Operating System

Module – 1

Dr. Rabindra Kumar Singh CSE2005

Operating-System Structures
 Operating System Services
 User Operating System Interface
 System Calls
 Types of System Calls
 System Programs
 Operating System Design and Implementation
 Operating System Structure
 Virtual Machines
 Operating System Debugging
 Operating System Generation

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Objectives
 To describe the services an operating system
provides to users, processes, and other systems

 To discuss the various ways of structuring an

operating system

 To explain how operating systems are installed

and customized and how they boot

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Operating System Services
 Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs and services to
programs and users
 One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to the user:
 User interface - Almost all operating systems have a user interface (UI).

 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
 File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular interest. Programs need

to read and write files and directories, create and delete them, search them, list file
Information, permission management.

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Operating System Services (Cont.)
 Communications – Processes may exchange
information, on the same computer or between
computers over a network
Communications may be via shared memory or through
message passing (packets moved by the OS)
 Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of
possible errors
May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O devices, in
user program
For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate action to
ensure correct and consistent computing
Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system

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Operating System Services (Cont.)
 Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient operation of the system
itself via resource sharing
 Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running concurrently,
resources must be allocated to each of them
 Many types of resources - Some (such as CPU cycles, main memory, and file
storage) may have special allocation code, others (such as I/O devices) may
have general request and release code
 Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what kinds of
computer resources
 Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a multiuser or
networked computer system may want to control use of that information,
concurrent processes should not interfere with each other
 Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is controlled
 Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication, extends
to defending external I/O devices from invalid access attempts
 If a system is to be protected and secure, precautions must be instituted
throughout it. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

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A View of Operating System Services

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User Operating System Interface - CLI
 Command Line Interface (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

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User Operating System Interface - GUI
 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface
 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
 Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
 Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface cause various
actions (provide information, options, execute function, open
directory (known as a folder)
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
 Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
 Apple Mac OS X as “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel underneath
and shells available
 Solaris is CLI with optional GUI interfaces (Java Desktop, KDE)
 Linux with CLI and GUI Interface

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Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

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The Mac OS X GUI

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System Calls
 Programming interface to the services provided by the OS

 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)

 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application Program

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)

 Why use APIs rather than system calls?

 (Note that the system-call names used throughout this text are
generic)

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Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to
another file

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Example of Standard API
 Consider the ReadFile() function in the
 Win32 API—a function for reading from a file

 A description of the parameters passed to ReadFile()

 HANDLE file—the file to be read

 LPVOID buffer—a buffer where the data will be read into and written from

 DWORD bytesToRead—the number of bytes to be read into the buffer

 LPDWORD bytesRead—the number of bytes read during the last read

 LPOVERLAPPED ovl—indicates if overlapped I/O is being used

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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 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)

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API – System Call – OS Relationship

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Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which
calls write() system call

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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

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Parameter Passing via Table

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Types of System Calls
 Process control
 end, abort
 load, execute
 create process, terminate process
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 wait for time
 wait event, signal event
 allocate and free memory
 File management
 create file, delete file
 open, close file
 read, write, reposition
 get and set file attributes

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Types of System Calls (Cont.)
 Device management
 request device, release device
 read, write, reposition
 get device attributes, set device attributes
 logically attach or detach devices
 Information maintenance
 get time or date, set time or date
 get system data, set system data
 get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
 create, delete communication connection
 send, receive messages
 transfer status information
 attach and detach remote devices

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Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

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Example: MS-DOS

 Single-tasking
 Shell invoked when system booted
 Simple method to run program
 No process created
 Single memory space
 Loads program into memory, overwriting all
but the kernel
 Program exit -> shell reloaded

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MS-DOS execution

(a) At system startup (b) running a program

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Example: FreeBSD
 Unix variant
 Multitasking
 User login -> invoke user’s choice of shell
 Shell executes fork() system call to create
process
 Executes exec() to load program into process
 Shell waits for process to terminate or continues

with user commands

 Process exits with code of 0 – no error or > 0 –
error code
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FreeBSD Running Multiple Programs

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System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment
for program development and execution. They can be
divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information
 File modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by
system programs, not the actual system calls

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System Programs
 Provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution
 Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others
are considerably more complex
 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print,
dump, list, and generally manipulate files and directories
 Status information
 Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available
memory, disk space, number of users
 Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging
information
 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

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System Programs (Cont.)
 File modification
 Text editors to create and modify files
 Special commands to search contents of files or perform
transformations of the text
 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,
debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders,
relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders,
debugging systems for higher-level and machine language
 Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating
virtual connections among processes, users, and
computer systems
 Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse
web pages, send electronic-mail messages, log in remotely,
transfer files from one machine to another

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Operating System Design and Implementation
 Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but
some approaches have proven successful
 Internal structure of different Operating Systems can
vary widely
 Start by defining goals and specifications
 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system
 User goals and System goals
 User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, 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

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Operating System Design and Implementation (Cont.)

