Module 61CSE218: Operating System

Threads

 Vietnamese-German University
 Ngoc Tran, Ph.D.
 [email protected]

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition
Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin and
Galvin, Gagne©2018
Gagne ©2013
 Motivation

 Most modern applications are multithreaded

 Threads run within application
 Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by
separate threads
 Update display
 Fetch data
 Spell checking
 Answer a network request
 Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is
light-weight
 Can simplify code, increase efficiency
 Kernels are generally multithreaded

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.2 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Multithreaded Server Architecture

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.3 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Benefits

 Responsiveness – may allow continued execution if part of

process is blocked, especially important for user interfaces
 Resource Sharing – threads share resources of process, easier
than shared memory or message passing
 Economy – cheaper than process creation, thread switching
lower overhead than context switching
 Scalability – process can take advantage of multiprocessor
architectures

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.4 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Multicore Programming

 Multicore or multiprocessor systems putting pressure on

programmers, challenges include:
 Dividing activities
 Balance
 Data splitting
 Data dependency
 Testing and debugging
 Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task
simultaneously
 Concurrency supports more than one task making progress
 Single processor / core, scheduler providing concurrency

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.5 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Concurrency vs. Parallelism
 Concurrent execution on single-core system:

 Parallelism on a multi-core system:

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.6 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Multicore Programming (Cont.)
 Types of parallelism
 Data parallelism – distributes subsets of the same data across
multiple cores, same operation on each
 Task parallelism – distributing threads across cores, each thread
performing unique operation
 As # of threads grows, so does architectural support for threading
 CPUs have cores as well as hardware threads
 1 core ~ 1 HW thread
 1 core ~ 2 HW threads
 Consider Oracle SPARC T4 with 8 cores, and 8 hardware threads
per core
 Use hyperthreading technology: For each physical core, the OS
addresses two virtual/logical cores and shares the workload
between them when possible.

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.7 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Source: textbook “CPU Architecture Fundamentals”
Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition
th Edition 4.8 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Single and Multithreaded Processes

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.9 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 User Threads and Kernel Threads

 User threads - management done by user-level threads library

 Three primary thread libraries:
 POSIX Pthreads
 Windows threads
 Java threads
 Kernel threads - Supported by the Kernel
 Examples – virtually all general purpose operating systems, including:
 Windows
 Solaris
 Linux
 Tru64 UNIX
 Mac OS X

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.10 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Multithreading Models

 Many-to-One

 One-to-One

 Many-to-Many

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.11 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Many-to-One

 Many user-level threads mapped to

single kernel thread
 One thread blocking causes all to block
 Multiple threads may not run in parallel
on multicore system because only one
may be in kernel at a time
 Few systems currently use this model
 Examples:
 Solaris Green Threads
 GNU Portable Threads

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.12 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 One-to-One
 Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
 Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
 More concurrency than many-to-one
 Number of threads per process sometimes
restricted due to overhead
 Examples
 Windows
 Linux
 Solaris 9 and later

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.13 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Many-to-Many Model
 Allows many user level threads to be
mapped to many kernel threads
 Allows the operating system to create
a sufficient number of kernel threads
 Solaris prior to version 9
 Windows with the ThreadFiber
package

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.14 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Two-level Model

 Similar to M:M, except that it also allows a user thread to

be bound to a kernel thread
 Examples
 IRIX
 HP-UX
 Tru64 UNIX
 Solaris 8 and earlier

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.15 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Thread Libraries

 Thread library provides programmer with API for creating

and managing threads
 Two primary ways of implementing
 Library entirely in user space
 Kernel-level library supported by the OS

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.16 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Pthreads

 May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

 A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
 Specification, not implementation
 API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is
up to development of the library
 Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X)

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.17 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Pthreads Example
- The C program demonstrates the basic Pthreads API for
constructing a multithreaded program that calculates the
summation of a non negative integer in a separate thread.

When this program begins, a single thread of

control begins in main()

C:\posixthread 10

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.18 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Pthreads Example (Cont.)
After some initialization,
main() creates a second thread
that begins control in the
runner() function. Both threads
share the global data sum.

In a Pthread begin execution in a specified

function. This is the runner() function.

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.19 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.20 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Windows Multithreaded C Program

C:/Winthread 10

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.21 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Windows Multithreaded C Program (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.22 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Java Threads

 Java threads are managed by the JVM

 Typically implemented using the threads model provided by
underlying OS
 Java threads may be created by:

 Extending Thread class

 Implementing the Runnable interface

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.23 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Java Multithreaded Program

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.24 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Java Multithreaded Program (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.25 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Multithread Exercise
1. Retype C code (pages 21,22) and Java code (pages 24,25) samples. Run
them.
2. Modify the exercise 1 for n threads with n inputted from the console.

