Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 A View of Operating System Services

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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), and 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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 Example of Standard API

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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
 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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 Types of System Calls
 Process control
 create process, terminate process
 end, abort
 load, execute
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 wait for time
 wait event, signal event
 allocate and free memory
 Dump memory if error
 Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
 Locks for managing access to shared data between processes

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 Types of System Calls (cont.)

 File management
 create file, delete file
 open, close file
 read, write, reposition
 get and set file attributes
 Device management
 request device, release device
 read, write, reposition
 get device attributes, set device attributes
 logically attach or detach devices

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 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 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 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

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 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 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 Services
 System programs provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution. They can be divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information sometimes stored in a file
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Background services
 Application programs
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by system
programs, not the actual system calls

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 System Services (cont.)
 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 Services (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 Services (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
 Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

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 Operating System Structure
 General-purpose OS is very large program
 Various ways to structure ones
 Simple structure – MS-DOS
 More complex -- UNIX
 Layered – an abstraction
 Microkernel -Mach

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 Monolithic Structure – Original 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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 Linux System Structure
Monolithic plus modular design

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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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 Microkernels
 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

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 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement loadable kernel
modules (LKMs)
 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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 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 2.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 2

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