Operating System Extra
Operating System Extra
COMPUTER SCIENCE
SEMESTER V
OPERATING SYSTEMS
UNIT – I
Introduction - History of operating system- Different kinds of operating system - Operation system
concepts - System Calls-Operating system structure.
UNIT – II
Processes and Threads: Processes - threads - thread model and usage - inter process communication.
UNIT – III
UNIT – IV
UNIT – V
Input / Output: principles of I/O hardware - principles of I/O software. Files systems: Files -
directories - files systems implementation - File System Management and Optimization
TEXT BOOK
1. Andrew S. Tanenbaum, "Modern Operating Systems", 2ndEdition, PHI private Limited, New
Delhi, 2008.
REFERENCE BOOKS
2. Sridhar Vaidyanathan, "Operating System", 1st Edition, Vijay Nicole Publications, 2014
1
Introduction to operating System
An operating system (OS) is a set of programs that control the execution of application
programs and act as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the computer
hardware. OS is software that manages the computer hardware as well as providing an
environment for application programs to run.
Computer System
A computer system can be divided into four components: the hardware, the operating
system, the application programs and the users. The abstract view of system components
is shown in figure 1.
1. Hardware: such as CPU, memory and I/O devices.
2. Operating system: provides the means of proper use of the hardware in the operations of
the computer system, it is similar to government.
3. Application programs: solve the computing problems of the user, such as : compilers,
database systems and web browsers.
4. Users: peoples, machine, or other computer.
2
Fig:1 Computer System
1. Computer-System Operation
A modern general-purpose computer system consists of one or more CPUs and a number of
device controllers connected through a common bus that provides access to shared memory
(Figure 1.2). Each device controller is in charge of a specific type of device (for example, disk
drives, audio devices, and video displays). The CPU and the device controllers can execute
concurrently, competing for memory cycles. To ensure orderly access to the shared memory, a
memory controller is synchronizing access to the memory.
For a computer to start running-for instance, when it is powered up or rebooted- it needs to
have an initial program to run. This initial program, or bootstrap program, tends to be
simple. Typically, it is stored in read-only memory (ROM) or electrically erasable
programmable read-only memory (EEPROM),known by the general term firmware, within
the computer hardware. It initializes all aspects of the system, from CPU registers to device
controllers to memory contents. The bootstrap program must know how to load the operating
system and to start executing that system. To accomplish this goal, the bootstrap program
must locate and load into memory the operating system kernel. The operating system then
starts executing the first process, such as "init," and waits for some event to occur.
3
Figure 2
2. Storage Structure
Computer programs must be in main memory (also called RAM) to be executed. Main
memory is the only large storage area that the processor can access directly. It forms an array
of memory words. Each word has its own address. Interaction is achieved through a sequence
of load or store instructions to specific memory addresses. The load instruction moves a word
from main memory to an internal register within the CPU, whereas the store instruction moves
the content of a register to main memory.
The instruction-execution cycle includes:
1) Fetches an instruction from memory and stores that instruction in the instruction register.
And increment the PC register.
2) Decode the instruction and may cause operands to be fetched from memory and stored in
some internal register.
3) Execute the instruction and store the result in memory.
The programs and data are not resided in main memory permanently for the following two reasons:
1) Main memory is usually too small to store all needed programs and. Data permanently.
2) Main memory is a volatile storage device that loses its contents when power is turned off
or otherwise lost.
Thus, most computer systems provide secondary storage as an extension of main memory to
hold large quantities of data permanently.
4
4
The wide variety of storage systems in a computer system can be organized in a hierarchy (figure 2).
The main differences among the various storage systems lie in speed, cost, size, and volatility. The
higher levels are expensive, but they are fast.
I/O Structure
A computer system consists of CPUs and multiple device controllers that are connected through a
common bus. The device controller is responsible for moving the data between the peripheral devices
that it controls and its localbuffer storage. Typically, operating systems have a device driver for each
device controller.
To start an I/O operation, the device driver loads the appropriate registers within the device controller.
The device controller examines the contents of these registers to determine what action to take. The
controller starts the transfer of data from the device to its local buffer. Once the transfer of data is
complete, the device controller informs the device driver via an interrupt that it has finished its
operation. The device driver then returns control to the operating system . For other operations, the
device driver returns status information.
For moving bulk data, direct memory access (DMA) is used. After setting up buffers, pointers, and
counters for the I/O device, the device controller transfers an entire block of data directly to or from its
own buffer storage to memory, with no intervention by the CPU. Only one interrupt is generated per
block, to tell the device driver that the operation has completed, rather than the one interrupt per byte
generated for low-speed devices.
5
Computer system structure
There are different categories for designing a computer system according to the number
processors used.
1. Single-processor system: there is one CPU for executing instructions.
2. Multiprocessor system: It contains two or more processors that share bus, clock, physical
memory and peripheral devices. The advantages of multiprocessors are:
a) Increase throughput.
b) Economy scale (less cost).
c) Increase reliability.
3. Clustered system: it consists of multiple computer systems connected by a local area
network.
Operating systems have been evolving through the years. Following table shows the history of OS.
6
6. Facilitating I/O operations.
The main categories of modern OS may be classified into three groups which are distinguished by the
nature of interaction that takes place between the computer and the user:
1. Batch system
In this type of OS, users submit jobs on regular schedule (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly) to a central place
where the user of such system did not interact directly with computer system. To speed up the
processing, jobs with similar needs were batched together and were run through the computer as a
group. Thus, the programmer would leave the programs with the operator. The output from each job
would send to the appropriate programmer. The major task of this type was to transfer control
automatically from one job to the next.
Disadvantages of Batch System
1. Turnaround time can be large from user standpoint.
2. Difficult to debug program
2.Time-Sharing System
This type of OS provides on-line communication between the user and the system, the user gives his
instructions directly and receives intermediate response, and therefore it called interactive system.
The time sharing system allows many user simultaneously share the computer system. The CPU is
multiplexed rapidly among several programs, which are kept in memory and on disk. A program
swapped in and out of memory to the disk.
Time sharing system reduces the CPU ideal time. The disadvantage is more complex.
7
3.Real time operating system
Real Time System is characterized by supplying immediate response. It guarantees that critical tasks
complete on time. This type must have a pre- known maximum time limit for each of the functions to
be performed on the computer. Real-time systems are used when there are rigid time requirements on
the operation of a processor or the flow of data and real-time systems can be used as a control device in
a dedicated application.
Performance development of OS
1.On-line and off-line operation
A special subroutine was written for each I/O device called a device controller. Some I/O devices has
been equipped for either on-line operation (they are connected to the processor), or off-line operations
(they are run by control unit).
2.Buffering
A buffer is an area of primary storage for holding data during I/O transfer. On input, the data are placed
in the buffer by an I/O channel, when the transfer is complete the data may be accessed the processor.
The buffing may be single or double.
Spooling uses the disk as a very large buffer. Spooling is useful because device access data that
different rates. The buffer provides a waiting station where data can rest while the slower device
catches up.
Spooling allows overlapping between the computation of one job and I/O of another job
8
4.Multiprogramming
In multiprogramming several programs are kept in main memory at the same time, and the CPU is
switching between them , thus the CPU always has a program to be execute. The OS begins to
execute one program from memory, if this program need wait such as an I/O operation, the OS
switches to another program. Multiprogramming increases CPU utilization. Multiprogramming
system provide an environment in which the various system resources are utilized effectively, but
they do not provide for user interaction with the computer system.
Advantages
Disadvantages
4.Parallel system
There are more than on processor in the system. These processors share the computer bus, clock,
memory and I/O devices.
The advantage is to increase throughput (the number of programs completed in time unit).
9
6.Distributed system
Distribute the computation among several physical processors. It involves connecting 2 or more independent
computer systems via communication link. So, each processor has its own O.S. and local memory; processors
communicate with one another through various communications lines, such as high-speed buses or telephone
lines.
• Reliability – If one processor failed the rest still can function with no problem.
Personal computer
Personal computers – computer system dedicated to a single user. PC operating systems were
neither multi-user nor multi-tasking. The goal of PC operating systems were to maximize user
convenience and responsiveness instead of maximizing CPU and I/O utilization.
10
System calls
System Calls
11
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
12
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
13
Types of System Calls
✓ Process Control
✓ File Management
✓ Device Management
✓ Information maintenance
✓ Communications
✓ Protection
MS-DOS execution
14
Operating System Structure
➢ UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the original UNIX operating system had limited
structuring. The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts.
➢ Systems programs – use kernel supported system calls to provide useful functions such as
compilation and file manipulation.
➢ 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.
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.
✓ An OS layer is an implementation of an abstract object that is the encapsulation of data and
operations that can manipulate those data. These operations (routines) can be invoked by higher-level
layers. The layer itself can invoke operations on lower-level layers.
✓ Layered approach provides modularity. With modularity, layers are selected such that each layer uses
functions (operations) and services of only lower-level layers.
✓ Each layer is implemented by using only those operations that are provided lower level layers.