Submit codes and screenshots of output of the 2 above exercises.

th Edition
Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition 4.26 Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Implicit Threading

 Growing in popularity as numbers of threads increase,

program correctness more difficult with explicit threads.
(difficulties with explicit threads are demonstrated on slide 5)
 Creation and management of threads done by compilers and
run-time libraries rather than programmers.
 Three methods explored
 Thread Pools.
 OpenMP.
 Grand Central Dispatch.

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.27 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Thread Pools
 Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
 Advantages:
 Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing
thread than create a new thread
 Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be
bound to the size of the pool
 Separating task to be performed from mechanics of
creating task allows different strategies for running task
 i.e.Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
 Windows API supports thread pools:

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.28 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP)
 Set of compiler directives and an
API for C, C++, FORTRAN
 Provides support for parallel
programming in shared-memory
environments
 Identifies parallel regions –
blocks of code that can run in
parallel
#pragma omp parallel
Create as many threads as there are
cores
#pragma omp parallel for
for(i=0;i<N;i++) {
c[i] = a[i] + b[i];
}
Run for loop in parallel

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.30 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Grand Central Dispatch (GCD)

 Apple technology for Mac OS X and iOS operating systems

 Extensions to C, C++ languages, API, and run-time library
 Allows identification of parallel code sections
 Manages most of the details of threading
 Block is in “^{ }” - ˆ{ printf("I am a block"); }
 Blocks placed in dispatch queue
 Assigned to available thread in thread pool when removed
from queue

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.31 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Grand Central Dispatch

 Two types of dispatch queues:

 serial – blocks removed in FIFO order, queue is per process,
called main queue
 Programmers can create additional serial queues within
program
 concurrent – removed in FIFO order but several may be
removed at a time
 Three system wide queues with priorities low, default, high

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.32 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Threading Issues

 Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls

 Signal handling
 Synchronous and asynchronous
 Thread cancellation of target thread
 Asynchronous or deferred
 Thread-local storage
 Scheduler Activations

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.33 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Semantics of fork() and exec()

 Does fork()duplicate only the calling thread or all

threads?
 Some UNIXes have two versions of fork
 exec() usually works as normal – replace the running
process including all threads

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.34 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Fork () and Exec()

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.35 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Signal Handling
 Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
 A signal handler is used to process signals
 Signal is generated by particular event
 Signal is delivered to a process
 Once delivered, the signal must be handled.
 Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
 default
 user-defined
 Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
 User-defined signal handler can override default
 For single-threaded, signal delivered to process

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.36 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Signal Handling (Cont.)
 Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
 Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
 Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
 Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
 Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the
process

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.37 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Thread Cancellation
 Terminating a thread before it has finished
 Thread to be canceled is target thread
 Two general approaches:
 Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread
immediately
 Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically
check if it should be cancelled
 Pthread code to create and cancel a thread:

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.38 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Thread Cancellation
 Invoking thread cancellation requests cancellation, but actual
cancellation depends on thread state

 If thread has cancellation disabled, cancellation remains pending

until thread enables it
 Default type is deferred
 Cancellation only occurs when thread reaches cancellation
point
 I.e. pthread_testcancel()
 Then cleanup handler is invoked
 On Linux systems, thread cancellation is handled through signals

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.39 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Thread-Local Storage

 Thread-local storage (TLS) allows each thread to have its

own copy of data
 Useful when you do not have control over the thread creation
process (i.e., when using a thread pool)
 Different from local variables
 Local variables visible only during single function
invocation
 TLS visible across function invocations
 Similar to static data
 TLS is unique to each thread

th Edition
Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition 4.40 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Scheduler Activations
 Both M:M and Two-level models require
communication to maintain the appropriate
number of kernel threads allocated to the
application
 Typically use an intermediate data structure
between user and kernel threads – lightweight
process (LWP)
 Appears to be a virtual processor on which
process can schedule user thread to run
 Each LWP attached to kernel thread
 How many LWPs to create?
 Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a
communication mechanism from the kernel to
the upcall handler in the thread library
 This communication allows an application to
maintain the correct number kernel threads

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.41 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Exercises
1. Write multithreaded programs using C++ or Java: 1 server and n clients.
Server and clients work as in the below transcript.
 Server: provides the calculating service to clients.
 Server loops to listen to the request from clients.
 Once receiving a request from 1 client, server accepts it and creates
a thread for the client.
– Receives the two numbers x, y from the client.
– Computes x+y and returns the addition to the client.
– Close the connection with the client.
 Client: connects to the server to use the calculating service.
 Connects to the server.
 Sends 2 numbers x, y to the server.
 Receives the result and displays it on the console.
 Close the connection to the server.

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.47 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 Exercises
2. Draw a sequence diagram to show the protocol of the communication
between server and client.

Operating System Concepts – 910 th Edition

th Edition 4.48 Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz,
Silberschatz,Galvin andGagne
Galvin, Gagne©2018
©2013
 End of Chapter 4

Operating System Concepts – 9th10th Edition

Edition Lecturer: Ngoc Tran, Ph.D. Silberschatz, Galvin,
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Gagne ©2013
©2018