler)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

API – System Call – OS Relationship 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Types of System Calls Types of System Calls

 Process control  File management
 create process, terminate process  create file, delete file
 end, abort  open, close file
 load, execute  read, write, reposition
 get process attributes, set process attributes  get and set file attributes
 wait for time  Device management
 wait event, signal event  request device, release device
 allocate and free memory  read, write, reposition
 Dump memory if error  get device attributes, set device attributes
 Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution  logically attach or detach devices
 Locks for managing access to shared data between processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

3
 Types of System Calls (Cont.) Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Information maintenance  Protection

 get time or date, set time or date  Control access to resources
 get system data, set system data  Get and set permissions
 get and set process, file, or device attributes  Allow and deny user access
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls Standard C Library Example

 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

System Programs System Programs

 System programs provide a convenient environment for program  Provide a convenient environment for program development and
development and execution. They can be divided into: execution
 Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others
 File manipulation
are considerably more complex
 Status information sometimes stored in a File modification
 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, dump, list,
 Programming language support
and generally manipulate files and directories
 Program loading and execution
 Status information
 Communications
 Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available
 Background services memory, disk space, number of users
 Application programs  Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by system information
programs, not the actual system calls  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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

4
 System Programs (Cont.) System Programs (Cont.)
 File modification  Background Services
 Text editors to create and modify files  Launch at boot time
 Special commands to search contents of files or perform  Some for system startup, then terminate
transformations of the text  Some from system boot to shutdown
 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,  Provide facilities like disk checking, process scheduling, error
debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided logging, printing
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable  Run in user context not kernel context
loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems
for higher-level and machine language  Known as services, subsystems, daemons
 Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual  Application programs
connections among processes, users, and computer systems
 Don’t pertain to system
 Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens,
browse web pages, send electronic-mail messages, log in  Run by users
remotely, transfer files from one machine to another  Not typically considered part of OS
 Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Operating System Design and Implementation Operating System Design and Implementation (Cont.)

 Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but some  Important principle to separate
approaches have proven successful Policy: What will be done?
Mechanism: How to do it?
 Internal structure of different Operating Systems can vary widely
 Mechanisms determine how to do something, policies decide
 Start the design by defining goals and specifications what will be done
 The separation of policy from mechanism is a very important
 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system principle, it allows maximum flexibility if policy decisions are to
be changed later (example – timer)
 User goals and System goals
 Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task of
 User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, software engineering
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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Implementation Operating System Structure

 Much variation  General-purpose OS is very large program
 Early OSes in assembly language  Various ways to structure ones
 Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1  Simple structure – MS-DOS
 Now C, C++  More complex -- UNIX
 Actually usually a mix of languages  Layered – an abstrcation
 Lowest levels in assembly  Microkernel -Mach
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013 Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

5
 End of Chapter 2

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