Operating-System Structures

Advanced Operating Systems and Networks

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 Debugging
• Operating System Generation
• System Boot
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
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
Operating System Services (Cont.)
• 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 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 - 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
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
Bourne Shell Command Interpreter
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)
Touchscreen Interfaces
n Touchscreen devices require new interfaces
l Mouse not possible or not desired
l Actions and selection based on gestures
l Virtual keyboard for text entry
l Voice commands.
The Mac OS X GUI
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
Example of System Calls
• System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file
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)
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
Parameter Passing via Table
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
Types of System Calls
• 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
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
Types of System Calls (Cont.)
• Protection
• Control access to resources
• Get and set permissions
• Allow and deny user access
Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls
Standard C Library Example
• C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system call
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

At system startup running a program

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 = 0 – no error
• code > 0 – error code
System Programs
• 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 modification
• 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
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
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
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
• Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke
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
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
(example – timer)
• Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task of software
engineering
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
Operating System Structure
• General-purpose OS is very large program
• Various ways to structure ones
• Simple structure – MS-DOS
• More complex -- UNIX
• Layered – an abstrcation
• Microkernel -Mach
Simple Structure -- MS-DOS
• 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
Non Simple 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
Traditional UNIX System Structure

Beyond simple but not fully layered

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
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
Microkernel System Structure
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
Solaris Modular Approach
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)
Mac OS X Structure
iOS
• Apple mobile OS for iPhone, iPad
• Structured on Mac OS X, added functionality
• Does not run OS X applications natively
• Also runs on different CPU architecture (ARM vs. Intel)
• Cocoa Touch Objective-C API for developing apps
• Media services layer for graphics, audio, video
• Core services provides cloud computing, databases
• Core operating system, based on Mac OS X kernel
Android
• Developed by Open Handset Alliance (mostly Google)
• Open Source
• Similar stack to IOS
• Based on Linux kernel but modified
• Provides process, memory, device-driver management
• Adds power management
• Runtime environment includes core set of libraries and Dalvik virtual
machine
• Apps developed in Java plus Android API
• Java class files compiled to Java bytecode then translated to executable than runs in Dalvik VM

• Libraries include frameworks for web browser (webkit), database (SQLite),

multimedia, smaller libc
Android Architecture
Operating-System Debugging
• Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs
• OS 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
• Sometimes using trace listings of activities, recorded for analysis
• Profiling is periodic sampling of instruction pointer to look for statistical trends
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.”
Performance Tuning
• Improve performance by removing bottlenecks
• OS must provide means of computing and displaying measures of system
behavior
• For example, “top” program or Windows Task Manager
DTrace
n DTrace tool in Solaris,
FreeBSD, Mac OS X allows
live instrumentation on
production systems
n Probes fire when code is
executed within a provider,
capturing state data and
sending it to consumers of
those probes

n Example of following
XEventsQueued system call
move from libc library to
kernel and back
Dtrace (Cont.)
n DTrace code to record
amount of time each
process with UserID 101 is
in running mode (on CPU)
in nanoseconds
Operating System Generation
n Operating systems are designed to run on any of a class of machines; the
system must be configured for each specific computer site
n SYSGEN program obtains information concerning the specific
configuration of the hardware system
l Used to build system-specific compiled kernel or system-tuned
l Can general more efficient code than one general kernel
System Boot
• When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed memory
location
• Firmware ROM used to hold initial boot code
• Operating system must be made available to hardware so hardware can
start it
• Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, stored in ROM or EEPROM locates the
kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
• Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location loaded by ROM
code, which loads bootstrap loader from disk
• Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of kernel from multiple
disks, versions, kernel options
• Kernel loads and system is then running