 Important principle to separate

 Policy: What will be done?
 Mechanism: How to do it?

 Mechanisms determine how to do something,

policies decide what will be done
 The separation of policy from mechanism is a very
important principle, it allows maximum flexibility if
policy decisions are to be changed later

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Simple Structure

 MS-DOS – written to provide the most

functionality in the least space
 Not divided into modules
 Although MS-DOS has some structure, its
interfaces and levels of functionality are not well
separated

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MS-DOS Layer Structure

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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

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Traditional UNIX System Structure
Monolithic structure

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UNIX
 UNIX – limited by hardware functionality,
the original UNIX operating system had
limited structuring. The UNIX OS consists
of two separable parts
 Systems programs
 The kernel

Consists of everything below the system-call

interface and above the physical hardware
Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other operating-system
functions; a large number of functions for one level

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Layered Operating System

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Microkernel System Structure

Kernel Architecture

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Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much from the kernel into “user” space
 Communication takes place between user modules using
message passing
 Benefits:
 Easier to extend a microkernel
 Easier to port the operating system to new architectures
 More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode)
 More secure

 Detriments:
 Performance overhead of user space to kernel space
communication

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Mac OS X Structure

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Modules
 Most modern operating systems implement
kernel modules
 Uses object-oriented approach
 Each core component is separate

 Each talks to the others over known interfaces

 Each is loadable as needed within the kernel

 Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible

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Solaris Modular Approach

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Virtual Machines
 A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its
logical conclusion. It treats hardware and the operating
system kernel as though they were all hardware.

 A virtual machine provides an interface identical to the

underlying bare hardware.

 The operating system host creates the illusion that a

process has its own processor and (virtual memory).

 Each guest provided with a (virtual) copy of underlying

computer.

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Virtual Machines History and Benefits

 First appeared commercially in IBM mainframes in 1972

 Fundamentally, multiple execution environments (different operating
systems) can share the same hardware
 Protect from each other
 Some sharing of file can be permitted, controlled
 Commutate with each other, other physical systems via networking
 Useful for development, testing
 Consolidation of many low-resource use systems onto fewer busier
systems
 “Open Virtual Machine Format”, standard format of virtual
machines, allows a VM to run within many different virtual machine
(host) platforms

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Virtual Machines (Cont.)

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Para-virtualization

 Presents guest with system similar but not identical to

hardware

 Guest must be modified to run on paravirtualized

hardware

 Guest can be an OS, or in the case of Solaris 10

applications running in containers

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Virtualization Implementation
 Difficult to implement – must provide an exact
duplicate of underlying machine
 Typically runs in user mode, creates virtual user
mode and virtual kernel mode
 Timing can be an issue – slower than real
machine
 Hardware support needed
 More support-> better virtualization
 i.e. AMD provides “host” and “guest” modes

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Solaris 10 with Two Containers

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The Java Virtual Machine

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Operating-System Debugging
 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs
 OSes generate log files containing error information
 Failure of an application can generate core dump file capturing
memory of the process
 Operating system failure can generate crash dump file containing
kernel memory
 Beyond crashes, performance tuning can optimize system
performance
 Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in
the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible,
you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”
 DTrace tool in Solaris, FreeBSD, Mac OS X allows live instrumentation
on production systems
 Probes fire when code is executed, capturing state data and sending it to
consumers of those probes

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Solaris 10 dtrace Following System Call

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Operating System Generation
 Operating systems are designed to run on any of a class of
machines; the system must be configured for each
specific computer site

 SYSGEN program obtains information concerning the

specific configuration of the hardware system

 Booting – starting a computer by loading the kernel

 Bootstrap program – code stored in ROM that is able to

locate the kernel, load it into memory, and start its
execution

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System Boot
 Operating system must be made available
to hardware so hardware can start it
 Small piece of code – bootstrap loader,
locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and
starts it
 Sometimes two-step process where boot

block at fixed location loads bootstrap loader

 When power initialized on system, execution

starts at a fixed memory location

Firmware used to hold initial boot code

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References

Silberschatz, Gagne, Galvin: Operating System Concepts, 6th Edition

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