Operating Systems

Threads

Lecture 4
Michael O’Boyle

1
 Overview

• Process vs threads
– how related
• Concurrency
– why threads
• Design space of process/threads
– a simple taxonomy
• Kernel threads
– more efficient
• User-level threads
– even faster

2
 What’s “in” a process?

• A process consists of (at least):

– An address space, containing
• the code (instructions) for the running program
• the data for the running program
– Thread state, consisting of
• The program counter (PC), indicating the next instruction
• The stack pointer register (implying the stack it points to)
• Other general purpose register values
– A set of OS resources
• open files, network connections, sound channels, …
• Decompose …
– address space
– thread of control (stack, stack pointer, program counter, registers)
– OS resources

3
 Thread: Concurrency vs. Parallelism
■ Threads are about concurrency and parallelism

■ Concurrent execution on single-core system:

single core T1 T2 T3 T4 T1 T2 T3 T4 T1 …
time

■ Parallelism on a multi-core system:

core 1 T1 T3 T1 T3 T1 …

core 2 T2 T4 T2 T4 T2 …
time
 Motivation

• Threads are about concurrency and parallelism

• One way to get concurrency and parallelism is to use
multiple processes
– The programs (code) of distinct processes are isolated from each
other
• Threads are another way to get concurrency and
parallelism
– Threads “share a process” – same address space, same OS
resources
– Threads have private stack, CPU state – are schedulable

5
 What’s needed?

• In many cases
– Everybody wants to run the same code
– Everybody wants to access the same data
– Everybody has the same privileges
– Everybody uses the same resources (open files, network
connections, etc.)
• But you’d like to have multiple hardware execution states:
– an execution stack and stack pointer (SP)
• traces state of procedure calls made
– the program counter (PC), indicating the next instruction
– a set of general-purpose processor registers and their values

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 How could we achieve this?

• Given the process abstraction as we know it:

– fork several processes
– cause each to map to the same physical memory to share data
• see the shmget() system call for one way to do this
• This is really inefficient
– space: PCB, page tables, etc.
– time: creating OS structures, fork/copy address space, etc.

7
 Can we do better?

• Key idea:
– separate the concept of a process (address space, OS resources)
– … from that of a minimal “thread of control” (execution state: stack,
stack pointer, program counter, registers)
• This execution state is usually called a thread, or
sometimes, a lightweight process

thread

8
 Threads and processes

• Most modern OS’s (Mach (Mac OS), Chorus, Windows,

UNIX) therefore support two entities:
– the process, which defines the address space and general process
attributes (such as open files, etc.)
– the thread, which defines a sequential execution stream within a
process
• A thread is bound to a single process / address space
– address spaces, however, can have multiple threads executing
within them
– sharing data between threads is cheap: all see the same address
space
– creating threads is cheap too!
• Threads become the unit of scheduling
– processes / address spaces are just containers in which threads
execute

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 Single and Multithreaded Processes

code data files code data files

registers stack registers registers registers

stack stack stack

thread thread

single-threaded process multithreaded process

 Communication

• Threads are concurrent executions sharing an address

space (and some OS resources)
• Address spaces provide isolation
– If you can’t name it, you can’t read or write it
• Hence, communicating between processes is expensive
– Must go through the OS to move data from one address space to
another
• Because threads are in the same address space,
communication is simple/cheap
– Just update a shared variable!

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 The design space

Key
older
MS/DOS UNIXes

address one thread per process one thread per process

space one process many processes

thread
Java Mach, NT,
Chorus,
Linux, …
many threads per process many threads per process
one process many processes

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 (old) Process address space

0xFFFFFFFF
stack
(dynamic allocated mem)
SP

address space heap

(dynamic allocated mem)

static data
(data segment)

code PC
(text segment)
0x00000000

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 (new) Address space with threads
thread 1 stack
SP (T1)
0xFFFFFFFF
thread 2 stack
SP (T2)

thread 3 stack
SP (T3)
address space

heap
(dynamic allocated mem)

static data
(data segment)
0x00000000 PC (T2)
code
PC (T1)
(text segment)
PC (T3)

© 2012 Gribble, Lazowska, Levy, Zahorjan 14 14

 Process/thread separation

• Concurrency (multithreading) is useful for:

– handling concurrent events (e.g., web servers and clients)
– building parallel programs (e.g., matrix multiply, ray tracing)
– improving program structure (the Java argument)
• Multithreading is useful even on a uniprocessor
– even though only one thread can run at a time
• Supporting multithreading – that is, separating the concept
of a process (address space, files, etc.) from that of a
minimal thread of control (execution state), is a big win
– creating concurrency does not require creating new processes
– “faster / better / cheaper”

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 Terminology

• Just a note that there’s the potential for some confusion …

– Old : “process” == “address space + OS resources + single thread”
– New: “process” typically refers to an address space + system
resources + all of its threads …
• When we mean the “address space” we need to be explicit
“thread” refers to a single thread of control within a process /
address space

• A bit like “kernel” and “operating system” …

– Old: “kernel” == “operating system” and runs in “kernel mode”
– New: “kernel” typically refers to the microkernel; lots of the
operating system runs in user mode

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 Where do threads come from?

• Natural answer: the OS is responsible for

creating/managing threads
– For example, the kernel call to create a new thread would
• allocate an execution stack within the process address space
• create and initialize a Thread Control Block
– stack pointer, program counter, register values
• stick it on the ready queue
• We call these kernel threads
– There is a “thread name space”
• Thread id’s (TID’s)
• TID’s are integers

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 Kernel threads

Mach, NT,
Chorus,
address
Linux, …
space

os kernel
thread CPU
(thread create, destroy,
signal, wait, etc.)