✓ The major difficulty is appropriate definition of various layers.
❖ 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
15
UNIT-II
Processes and Threads
Processes-Process Concept:
16
• As a process executes, it changes state
o new: The process is being created
o ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor
o running: Instructions are being executed
o waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur
o terminated: The process has finished execution
Each process is represented in the operating system by a process control block (PCB)—also called a
task control block. A PCBis shown in 3.3. It contains many pieces of information associated with a specific
process, including these:
• Process state. The state may be new, ready, running, waiting, halted, and so on.
• Program counter: The counter indicates the address of the next instruction to be executed for this process.
• CPU registers: The registers vary in number and type, depending on the computer architecture. They
include accumulators, index registers, stack pointers, and general-purpose registers, plus any condition-code
information. Along with the program counter, this state information must be saved when an interrupt occurs,
to allow the process to be continued correctly afterward (Figure 3.4).
• CPU-scheduling information:This information includes a process priority, pointers to scheduling queues,
and any other scheduling parameters
• Memory-management information: This information may include such items as the value of the base and
limit registers and the page tables, or the segment tables, depending on the memory system used by the
operating system
• Accounting information. This information includes the amount of CPU and real time used, time limits,
account numbers, job or process numbers, and so on.
17
• I/O status information. This information includes the list of I/O devices allocated to the process, a list of
open files, and so on.
Process Scheduling:
The objective of multiprogramming is to have some process running at all times, to maximize CPU
utilization. the process scheduler selects an available process (possibly from a set of several available
processes) for program execution on the CPU. For a single-processor system, there will never be more than
one running process. If there are more processes, the rest will have to wait until the CPU is free and can be
rescheduled.
Scheduling Queues
• Job queue – set of all processes in the system
• Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main memory, ready and waiting to
execute
• Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O device Processes migrate among
the various queues.
A common representation of process scheduling is a queueing diagram. Two types of queues are
present: the ready queue and a set of device queues. The circles represent the resources that serve the queues,
and the arrows indicate the flow of processes in the system. A new process is initially put in the ready queue.
It waits there until it is selected for execution, or dispatched. Once the process is allocated the CPU and is
executing, one of several events could occur:
• The process could issue an I/O request and then be placed in an I/O queue.
• The process could create a new child process and wait for the child’s termination.
• The process could be removed forcibly from the CPU, as a result of an interrupt, and be put back in the
ready queue.
18
Schedulers
• Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should be brought into the
ready queue
• Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should be executed next and
allocates CPU
Some operating systems, such as time-sharing systems, may introduce an additional, intermediate level of
scheduling. The key idea behind a medium-term scheduler is that sometimes it can be advantageous to remove a
process from memory (and from active contention for the CPU) and thus reduce the degree of multiprogramming.
Context Switch
• When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state of the old process and
load the saved state for the new process
• Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful work while switching
• Time dependent on hardware support
Operations on Processes
Process Creation
• Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create other processes, forming a
tree of processes
• Resource sharing
o Parent and children share all resources
o Children share subset of parent’s resources
o Parent and child share no resources
• Execution
o Parent and children execute concurrently
o Parent waits until children terminate
19
• Address space
oChild duplicate of parent
oChild has a program loaded into it
• UNIX examples
o fork system call creates new process
o exec system call used after a fork to replace the process’ memory space with a new program
int main()
{
pid_t pid;
/* fork another process */
pid = fork();
if (pid < 0) { /* error occurred */
fprintf(stderr, "Fork Failed");
exit(-1);
}
else if (pid == 0) { /* child process */
execlp("/bin/ls", "ls", NULL);
}
else { /* parent process */
/* parent will wait for the child to complete */
wait (NULL);
printf ("Child Complete");
exit(0);
}
}
A tree of processes on a typical Solaris
20
Process Termination
• Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to delete it (exit)
o Output data from child to parent (via wait)
o Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
• Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort)
o Child has exceeded allocated resources
o Task assigned to child is no longer required
o If parent is exiting
▪ Some operating system do not allow child to continue if its parent terminates
• All children terminated - cascading termination
Cooperating Processes
21
Direct Communication
Indirect Communication
• Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred to as ports)
o Each mailbox has a unique id
o Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox
• Properties of communication link
o Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
o A link may be associated with many processes
o Each pair of processes may share several communication links
o Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional
Threads- Overview
A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization; it comprises a thread ID, a program counter, a
register set, and a stack. It shares with other threads belonging to the same process its code section, data
section, and other operating-system resources, such as open files and signals. A traditional (or heavyweight)
process has a single thread of control. If a process has multiple threads of control, it can perform more than
one task at a time.
Benefits
The benefits of multithreaded programming can be broken down into four major categories:
22
2. Resource sharing. Processes can only share resources through techniques such as shared
memory and message passing.
3. Economy. Allocating memory and resources for process creation is costly. Because threads share
the resources of the process to which they belong, it is more economical to create and context-
switch threads.
4. Scalability. The benefits of multithreading can be even greater in a multiprocessor architecture,
where threads may be running in parallel on different processing cores.
Multicore Programming
Earlier in the history of computer design, in response to the need for more computing
performance, single-CPU systems evolved into multi-CPU systems. A more recent, similar trend in
system design is to place multiple computing cores on a single chip. Each core appears as a separate
processor to the operating Whether the cores appear across CPU chips or within CPU chips, we call
these systems multicore or multiprocessor systems.
Multithreaded programming provides a mechanism for more efficient use of these multiple
computing cores and improved concurrency. Consider an application with four threads. On a system
with a single computing core, concurrency merely means that the execution of the threads will be
interleaved over time because the processing core is capable of executing only one thread at a time.
On a system with multiple cores, however,
Concurrency means that the threads can run in parallel, because the system can assign a
separate thread to each core .Notice the distinction between parallelism and concurrency in this
discussion. A system is parallel if it can perform more than one task simultaneously. In contrast, a
concurrent system supports more than one task by allowing all the tasks to make progress.
Multithreading Models
• Many-to-One
• One-to-One
• Many-to-Many
1. Many-to-One
• Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread
• Examples:
o Solaris Green Threads
o GNU Portable Threads
23
2. One-to-One
• Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
• Examples
o Windows NT/XP/2000
o Linux
o Solaris 9 and later
3. 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 NT/2000 with the ThreadFiber package
Windows 7
Windows implements the Windows API, which is the primary API for the family of Microsoft
operating systems (Windows 98, NT, 2000, and XP, as well as Windows 7). Indeed, much of what is
mentioned in this section applies to this entire family of operating systems. A Windows application runs as a
separate process, and each process may contain one or more threads.
24
• A private storage area used by various run-time libraries and dynamic link libraries (DLLs).
The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known as the context of the thread. The primary
data structures of a thread include:
• ETHREAD—executive thread block
• KTHREAD—kernel thread block
• TEB—thread environment block
Process Synchronization
• There are n processes that are competing to use some shared data
• Each process has a code segment, called critical section, in which the shared data is accessed.
• Problem – ensure that when one process is executing in its critical section, no other process is allowed
to execute in its critical section.
Requirements to be satisfied for a Solution to the Critical-Section Problem:
1. Mutual Exclusion - If process Pi is executing in its critical section, then no other processes can be
executing in their critical sections.
2. Progress - If no process is executing in its critical section and there exist some processes that wish to enter
their critical section, then the selection of the processes that will enter the critical section next cannot be
postponed indefinitely.
3. Bounded Waiting - A bound must exist on the number of times that other processes are allowed to enter
their critical sections after a process has made a request to enter its critical section and before that request is
granted.
do {
entry section
critical section
exit section
remainder section
} while (true);
• Two general approaches are used to handle critical sections in operating systems: preemptive
kernels and nonpreemptive kernels.
• A preemptive kernel allows a process to be preempted while it is running in kernel mode.
• A non-preemptive kernel does not allow a process running in kernel mode to be preempted; a kernel-
mode process will run until it exits kernel mode, blocks, or voluntarily yields control of the CPU.
25
Mutex Locks
• □ A high-level abstraction that provides a convenient and effective mechanism for process
synchronization
• □ Only one process may be active within the monitor at atime monitor monitor-name
initialization code
• □ To allow a process to wait within the monitor, a condition variable must be declared as o condition
x, y;
• □ Two operations on a condition variable:
• □ x.wait ()–a process that invokes the operation is suspended.
• □ x.signal ()–resumes one of the suspended processes(if any)
26
Solution to Dining Philosophers Problem
Monitor DP
{
enum { THINKING; HUNGRY, EATING) state [5] ;
condition self [5];
void pickup (int i) {
state[i] = HUNGRY;
test(i);
if (state[i] != EATING) self [i].wait;
}
void putdown (int i) {
state[i] = THINKING;
// test left and right neighbors
test((i + 4) % 5);
test((i + 1) % 5);
}
void test (int i) {
if ( (state[(i + 4) % 5] != EATING) &&
(state[i] == HUNGRY) &&
(state[(i + 1) % 5] != EATING) ) {
state[i] = EATING ;
self[i].signal () ;
}
}
initialization_code() {
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
state[i] = THINKING;
}
}
27
Semophores
• It is a synchronization tool that is used to generalize the solution to the critical section problem in
complex situations.
• A Semaphore s is an integer variable that can only be accessed via two indivisible (atomic) operations
namely
wait (s)
{
1. wait or P operation ( to test )
2. signal or V operation ( to increment )
while(s□ 0);
s--;
}
signal (s)
{
s++;
}
Mutual Exclusion Implementation using semaphore
do
{
wait(mutex);
critical section
remainder section
} while (1);
signal(mutex);
Semaphore Implementation
• The semaphore discussed so far requires a busy waiting. That is if a process is in critical-section, the
other process that tries to enter its critical-section must loop continuously in the entry code.
• To overcome the busy waiting problem, the definition of the semaphore operations wait and signal
should be modified.
• When a process executes the wait operation and finds that the semaphore value is not
positive, the process can block itself. The block operation places the process into a waiting
queue associated with the semaphore.
• A process that is blocked waiting on a semaphore should be restarted when some other
process executes a signal operation. The blocked process should be restarted by a wakeup
operation which put that process into ready queue.
• To implemented the semaphore, we define a semaphore as a record as:
typedef struct {
int value;
} semaphore;
28
Deadlock & starvation:
Example: Consider a system of two processes , P0 & P1 each accessing two semaphores ,S & Q, set
to the value 1.
P0 P1
Wait (S) Wait (Q)
Wait (Q) Wait (S)
. .
. .
. .
Signal(S) Signal(Q)
Signal(Q) Signal(S)
• Suppose that P0 executes wait(S), then P1 executes wait(Q). When P0 executes wait(Q), it
must wait until P1 executes signal(Q).Similarly when P1 executes wait(S), it must wait until
P0 executes signal(S). Since these signal operations cannot be executed, P0 & P1 are
deadlocked.
• Another problem related to deadlock is indefinite blocking or starvation, a situation where a
process wait indefinitely within the semaphore. Indefinite blocking may occur if we add or
remove processes from the list associated with a semaphore in LIFO order.
Types of Semaphores
• Counting semaphore – any positive integer value
• Binary semaphore – integer value can range only between 0 and 1
29
UNIT-III
CPU Scheduling
CPU Scheduler
Whenever the CPU becomes idle, the operating system must select one of the processes in the ready queue to
be executed.
The selection process is carried out by the short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler).
The ready queue is not necessarily a first-in, first-out (FIFO) queue. It may be a FIFO queue, a priority queue,
a tree, or simply an unordered linked list.
Preemptive Scheduling
• CPU scheduling decisions may take place under the following four circumstances:
1. When a process switches from the running state to the waiting state
2. When a process switches from the running state to the ready state
3. When a process switches from the waiting state to the ready state
4. When a process terminates
• Under 1 & 4 scheduling scheme is non preemptive.
• Otherwise the scheduling scheme is preemptive.
30
Non-preemptive Scheduling
□ In non preemptive scheduling, once the CPU has been allocated a process, the process keeps the CPU
until it releases the CPU either by termination or by switching to the waiting state.
□ This scheduling method is used by the Microsoft windows environment.
Dispatcher
The dispatcher is the module that gives control of the CPU to the process selected by the short-term
scheduler.
This function involves:
1. Switching context
2. Switching to user mode
3. Jumping to the proper location in the user program to restart that program
Scheduling Criteria
1. CPU utilization: The CPU should be kept as busy as possible. CPU utilization may range from 0 to 100
percent. In a real system, it should range from 40 percent (for a lightly loaded system) to 90 percent (for a
heavily used system).
2. Throughput: Itis the number of processes completed per time unit. For long processes, this rate may be 1
process per hour; for short transactions, throughput might be 10 processes per second.
3. Turnaround time: The interval from the time of submission of a process to the time of completion is the
turnaround time. Turnaround time is the sum of the periods spent waiting to get into memory, waiting in the
ready queue, executing on the CPU, and doing I/O.
4. Waiting time: Waiting time is the sum of the periods spent waiting in the ready queue.
5. Response time: It is the amount of time it takes to start responding, but not the time that it takes to output
that response.
P1 24
P2 3
P3 3
31
• Waiting time for P1 = 0; P2 = 24; P3 = 27
order
• Associate with each process the length of its next CPU burst. Use these lengths to schedule the
process with the shortest time
• SJF is optimal – gives minimum average waiting time for a given set of processes
P1 0.0 6
P2 2.0 8
P3 4.0 7
P4 5.0 3
32
Determining Length of Next CPU Burst
• Can be done by using the length of previous CPU bursts, using exponential averaging
33
Examples of Exponential Averaging
• =0
– n+1 = n
• =1
– n+1 = tn
+(1 - )j tn -j + …
+(1 - )n +1 0
• Since both and (1 - ) are less than or equal to 1, each successive term has less weight than
its predecessor
Priority Scheduling
• The CPU is allocated to the process with the highest priority (smallest integer highest priority)
– Preemptive
– nonpreemptive
• SJF is a priority scheduling where priority is the predicted next CPU burst time
• Each process gets a small unit of CPU time (time quantum), usually 10-100 milliseconds. After this
time has elapsed, the process is preempted and added to the end of the ready queue.
• If there are n processes in the ready queue and the time quantum is q, then each process gets 1/n
of the CPU time in chunks of at most q time units at once. No process waits more than (n-1)q time
units.
34
• Performance
– q large → FIFO
– q small → q must be large with respect to context switch, otherwise overhead is too high
P1 24
P2 3
P3 3
35
Multilevel Queue
– foreground – RR
– background – FCFS
– Fixed priority scheduling; (i.e., serve all from foreground then from background). Possibility
of starvation.
– Time slice – each queue gets a certain amount of CPU time which it can schedule amongst its
processes; i.e., 80% to foreground in RR
• A process can move between the various queues; aging can be implemented this way
– number of queues
36
– method used to determine which queue a process will enter when that process needs service
Logical and physical addresses are the same in ―compile-time and load-time address-binding schemes‖
Logical (virtual) and physical addresses differ in ―execution-time address- binding scheme‖
37
Memory-Management Unit (MMU)
In this scheme, the relocation register‘s value is added to Logical address generated by a user process.
The user program deals with logical addresses; it never sees the real physical addresses
Dynamic Loading
o Useful when large amounts of code are needed to handle infrequently occurring cases
o No special support from the operating system is required implemented through program
design
Dynamic Linking
Linking postponed until execution time & is particularly useful for libraries
Small piece of code called stub, used to locate the appropriate memory- resident library
routine or function.
Stub replaces itself with the address of the routine, and executes the routine
Operating system needed to check if routine is in processes’ memory address
Shared libraries: Programs linked before the new library was installed will continue using the older
library.
38
Swapping
A process can be swapped temporarily out of memory to a backing store (SWAP OUT)and then brought
back into memory for continued execution (SWAP IN).
Backing store – fast disk large enough to accommodate copies of all memory images for all
users & it must provide direct access to these memory images
Roll out, roll in – swapping variant used for priority-based scheduling algorithms; lower-priority process
is swapped out so higher-priority process can be loaded and executed
Transfer time: Major part of swap time is transfer time. Total transfer time is directly proportional to the
amount of memory swapped.
Example: Let us assume the user process is of size 1MB & the backing store is a standard hard disk with
a transfer rate of 5MBPS.
39
Dynamic Storage- Allocation Problem:
Solution:
NOTE: First-fit and best-fit are better than worst-fit in terms of speed and storage utilization
Fragmentation:
o External Fragmentation – This takes place when enough total memory space exists to
satisfy a request, but it is not contiguous i.e, storage is fragmented into a large number of small holes scattered
throughout the main memory.
o Internal Fragmentation – Allocated memory may be slightly larger than requested memory.
Example: hole = 184 bytes
Process size = 182 bytes.
We are left with a hole of 2 bytes.
o Solutions
2. Compaction: Move all processes towards one end of memory, hole towards other end
of memory, producing one large hole of available memory. This
scheme is expensive as it can be done if relocation is dynamic and
done at execution time.
40
3.Permit the logical address space of a process to be non-contiguous. This is achieved through two
memory management schemes namely paging and segmentation.
Segmentation
o Memory-management scheme that supports user view of memory
o A program is a collection of segments. A segment is a logical unit such as:Main program, Procedure,
Function, Method, Object, Local variables, global variables, Common block, Stack, Symbol table, arrays
41
Segmentation Hardware
o Logical address consists of a two tuple :
<Segment-number, offset>
o Segment table – maps two-dimensional physical addresses; each table entry has:
Base – contains the starting physical address where the segments reside in memory
Limit – specifies the length of the segment
o Segment-table base register (STBR) points to the segment table‘s location in memory
o Segment-table length register (STLR) indicates number of segments used by a program;
Segment number=s‘ is legal, if s < STLR
o Relocation.
dynamic
by segment table
o Sharing.
shared segments
same segment number
o Allocation.
first fit/best fit
external fragmentation
o Protection: With each entry in segment table associate:
validation bit = 0 illegal segment
read/write/execute privileges
o Protection bits associated with segments; code sharing occurs at segment level
o Since segments vary in length, memory allocation is a dynamic storage- allocation problem
o A segmentation example is shown in the following diagram
EXAMPLE
42
o Another advantage of segmentation involves the sharing of code or data.
o Each process has a segment table associated with it, which the dispatcher uses to define the hardware
segment table when this process is given the CPU.
o Segments are shared when entries in the segment tables of two different processes point to the
same physical location.
o The IBM OS/ 2.32 bit version is an operating system running on top of the Intel 386 architecture.
The 386 uses segmentation with paging for memory management. The maximum number of segments
per process is 16 KB, and each segment can be as large as 4 gigabytes.
The first partition consists of up to 8 KB segments that are private to that process.
The second partition consists of up to 8KB segments that are shared among all the
processes.
o Information about the first partition is kept in the local descriptor table
(LDT), information about the second partition is kept in the global descriptor table (GDT).
o Each entry in the LDT and GDT consist of 8 bytes, with detailed information about a
particular segment including the base location and length of the segment.
The logical address is a pair (selector, offset) where the selector is a16-bit number:
s G p
13 1 2
here s designates the segment number, g indicates whether the segment is in the GDT or LDT, and p deals
with protection. The offset is a 32-bit number specifying the location of the byte within the segment in
question.
o The base and limit information about the segment in question are used to generate a linear-
43
address.
o First, the limit is used to check for address validity. If the address is not valid, a memory fault is
generated, resulting in a trap to the operating system. If it is valid, then the value of the offset is added
to the value of the base, resulting in a 32-bit linear address. This address is then translated into a
physical address.
o The linear address is divided into a page number consisting of 20 bits, and a page offset
consisting of 12 bits. Since we page the page table, the page number is further divided into a 10-
bit page directory pointer and a 10-bit
page table pointer. The logical address is as follows.
p1 p2 d
10 10 12
o To improve the efficiency of physical memory use. Intel 386 page tables can be swapped to disk. In this
case, an invalid bit is used in the page directory entry to indicate whether the table to which the entry is
pointing is in memory or on disk.
o If the table is on disk, the operating system can use the other 31 bits to specify the disk location of the table;
the table then can be brought into memory on demand.
Paging
It is a memory management scheme that permits the physical address space of a process to be
noncontiguous.
It avoids the considerable problem of fitting the varying size memory chunks on to the backing
store.
44
(i) Basic Method:
o Divide logical memory into blocks of same size called “pages”. o Divide physical
memory into fixed-sized blocks called “frames” o Page size is a power of 2, between
512 bytes and 16MB.
Address Translation Scheme
o Address generated by CPU(logical address) is divided into:
Page number (p) – used as an index into a page table which contains base address of each page
in physical memory
Page offset (d) – combined with base address to define the physical address i.e.,
Physical address = base address + offset
Paging Hardware
45
Paging example for a 32-byte memory with 4-byte pages
Page size = 4 bytes
Allocation
o When a process arrives into the system, its size (expressed in pages) is examined.
o Each page of process needs one frame. Thus if the process requires ‗n‘ pages, at least ‗n‘ frames must be available in memory.
46
o If ‗n‘ frames are available, they are allocated to this arriving process.
st
o The 1 page of the process is loaded into one of the allocated frames & the frame number is put into the
page table.
o Repeat the above step for the next pages & so on.
Frame table: It is used to determine which frames are allocated, which frames are available, how many
total frames are there, and so on.(ie) It contains all the information about the frames in the physical memory.
47
Paging Hardware with TLB
o When a logical address is generated by CPU, its page number is presented to TLB.
o TLB hit: If the page number is found, its frame number is immediately available & is used to
access memory
o TLB miss: If the page number is not in the TLB, a memory reference to the page table must be made.
o Hit ratio: Percentage of times that a particular page is found in the TLB.
For example hit ratio is 80% means that the desired page
number in the TLB is 80% of the time.
o Effective Access Time:
Assume hit ratio is 80%.
If it takes 20ns to search TLB & 100ns to access memory, then the memory access
takes 120ns(TLB hit)
st
If we fail to find page no. in TLB (20ns), then we must 1 access memory for page
table (100ns) & then access the desired byte in memory (100ns).
Therefore Total = 20 + 100 + 100
= 140 ns.
o It is a technique that allows the execution of processes that may not be completely in main
memory.
o Advantages:
Allows the program that can be larger than the physical memory.
Separation of user logical memory from physical memory
49
Allows processes to easily share files & address space.
Allows for more efficient process creation.
Demand Paging
Basic Concepts:
o Instead of swapping in the whole processes, the pager brings only those necessary pages into memory.
Thus,
1. It avoids reading into memory pages that will not be used anyway.
50
2. Reduce the swap time.
3. Reduce the amount of physical memory needed.
o To differentiate between those pages that are in memory & those that are on the disk we use the
Valid-Invalid bit
o A valid – invalid bit is associated with each page table entry.
o Valid associated page is in memory.
In-Valid
invalid page
valid page but is currently on the disk
5. Reset the page table to indicate that the page is now in memory.
6. Restart the instruction that was interrupted .
51
Performance of demand paging
o If no frames are free, we could find one that is not currently being used &
free it.
o We can free a frame by writing its contents to swap space & changing the page table to indicate that
the page is no longer in memory.
o Then we can use that freed frame to hold the page for which the process faulted.
- If there is no free frame, use a page replacement algorithm to select a victim frame
- Write the victim page to the disk, change the page & frame tables accordingly.
52
3.Read the desired page into the (new) free frame. Update the page and frame tables.
4.Restart the process
53
o FIFO page replacement algorithm ‗s performance is not always good.
o To illustrate this, consider the following example:
Reference string: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
o Replace the page that will not be used for the longest period of time.
Example:
54
(c) LRU(Least Recently Used) page replacement algorithm
o Replace the page that has not been used for the longest period of time.
Example:
55
(d) LRU Approximation Page Replacement
o Reference bit
With each page associate a reference bit, initially set to 0
When page is referenced, the bit is set to 1
When a page needs to be replaced, replace the page whose reference bit is 0
o The order of use is not known , but we know which pages were used and which were not used.
Example:
oIf reference bit is 00000000 then the page has not been used for 8 time periods.
oIf reference bit is 11111111 then the page has been used atleast once each time period.
oIf the reference bit of page 1 is 11000100 and page 2 is 01110111 then page 2 is the LRU
page.
(ii) Second Chance Algorithm
oBasic algorithm is FIFO
oWhen a page has been selected , check its reference bit.
If 0 proceed to replace the page
If 1 give the page a second chance and move on to the next FIFO page.
When a page gets a second chance, its reference bit is cleared and arrival
time is reset to current time.
Hence a second chance page will not be replaced until all other pages are
replaced.
56
(iii) Enhanced Second Chance Algorithm o Consider
both reference bit and modify bit o There are four possible
classes
1. (0,0) – neither recently used nor modified Best page to replace
2. (0,1) – not recently used but modified page has to be written out
before replacement.
3. (1,0) - recently used but not modified page may be used again
4. (1,1) – recently used and modified page may be used again and page
has to be written to disk
o Keep a counter of the number of references that have been made to each page
1. Least Frequently Used (LFU )Algorithm: replaces page with smallest count
2. Most Frequently Used (MFU )Algorithm: replaces page with largest count
It is based on the argument that the page with the smallest count
was probably just brought in and has yet to be used
o These are used along with page replacement algorithms to improve their performance
Technique 1:
Technique 3:
57
Allocation of Frames
o Equal allocation
If there are n processes and m frames then allocate m/n frames to each
process.
Example: If there are 5 processes and 100 frames, give each process
20 frames.
o Proportional allocation
Then S = ∑ si
ai = s i / S * m
where ai is the no.of frames allocated to process i.
UNIT-IV
Deadlocks
58
• A set of blocked processes each holding a resource and waiting to acquire a resource held by another
process in the set.
• Example
– P1 and P2 each hold one disk drive and each needs another one.
• Example
P0 P1
System Model
59
• Circular wait: there exists a set {P0, P1, …, P0} of waiting processes such that P0 is waiting for a
resource that is held by P1, P1 is waiting for a resource that is held by
P2, …, Pn–1 is waiting for a resource that is held by
Pn, and P0 is waiting for a resource that is held by P0.
Resource-Allocation Graph
– P = {P1, P2, …, Pn}, the set consisting of all the processes in the system.
– R = {R1, R2, …, Rm}, the set consisting of all resource types in the system.
• Process
• Pi requests instance of Rj
• Pi is holding an instance of Rj
Basic Facts
60
Deadlock Prevention
• Mutual Exclusion – not required for sharable resources; must hold for non-sharable resources.
• Hold and Wait – must guarantee that whenever a process requests a resource, it does not hold any
other resources.
– Require process to request and be allocated all its resources before it begins execution, or
allow process to request resources only when the process has none.
– Low resource utilization; starvation possible.
• No Preemption –
– If a process that is holding some resources requests another resource that cannot be
immediately allocated to it, then all resources currently being held are released.
– Preempted resources are added to the list of resources for which the process is waiting.
– Process will be restarted only when it can regain its old resources, as well as the new ones
that it is requesting.
• Circular Wait – impose a total ordering of all resource types, and require that each process requests
resources in an increasing order of enumeration.
Deadlock Avoidance
Requires that the system has some additional a priori information available.
• Simplest and most useful model requires that each process declare the maximum number of resources
of each type that it may need.
• The deadlock-avoidance algorithm dynamically examines the resource-allocation state to ensure that
there can never be a circular-wait condition.
• Resource-allocation state is defined by the number of available and allocated resources, and the
maximum demands of the processes.
Safe State
• When a process requests an available resource, system must decide if immediate allocation leaves the
system in a safe state.
• System is in safe state if there exists a sequence <P1, P2, …, Pn> of ALL the processes is the systems
such that for each Pi, the resources that Pi can still request can be satisfied by currently available
resources + resources held by all the Pj, with j < i.
• That is:
– If Pi resource needs are not immediately available, then Pi can wait until all Pj have finished.
– When Pj is finished, Pi can obtain needed resources, execute, return allocated resources, and
terminate.
– When Pi terminates, Pi +1 can obtain its needed resources, and so on.
61
Avoidance algorithms
• Single instance of a resource type. Use a resource-allocation graph
• Multiple instances of a resource type. Use the banker’s algorithm
Resource-Allocation Graph Scheme
• Claim edge Pi → Rj indicated that process Pj may request resource Rj; represented by a dashed line.
• Claim edge converts to request edge when a process requests a resource.
• Request edge converted to an assignment edge when the resource is allocated to the process.
• When a resource is released by a process, assignment edge reconverts to a claim edge.
• Resources must be claimed a priori in the system.
Banker’s Algorithm
• Multiple instances.
• Each process must a priori claim maximum use.
• When a process requests a resource it may have to wait.
• When a process gets all its resources it must return them in a finite amount of time.
• Let n = number of processes, and m = number of resources types.
• Available: Vector of length m. If available [j] = k, there are k instances of resource type Rj
available.
• Max: n x m matrix. If Max [i,j] = k, then process Pi may request at most k instances of
resource type Rj.
• Allocation: n x m matrix. If Allocation[i,j] = k then Pi is currently allocated k instances of
Rj.
• Need: n x m matrix. If Need[i,j] = k, then Pi may need k more instances of Rj to complete its
task.
Need [i,j] = Max[i,j] – Allocation [i,j].
62
Example of Banker’s Algorithm
3 resource types:
ABCABC ABC
P1 200 322
P2 302 902
P3 211 222
P4 002 433
Need
ABC
P0 743
P1 122
P2 600
P3 011
P4 431
• The system is in a safe state since the sequence < P1, P3, P4, P2, P0> satisfies safety criteria.
Deadlock Detection
• Detection algorithm
• Recovery scheme
63
Single Instance of Each Resource Type
• Periodically invoke an algorithm that searches for a cycle in the graph. If there is a cycle, there exists
a deadlock.
• An algorithm to detect a cycle in a graph requires an order of n2 operations, where n is the number of
vertices in the graph.
• Available: A vector of length m indicates the number of available resources of each type.
• Allocation: An n x m matrix defines the number of resources of each type currently allocated to each
process.
• Request: An n x m matrix indicates the current request of each process. If Request [ij] = k, then
process Pi is requesting k more instances of resource type. Rj.
Detection Algorithm
64
4. If Finish[i] == false, for some i, 1 i n, then the system is in deadlock state. Moreover, if
Finish[i] == false, then Pi is
Algorithm
P1 200 202
P2 303 000
P3 211 100
P4 002 002
• Sequence <P0, P2, P3, P1, P4> will result in Finish[i] = true for all i.
Request A
BC
P0 000
P1 201
P2 001
P3 100
P4 002
• State of system?
– Can reclaim resources held by process P0, but insufficient resources to fulfill other
processes; requests.
– How long process has computed, and how much longer to completion.
• Rollback – return to some safe state, restart process for that state.
• Starvation – same process may always be picked as victim, include number of rollback in cost
factor.
Multiprocessor:
• A set of processors connected by a communications network
2
• Multiprocessors system are classified as multiple instruction stream, multiple data stream
systems(MIMD).
• There exists a distinction between multiprocessor and multicomputers that though both
support concurrent operations.
• In multicomputers several autonomous computers are connected through a
network and they may or may not communicate but in a multiprocessor system there is a
single OS Control that provides interaction between processors and all the components of
the system to cooperate in the solution of the problem.
• VLSI circuit technology has reduced the cost of the computers to such a low Level
that the concept of applying multiple processors to meet system performance
requirements has become an attractive design possibility.
3
Fig. Taxonomy of mono- mulitporcessor organizations
Characteristics of Multiprocessors:
Benefits of Multiprocessing:
1. Multiprocessing increases the reliability of the system so that a failure or error in one part has
limited effect on the rest of the system. If a fault causes one processor to fail, a second processor can be
assigned to perform the functions of the disabled one.
2. Improved System performance. System derives high performance from the fact that
computations can proceed in parallel in one of the two ways:
a) Multiple independent jobs can be made to operate in parallel.
b) A single job can be partitioned into multiple parallel tasks. This can
be achieved in two ways:
- The user explicitly declares that the tasks of the program be executed in parallel
4
- The compiler provided with multiprocessor s/w that can automatically detect
parallelism in program. Actually it checks for Data dependency
Coupling of Processors
Tightly Coupled System/Shared Memory:
- Tasks and/or processors communicate in a highly synchronized fashion
- Communicates through a common global shared memory
- Shared memory system. This doesn’t preclude each processor from having its own local
memory(cache memory)
Loosely Coupled System/Distributed Memory
- Tasks or processors do not communicate in a synchronized fashion.
- Communicates by message passing packets consisting of an address, the data content, and
some error detection code.
- Overhead for data exchange is high
- Distributed memory system
Loosely coupled systems are more efficient when the interaction between tasks is minimal, whereas tightly
coupled system can tolerate a higher degree of interaction between tasks.
5
Fig. Shared and distributed memory Shared
memory multiprocessor:
The interconnection between the components of a multiprocessor System can have different
physical configurations depending n the number of transfer paths that are available between the
processors and memory in a shared memory system and among the processing elements in a loosely
coupled system.
6
Some of the schemes are as:
- Time-Shared Common Bus
- Multiport Memory
- Crossbar Switch
- Multistage Switching Network
- Hypercube System
a. Time shared common Bus
- All processors (and memory) are connected to a common bus or busses
- Memory access is fairly uniform, but not very scalable
- A collection of signal lines that carry module-to-module communication
- Data highways connecting several digital system elements
- Operations of Bus
7
In the above figure we have number of local buses to its own local memory and to one or more
processors. Each local bus may be connected to a CPU, an IOP, or any combinations of processors. A
system bus controller links each local bus to a common system bus. The I/O devices connected to the
local IOP, as well as the local memory, are available to the local processor. The memory connected to the
common system bus is shared by all processors. If an IOP is connected directly to the system bus the I/O
devices attached to it may be made available to all processors
Disadvantage.:
• Only one processor can communicate with the memory or another processor at any given
time.
• As a consequence, the total overall transfer rate within the system is limited by the speed
of the single path
b. Multiport Memory:
Multiport Memory Module
- Each port serves a CPU
Memory Module Control Logic
- Each memory module has control logic
- Resolve memory module conflicts Fixed priority among CPUs
Advantages
- The high transfer rate can be achieved because of the multiple paths.
Disadvantages:
- It requires expensive memory control logic and a large number of cables and
connections
8
c. Crossbar switch:
- Each switch point has control logic to set up the transfer path between a processor and a
memory.
- It also resolves the multiple requests for access to the same memory on the predetermined
priority basis.
- Though this organization supports simultaneous transfers from all memory modules
because there is a separate path associated with each Module.
- The H/w required to implement the switch can become quite large and complex
a) b)
Advantage:
- Supports simultaneous transfers from all memory modules
Disadvantage:
- The hardware required to implement the switch can become quite large and complex.
d. Multistage Switching Network:
- The basic component of a multi stage switching network is a two-input, two- output
interchange switch.
9
Fig. 5.9 operation of 2X2 interconnection switch
Using the 2x2 switch as a building block, it is possible to build a multistage network to control the
communication between a number of sources and destinations.
- To see how this is done, consider the binary tree shown in Fig. below.
- Certain request patterns cannot be satisfied simultaneously. i.e., if P1
000~011, then P2 100~111
e. Hypercube System:
The hypercube or binary n-cube multiprocessor structure is a loosely coupled system composed of
N=2n processors interconnected in an n-dimensional binary cube.
- Each processor forms a node of the cube, in effect it contains not only a CPU but also
local memory and I/O interface.
- Each processor address differs from that of each of its n neighbors by exactly one bit
position.
- Fig. below shows the hypercube structure for n=1, 2, and 3.
- Routing messages through an n-cube structure may take from one to n links from a
source node to a destination node.
- A routing procedure can be developed by computing the exclusive-OR of the
source node address with the destination node address.
- The message is then sent along any one of the axes that the resulting binary value
will have 1 bits corresponding to the axes on which the two nodes differ.
- A representative of the hypercube architecture is the Intel iPSC computer complex.
- It consists of 128(n=7) microcomputers, each node consists of a CPU, a floating
point processor, local memory, and serial communication interface units.
11
Fig. Hypercube structures for n=1,2,3
Multicomputer:
A multicomputer system is a computer system with multiple processors that are connected together to
solve a problem. Each processor has its own memory and it is accessible by that particular processor and
those processors can communicate with each other via an interconnection network.
As the multicomputer is capable of messages passing between the processors, it is possible to divide the
task between the processors to complete the task. Hence, a multicomputer can be used for distributed
computing. It is cost effective and easier to build a multicomputer than a multiprocessor.
12
UNIT-V
I/O Systems
I/O Hardware
The role of the operating system in computer I/O is to manage and control I/O operations and I/O
devices. A device communicates with a computer system by sending signals over a cable or even through
the air.
Port: The device communicates with the machine via a connection point (or port), for example, a
serial port.
Bus: If one or more devices use a common set of wires, the connection is called a bus.
Daisy chain: Device ‗A‘ has a cable that plugs into device ‗B‘, and device ‗B‘ has a cable that plugs into
device ‗C‘, and device ‗C‘ plugs into a port on the computer, this arrangement is called a daisy chain. A
daisy chain usually operates as a bus.
PC bus structure:
A PCI bus that connects the processor-memory subsystem to the fast devices, and an expansion bus
that connects relatively slow devices such as the keyboard and serial and parallel ports. In the upper-right
portion of the figure, four disks are connected together on a SCSI bus plugged into a SCSI controller.
A controller or host adapter is a collection of electronics that can operate a port, a bus, or a device.
A serial-port controller is a simple device controller. It is a single chip in the computer that controls the
signals on the wires of a serial port. By contrast, a SCSI bus controller is not simple. Because the
SCSI
protocol is complex, the SCSI bus controller is often implemented as a separate circuit board. It typically
contains a processor, microcode, and some private memory. Some devices have their own built-in
controllers.
• How can the processor give commands and data to a controller to accomplish an I/O transfer?
o Direct I/O instructions
o Memory-mapped I/O
13
Direct I/O instructions
Use special I/O instructions that specify the transfer of a byte or word to an I/O port address. The I/O
instruction triggers bus lines to select the proper device and to move bits into or out of a device
register
Memory-mapped I/O
The device-control registers are mapped into the address space of the processor. The CPU executes
I/O requests using the standard data-transfer instructions to read and write the device-control
registers.
An I/O port typically consists of four registers: status, control, data-in, and data-out registers.
Status register Read by the host to indicate states such as whether
the current command has completed, whether a
byte is available to be read from the
data-in register, and whether there has been a
device error.
Control register Written by the host to start a command or to
change the mode of a device.
data-in register Read by the host to get input
data-out register Written by the host to send output
Polling
Interaction between the host and a controller
The controller sets the busy bit when it is busy working, and clears the busy bit when it is ready to accept
the next command.
The host sets the command ready bit when a command is available for the controller to execute
Coordination between the host & the controller is done by handshaking as follows:
1. The host repeatedly reads the busy bit until that bit becomes clear.
2. The host sets the write bit in the command register and writes a byte into the data-out register.
3. The host sets the command-ready bit.
4. When the controller notices that the command-ready bit is set, it sets the busy bit.
5. The controller reads the command register and sees the write command. It reads the data-out register
to get the byte, and does the I/O to the device.
6. The controller clears the command-ready bit, clears the error bit in the status register to indicate
that the device I/O succeeded, and clears the busy bit to indicate that it is finished.
In step 1, the host is ―busy-waiting or polling‖: It is in a loop, reading the status register over and over until
the busy bit becomes clear.
Interrupts
The CPU hardware has a wire called the ―interrupt-request line‖.
The basic interrupt mechanism works as follows;
1. Device controller raises an interrupt by asserting a signal on the interrupt request line.
2. The CPU catches the interrupt and dispatches to the interrupt handler and
3. The handler clears the interrupt by servicing the
device. Two interrupt request lines:
1. Nonmaskable interrupt: which is reserved for events such as unrecoverable memory errors?
2. Maskable interrupt: Used by device controllers to request service
14
Types Description Example
Character-stream or block A character-stream device transfers Terminal,
bytes one by one, whereas a block Disk
device transfers a block of bytes as
a unit.
15
Sequential or random-access A sequential device transfers data in Modem,
a fixed order determined by the CD-ROM
device, whereas the user of a
random-access device can instruct
the device to seek to any of the
available data storage locations.
Sharable or dedicated A sharable device can be used Tape,
concurrently by several processes or Keyboard
threads; a dedicated device
cannot.
Speed of operation Latency, seek time, transfer rate,
delay between operations
read-write, read only, or write only Some devices perform both input and CD-ROM,
output, but others support only one Graphics controller,
data direction. Disk
Applications normally access such a device through a file-system interface. The OS itself, and
special applications such as database-management systems, may prefer to access a block device as a simple
linear array of blocks. This mode of access is sometimes called raw I/O.
Memory-mapped file access can be layered on top of block-device drivers. Rather than offering read and
write operations, a memory-mapped interface provides access to disk storage via an array of bytes in main
memory.
Character Devices: A keyboard is an example of a device that is accessed through a character stream
interface. The basic system calls in this interface enable an application to get() or put() one character.
On top of this interface, libraries can be built that offer line-at-a-time access, with buffering and editing
services.
(+) This style of access is convenient for input devices where it produce input "spontaneously".
(+) This access style is also good for output devices such as printers or audio boards, which naturally
fit the concept of a linear stream of bytes.
Network Devices
Because the performance and addressing characteristics of network I/O differ significantly from
those of disk I/O, most operating systems provide a network I/O interface that is different from the read0 -
write() - seek() interface used for disks.
Windows NT provides one interface to the network interface card, and a second interface to the network
protocols.
In UNIX, we find half -duplex pipes, full-duplex FIFOs, full-duplex STREAMS, message queues and
sockets.
These functions are used by the operating system & also by time sensitive applications.
Programmable interval timer: The hardware to measure elapsed time and to trigger operations is called a
programmable interval timer. It can be set to wait a certain amount of time and then to generate an interrupt.
To generate periodic interrupts, it can be set to do this operation once or to repeat.
16
Blocking and Non-blocking I/O (or) synchronous &asynchronous:
Blocking I/O: When an application issues a blocking system call;
Theexecution of the application is suspended.
The application is moved from the operating system's run queue to a wait queue.
After the system call completes, the application is moved back to the run queue, where it is
eligible to resume execution, at which time it will receive the values returned by the system call.
• A key concept in the design of I/O software is known as device independence. It means that I/O devices
should be accessible to programs without specifying the device in advance.
• Uniform Naming, simply be a string or an integer and not depend on the device in any way. In UNIX,
all disks can be integrated in the file-system hierarchy in arbitrary ways so the user need not be aware of
which name corresponds to which device.
• Error Handling: If the controller discovers a read error, it should try to correct the error itself if it can.
If it cannot, then the device driver should handle it, perhaps by just trying to read the block again. In
many cases, error recovery can be done transparently at a low level without the upper levels even
knowing about the error.
17
• Synchronous (blocking) and Asynchronous (interrupt-driven) transfers: Most physical I/O is
asynchronous, however, some very high-performance applications need to control all the details of the
I/O, so some operating systems make asynchronous I/O available to them.
• Buffering: Often data that come off a device cannot be stored directly in their final destination.
• Sharable and Dedicated devices: Some I/O devices, such as disks, can be used by many users at the
same time. No problems are caused by multiple users having open files on the same disk at the same
time. Other devices, such as printers, have to be dedicated to a single user until that user is finished.
Then another user can have the printer. Introducing dedicated (unshared) devices also introduces a
variety of problems, such as deadlocks. Again, the operating system must be able to handle both shared
and dedicated devices in a way that avoids problems.
Programmed I/O
This is one of the three fundamentally different ways that I/O can be performed. The programmed I/O was the
most simple type of I/O technique for the exchanges of data or any types of communication between the
processor and the external devices. With programmed I/O, data are exchanged between the processor and the I/O
module. The processor executes a program that gives it direct control of the I/O operation, including sensing
device status, sending a read or write command, and transferring the data. When the processor issues a command
to the I/O module, it must wait until the I/O operation is complete. If the processor is faster than the I/O module,
this is wasteful of processor time. The overall operation of the programmed I/O can be summaries as follow:
• The processor is executing a program and encounters an instruction relating to I/O operation.
• The processor then executes that instruction by issuing a command to the appropriate I/O module.
• The I/O module will perform the requested action based on the I/O command issued by the processor
(READ/WRITE) and set the appropriate bits in the I/O status register.
• The processor will periodically check the status of the I/O module until it find that the operation is
complete.
• Each input is read after first testing whether the device is ready with the input (a state reflected by a bit in
a status register).
• The program waits for the ready status by repeatedly testing the status bit and till all targeted bytes are
read from the input device.
• The program is in busy (non-waiting) state only after the device gets ready else in wait state.
18
Programmed I/O Mode: Output Data Transfer
• Each output written after first testing whether the device is ready to accept the byte at its output register
or output buffer is empty.
• The program waits for the ready status by repeatedly testing the status bit(s) and till all the targeted bytes
are written to the device.
• The program in busy (non-waiting) state only after the device gets ready else wait state.
To execute an I/O-related instruction, the processor issues an address, specifying the particular I/O module and
external device, and an I/O command. There are four types of I/O commands that an I/O module may receive
when it is addressed by a processor:
• Control
• Test
19
• Read
• Write
• Simple to implement
• Busy waiting
Interrupt-Driven I/O
Interrupt driven I/O is an alternative scheme dealing with I/O. Interrupt I/O is a way of controlling input/output
activity whereby a peripheral or terminal that needs to make or receive a data transfer sends a signal. This will
cause a program interrupt to be set. At a time appropriate to the priority level of the I/O interrupt. Relative to the
total interrupt system, the processors enter an interrupt service routine.
For input, the device interrupts the CPU when new data has arrived and is ready to be retrieved by the system
processor. The actual actions to perform depend on whether the device uses I/O ports or memory mapping.
For output, the device delivers an interrupt either when it is ready to accept new data or to acknowledge a
successful data transfer. Memory-mapped and DMA-capable devices usually generate interrupts to tell the
system they are done with the buffer.
• I/O module gets data from peripheral whilst CPU does other work.
20
• I/O module interrupts CPU.
• Efficient too.
Direct Memory Access is a technique for transferring data within main memory and external device without
passing it through the CPU. DMA is a way to improve processor activity and I/O transfer rate by taking-over the
job of transferring data from processor, and letting the processor to do other tasks. This technique overcomes the
drawbacks of other two I/O techniques which are the time consuming process when issuing a command for data
transfer and tie-up the processor in data transfer while the data processing is neglected. It is more efficient to use
DMA method when large volume of data has to be transferred. For DMA to be implemented, processor has to
share its' system bus with the DMA module. Therefore, the DMA module must use the bus only when the
processor does not need it, or it must force the processor to suspend operation temporarily.
21
Advantages of DMA
• Speed: no waiting due to much shorter execution path and no rotation delay.
Examples of files:
A text file is a sequence of characters organized into lines ( and possibly pages). A source file is a
sequence of subroutines and functions, each of which is further organized as declarations followed by
executable statements. An object file is a sequence of bytes organized into blocks understandable by the
system’s linker.
An executable file is a series of code sections that the loader can bring into memory and execute.
File Attributes
Name: The symbolic file name is the only information kept in human readable form.
Identifier: This unique tag, usually a number identifies the file within the file system. It is the non-
human readable name for the file.
Type: This information is needed for those systems that support different types.
Location: This information is a pointer to a device and to the location of the file on that device.
Size: The current size of the file (in bytes, words or blocks)and possibly the maximum allowed
size are included in this attribute.
Protection: Access-control information determines who can do reading, writing, executing and so on.
Time, date and user identification: This information may be kept for creation, last modification and
last use. These data can be useful for protection, security and usage monitoring.
22
File Operations
Creating a file
Writing a file
Reading a file
Repositioning within a file
Deleting a file
Truncating a file
Access Methods
1. Sequential Access
a. The simplest access method is sequential access. Information in the file is
processed in order, one record after the other. This mode of access is by far the
most common; for example, editors and compilers usually access files in this
fashion.
The bulk of the operations on a file is reads and writes. A read operation reads the next portion of
the file and automatically advances a file pointer, which tracks the I/O location. Similarly, a write appends to
the end of the file and advances to the end of the newly written material (the new end of file).
Such a file can be reset to the beginning and, on some systems, a program may be able to skip
forward or back ward n records, for some integer n-perhaps only for n=1. Sequential access is based on a
tape model of a file, and works as well on sequential-access devices as it does on random – access ones.
2. Direct Access
Another method is direct access (or relative access). A file is made up of fixed length logical records
that allow programs to read and write records rapidly in no particular order. The direct- access methods is
based on a disk model of a file, since disks allow random access to any file block.
For direct access, the file is viewed as a numbered sequence of blocks or records. A direct-access
file allows arbitrary blocks to be read or written. Thus, we may read block 14, then read block 53, and then
write block7. There are no restrictions on the order of reading or writing for a direct-access file.
Direct – access files are of great use for immediate access to large amounts of information. Database is often of
this type. When a query concerning a particular subject arrives, we compute which block contains the answer,
and then read that block directly to provide the desired information
23
Directory and Disk Structure
Disadvantage:
➢ When the number of files increases or when the system has more than one user, since all
files are in the same directory, they must have unique names.
In the two level directory structures, each user has her own user file directory (UFD).
When a user job starts or a user logs in, the system’s master file directory (MFD) is searched. The MFD is
indexed by user name or account number, and each entry points to the UFD for that user.
When a user refers to a particular file, only his own UFD is searched.
Thus, different users may have files with the same name.
Although the two – level directory structure solves the name-collision problem
Disadvantage:
➢ Users cannot create their own sub-directories.
24
3. Tree – Structured Directory
A tree is the most common directory structure.
The tree has a root directory. Every file in the system has a unique path name.
A path name is the path from the root, through all the subdirectories to a specified file.
A directory (or sub directory) contains a set of files or sub directories.
A di rectory is simply another file. But it is treated in a special way.
All directories have the same internal format.
One bit in each directory entry defines the entry as a file (0) or as a subdirectory (1).
Special system calls are used to create and delete directories.
Path names can be of two types: absolute path names or relative path names.
An absolute path name begins at the root and follows a path down to the specified file, giving the directory
names on the path.
A relative path name defines a path from the current directory .
25
Sharing and
Protection File
Sharing
1. Multiple Users:
When an operating system accommodates multiple users, the issues of file sharing, file naming and file
protection become preeminent.
The system either can allow user to access the file of other users by default, or it may require that a user
specifically grant access to the files.
These are the issues of access control and protection.
To implementing sharing and protection, the syste m must maintain more file and directory attributes
than a on a single-user system.
The owner is the user who may change attributes, grand access, and has the most control over the file or
directory.
The group attribute of a file is used to define a s ubset of users who may share access to the file.
Most systems implement owner attributes by managing a list of user names and associated user identifiers
(user Ids).
When a user logs in to the system, the authentication stage determines the appropriate user ID for the
user. That user ID is associated with all of user’s processes and threads. When they need to be user
readable, they are translated, back to the user name via the user name list. Likewise, group functionality
can be implemented as a system wide list of group names and group identifiers.
Every user can be in one or more groups, depending upon operating system design decisions. The user’s
group Ids is also included in every associated process and thread.
26
Domain name system (DNS) provides host -name-to-network address translations for their
entire Internet (including the World Wide Web).
Before DNS was invented and became widespread, files containing the same information were sent
via e-mail of ftp between all networked hosts.
c) Failure Modes:
Redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAID) can prevent the loss of a disk from
resulting in the loss of data.
Remote file system has more failure modes. By nature of the complexity of networking system
and the required interactions between remote machines, many more problems can interfere with the
proper operation of remote file systems.
d) Consistency Semantics:
It is characterization of the system that specifies the semantics of multiple users accessing a shared file
simultaneously.
These semantics should specify when modifications of data by one user are observable by other users.
The semantics are typically implemented as code with the file system.
A series of file accesses (that is reads and writes) attempted by a user to the same file is always
enclosed between the open and close operations.
The series of access between the open and close operations is a file session.
File Protection
(i) Need for file protection.
When information i s kept in a computer system, we want to keep it safe from physical damage
(reliability) and improper access (protection).
Reliability is generally provided by duplicate copies of files. Many computers have systems programs
that automatically (or though computer-operator intervention) copy disk files to tape at regular intervals
(once per day or week or month) to maintain a copy should a file system be accidentally destroyed.
File systems can be damaged by hardware problems (such as errors in reading or writing), power
surges or failures, head crashes, dirt, temperature extremes, and vandalism. Files may be deleted
accidentally. Bugs in the file-system software can also cause file contents to be lost.
Protection can be provided in many ways. For a small single -user system, we might provide
protection by physically removing the floppy disks and locking them in a desk drawer or file cabinet. In
a multi-user system, however, other mechanisms are needed.
27
(ii) Types of Access
Complete protection is provided by prohibiting access.
Free access is provided with no protection.
Both approaches are too extreme for general use.
What is needed is controlled access.
Protection mechanisms provide controlled access by limiting the types of file access that can be
made. Access is permitted or denied depending on several factors, one of which is the type of access
requested. Several different types of operations may be controlled:
1. Read: Read from the file.
2. Write: Write or rewrite the file.
3. Execute: Load the file into memory and execute it.
4. Append: Write new information at the end of the file.
5. Delete: Delete the file and free its space for possible reuse.
6. List: List the name and attributes of the file.
To condense the length of the access control list, many systems recognize three classifications of users in
connection with each file:
• Disk provide the bulk of secondary storage on which a file system is maintained.
Characteristics of a disk:
1. They can be rewritten in place, it is possible to read a block from the disk, to modify the block and to
write it back into the same place.
2. They can access directly any given block of information to the disk.
To produce an efficient and convenient access to the disk, the operatin g system imposes one or more
file system to allow the data to be stored, located and retrieved easily.
The file system itself is generally composed of many different levels. Each level in the design uses the
features of lower level to create new features for use by higher levels.
Layered File System
The I/O control consists of device drivers and interrupt handlers to transfer information between the
main memory and the disk system .
28
The basic file system needs only to issue generic commands to the appropriate device driver to read
and write physical blocks on the disk. Each physical block is identified by its numeric disk address (for
example, drive –1, cylinder 73, track 2, sector 10)
Directory Implementation
1. Linear List
The simplest method of implementing a directory is to use a linear list of file names with pointer to the data
blocks.
A linear list of directory entries requires a linear search to find a particular entry.
This method is simple to program but time- consuming to execute. To create a new file, we must first
search the but time – consuming to execute.
The real disadvantage of a linear list of directory entries is the linear search to find a file.
2. Hash Table
In this method, a linear list stores the directory entries, but a hash data structure is also used.
The hash table takes a value computed from the file name and returns a pointer to the file name in the linear
list.
Therefore, it can greatly decr ease the directory search time.
Insertion and deleting are also fairly straight forward, although some provision must be made for collisions
– situation where two file names hash to the same location.
The major difficulties with a hash table are its generally fixed size and the dependence of the hash
function on that size.
Allocation Methods
The main problem is how to allocate space to these files so that disk space is utilized effectively and files
can be accessed quickly.
There are three major methods of allocating disk space:
1. Contiguous Allocation
2. Linked Allocation
3. Indexed Allocation
1. Contiguous Allocation
The contiguous – allocation method requires each file to occupy a set of contiguous blocks on the disk.
Contiguous allocation of a file is defined by the disk address and length (in block units) of the first block.
If the file is n blocks long and starts at location b, then it occupies blocks b,. b+1, b+2,….,b+n-1.
29
The directory entry for each file i ndicates the address of the starting block and the length of the
area allocated for this file.
Disadvantages:
1. Finding space for a new file.
The contiguous disk space -allocation problem suffer from the problem of external fragmentation. As
file are allocated and deleted, the free disk space is broken into chunks. It becomes a problem when the
largest contiguous chunk is insufficient for a request; storage is fragmented into a number of holes, no
one of which is large enough to store the data.
2. Linked Allocation
Linked allocation solves all problems of contiguous allocation.
With linked allocation, each file is a linked list of disk blocks, the disk blocks may be scattered any
where on the disk.
The directory contains a pointer to the first and last blocks of the file. For example, a file of five blocks
might start at block 9, continue at block 16, then block 1, block 10, and finally bock 25.
Each block co ntains a pointer to the next block. These pointers are not made available to the user.
There is no external fragmentation with linked allocation, and any free block on the free space list can be
used to satisfy a request.
The size of a file does not need to the declared when that file is created. A file can continue to grow as
long as free blocks are available consequently, it is never necessary to compacts disk space.
30
Disadvantages:
1. Used effectively only for sequential access files.
To find the ith block of a file, we must start at the beginning of that file, and follow the pointers until
we get to the ith block. Each aces to a pointer requires a disk read, and sometimes a disk seek
consequently, it is inefficient to support a direct- access capability for linked allocation files.
3. Reliability
Since the files are linked together by pointers scattered all over the disk hardware failure might result in
picking up the wrong pointer. This error could result in linking into the free- space list or into another file.
Partial solution are to use doubly linked lists or to store the file names in a relative block number in each
block; however, these schemes require even more over head for each file.
File Allocation Table(FAT)
An important variation on the linked allocation method is the use of a file allocation table(FAT).
This simple but efficient method of disk - space allocation is used by the MS-DOS and OS/2
operating systems.
A section of disk at beginning of each partition is set aside to contain the table.
The table has entry for e ach disk block, and is indexed by block number.
The FAT is much as is a linked list.
The directory entry contains the block number the first block of the file.
The table entry indexed by that block number contains the block number of the next bloc k in the file.
This chain continues until the last block which has a special end – of – file value as the table entry.
Unused blocks are indicated by a 0 table value.
Allocating a new block file is a simple matter of finding the first 0 – valued table entry, and replacing
the previous end of file value with the address of the new block.
The 0 is replaced with the end – of – file value, an illustrative example is the FAT structure for a
file consisting of disk blocks 217,618, and 339.
3. Indexed Allocation
Linked allocation solves the external – fragmentation and size- declaration problems of
31
contiguous allocation.
Linked allocation cannot support efficient direct access, since the pointers to the blocks are scattered with
the blocks themselves all over the disk and need to be retrieved in order.
Indexed allocation solves this problem by bringing all the pointers together into one location: the
index block.
Each file has its own index block, which is an array of disk – block addresses.
The ith entry in the index block points to the ith block of the file.
The directory contains the address of the index block .
To read the ith block, we use the pointer in the ith index – block entry to find and read the desired
block this scheme is similar to the paging scheme .
When the file is created, all pointers in the pointers in the index block are set to nil. when the ith
block is first written, a block is obtained from the free space manager, and its address is put in the ith
index – block entry.
Indexed allocation supports direct access, without suffering from external fragmentation, because any free
block on the disk may satisfy a request for more space.
Disadvantages
1.Pointer
Overhead
Indexed allocation does suffer from wasted space. The pointer over head of the index block is generally
greater than the pointer over head of linked allocation.
2. Size of Index block
If the index block is too small, however, it will not be able to hold enough pointers for a large file, and
a mechanism will have to be available to deal with this issue:
Linked Scheme: An index block is normally one disk block. Thus, it can be read and written
directly by itself. To allow for large files, we may link together several index blocks.
Multilevel index: A variant of the linked representation is to use a first level index block to point to
a set of second – level index blocks.
Combined scheme:
o Another alternative, used in the UFS, is to keep the first, say, 15 pointers of the index block in the file’s
inode.
o The first 12 of these pointers point to direct blocks; that is for small ( no more than 12 blocks) files
do not need a separate index block
o The next pointer is the address of a single indirect block.
32
The single indirect block is an index block, containing not data, but rather the addresses of blocks that do
contain data.
o Then there is a double indirect block pointer, which contains the address of a block that contain
pointers to the actual data blocks. The last pointer would contain pointers to the actual data blocks.
o The last pointer would contain the address of a triple indirect block.
Free-space Management
Since disk space is limited, we need to reuse the space from deleted files for new files, if possible.
To keep track of free disk space, the system maintains a free -space list.
The free-space list records all free disk blocks – those not allocated to some file or directory.
To create a file, we search the free -space list for the required amount of space, and allocate that space
to the new file.
This space is then removed from the free-space list.
When a file is deleted, its disk space i s added to the free-space list.
1. Bit Vector
The free -space list is implemented as a bit map or bit vector.
Each block is represented by 1 bit. If the block is free, the bit is 1; if the block is allocated, the bit is 0.
For example, consider a disk where block 2,3,4,5,8,9,10,11,12,13,17,18,25,26 and 27 are free, and the rest
of the block are allocated. The free space bit map would be
001111001111110001100000011100000 …
The main advantage of this approach is its relatively simplicity and efficiency in finding the first
free block, or n consecutive free blocks on the disk.
2. Linked List
33
Another approach to free-space management is to link together all the free disk blocks, keeping a
pointer to the first free block in a special location on the disk and caching it in memory.
This first block contains a pointer to the next free disk block, and so on.
In our example, we would keep a pointer to block 2, as the first free block. Block 2 would contain a
pointer to block 3, which would point to block 4, which would point to block 5, which would point to
block 8, and so on.
However, this scheme is not eff icient; to traverse the list, we must read each block, which
requires substantial I/O time.
The FAT method incorporates free -block accounting data structure. No separate method is needed.
3. Grouping
A modification of the free -list approach is to store the addresses of n free blocks in the first free block.
The first n -1 of these blocks are actually free.
The last block contains the addresses of another n free blocks, and soon.
The importance of this implementation is that the addresses of a large number of free blocks can be
found quickly.
4. