Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Chapter 2: 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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

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 Operating System Services

Two major tasks of an operating system

– 1) Providing a convenient environment for users/applications
 Provide some set of services for user applications
 Visible to users

– 2) Resource allocation and management

 Not much visible to users

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 Operating System Services

- 1) 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

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 Operating System Services (Cont.)
- 1) One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to
the user (Cont.):
 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.
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
- 2) 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 - CPU cycles, main memory, file storage,
I/O devices.
 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

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 A View of Operating System Services

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 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

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 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

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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)
 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)

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 Touchscreen Interfaces

 Touchscreen devices require new

interfaces
 Mouse not possible or not desired
 Actions and selection based on
gestures
 Virtual keyboard for text entry
 Voice commands.

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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
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),
 Java API for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

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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 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

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 API – System Call – OS Relationship

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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
 create process, terminate process
 load, execute
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 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

 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

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 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 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
 Protection
 Control access to resources
 Get and set permissions
 Allow and deny user access

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 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

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 Standard C Library Example

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

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 System Programs
 System services provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution. They can be divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information sometimes stored in a File modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Background services
 Other system utilities/applications may come with OS
 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 (e.g. create file);
others are considerably more complex (e.g. compiler)

 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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 System Programs (Cont.)
 Background Services
 Launch at boot time
 Some for system startup, then terminate
 Some from system boot to shutdown
 Provide facilities like disk checking, process scheduling, error
logging, printing
 Run in user context not kernel context
 Known as services, subsystems, daemons

 Application programs
 Don’t pertain to system
 Run by users
 Not typically considered part of OS, but sometimes comes with it
 E.g. games, math solvers, plotting tools, database systems,
spreadsheets, word processors, …)

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 User

User Interface (GUI/CLI)

System Programs Application Programs

System Calls

Rest of Kernel

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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 the design 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
 Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task of software
engineering

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 Implementation

 Much variation
 Early OSes in assembly language
 Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
 Now C, C++
 Actually usually a mix of languages
 Lowest levels in assembly
 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

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 Operating System Structure
 General-purpose OS is very large program
 Various ways to structure ones
 Monolithic structure– Original UNIX
 Layered – an abstraction
 Microkernel – Mach
 Modules
 Hybrid systems

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 Monolithic Structure -- 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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 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

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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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 Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much from the kernel into user space
 Mach example of microkernel
 Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) partly based on Mach
 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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 Microkernel System Structure

Application File Device user

Program System Driver mode

messages messages

Interprocess memory CPU kernel

Communication managment scheduling mode

microkernel

hardware

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 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement loadable 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
 Linux, Solaris, etc

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 Solaris Modular Approach

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 Hybrid Systems

 Most modern operating systems are actually not one pure model
 Hybrid combines multiple approaches to address
performance, security, usability needs
 Linux and Solaris kernels in kernel address space, so
monolithic, plus modular for dynamic loading of functionality
 Windows mostly monolithic, plus microkernel for different
subsystem personalities
 Apple Mac OS X hybrid, layered, Aqua UI plus Cocoa
programming environment
 Below is kernel consisting of Mach microkernel and BSD Unix
parts, plus I/O kit and dynamically loadable modules (called
kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 2

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