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 Kernel threads

• OS now manages threads and processes / address spaces

– all thread operations are implemented in the kernel
– OS schedules all of the threads in a system
• if one thread in a process blocks (e.g., on I/O), the OS knows about
it, and can run other threads from that process
• possible to overlap I/O and computation inside a process
• Kernel threads are cheaper than processes
– less state to allocate and initialize
• But, they’re still pretty expensive for fine-grained use
– orders of magnitude more expensive than a procedure call
– thread operations are all system calls
• context switch
• argument checks
– must maintain kernel state for each thread

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 Cheaper alternative

• There is an alternative to kernel threads

• Threads can also be managed at the user level (within the
process)
– a library linked into the program manages the threads
• the thread manager doesn’t need to manipulate address spaces
(which only the kernel can do)
• threads differ (roughly) only in hardware contexts (PC, SP,
registers), which can be manipulated by user-level code
• the thread package multiplexes user-level threads on top of
kernel thread(s)
• each kernel thread is treated as a “virtual processor”
– we call these user-level threads

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 User-level threads
user-level
thread library

(thread create, destroy,

signal, wait, etc.)

address
space

os kernel
thread CPU

Now thread id is unique within the context of a process, not unique system-wide

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 User-level threads: what the kernel sees

address
space

os kernel
thread CPU

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 User-level threads
user-level
thread library

(thread create, destroy,

signal, wait, etc.)
Mach, NT,
Chorus,
address
Linux, …
space

kernel threads
os kernel
thread CPU
(kernel thread create, destroy,
signal, wait, etc.)

One problem: If a user-level thread blocked due to I/O, all other blocked

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 User-level threads

• User-level threads are small and fast

– managed entirely by user-level library
• E.g., pthreads (libpthreads.a)
– each thread is represented simply by a PC, registers, a stack, and a
small thread control block (TCB)
– creating a thread, switching between threads, and synchronizing
threads are done via procedure calls
• no kernel involvement is necessary!
• User-level thread operations can be 10-100x faster than
kernel threads as a result

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 OLD Performance example

• On a 700MHz Pentium running Linux 2.2.16 (only the

relative numbers matter; ignore the ancient CPU!):

– Processes
• fork/exit: 251 µs

Why?
– Kernel threads
• pthread_create()/pthread_join(): 94 µs (2.5x faster)

– User-level threads
• pthread_create()/pthread_join: 4.5 µs (another 20x
faster)
Why?

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 User-level thread implementation

• The OS schedules the kernel thread

• The kernel thread executes user code, including the thread
support library and its associated thread scheduler
• The thread scheduler determines when a user-level thread
runs
– it uses queues to keep track of what threads are doing: run, ready,
wait
• just like the OS and processes
• but, implemented at user-level as a library

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 Thread interface

• This is taken from the POSIX pthreads API:

– rcode = pthread_create(&t, attributes,
start_procedure)
• creates a new thread of control
• new thread begins executing at start_procedure
– pthread_cond_wait(condition_variable, mutex)
• the calling thread blocks, sometimes called thread_block()
– pthread_signal(condition_variable)
• starts a thread waiting on the condition variable
– pthread_exit()
• terminates the calling thread
– pthread_join(t)
• waits for the named thread to terminate

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 Thread context switch

• Very simple for user-level threads:

– save context of currently running thread
• push CPU state onto thread stack
– restore context of the next thread
• pop CPU state from next thread’s stack
– return as the new thread
• execution resumes at PC of next thread
– Note: no changes to memory mapping required
• This is all done in assembly language
– it works at the level of the procedure calling convention

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 How to keep a user-level thread from
hogging the CPU?
• Strategy 1: force everyone to cooperate
– a thread willingly gives up the CPU by calling yield()
– yield() calls into the scheduler, which context switches to another
ready thread
– what happens if a thread never calls yield()?

• Strategy 2: use preemption

– scheduler requests that a timer interrupt be delivered by the OS
periodically
• usually delivered as a UNIX signal (man signal)
• signals are just like software interrupts, but delivered to user-
level by the OS instead of delivered to OS by hardware
– at each timer interrupt, scheduler gains control and context switches
as appropriate

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 What if a thread tries to do I/O?

• The kernel thread “powering” it is lost for the duration of the

(synchronous) I/O operation!
– The kernel thread blocks in the OS, as always
– It maroons with it the state of the user-level thread
• Could have one kernel thread “powering” each user-level
thread
– “common case” operations (e.g., synchronization) would be quick
• Could have a limited-size “pool” of kernel threads
“powering” all the user-level threads in the address space
– the kernel will be scheduling these threads, obliviously to what’s
going on at user-level

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 Multiple kernel threads “powering”
each address space
user-level
thread library

(thread create, destroy,

signal, wait, etc.)

address
space

kernel threads
os kernel
thread CPU
(kernel thread create, destroy,
signal, wait, etc.)

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 Summary

• Multiple threads per address space

• Kernel threads are much more efficient than processes, but
still expensive
– all operations require a kernel call and parameter validation
• User-level threads are:
– much cheaper and faster
– great for common-case operations
• creation, synchronization, destruction
– can suffer in uncommon cases due to kernel obliviousness
• I/O
• preemption of a lock-holder

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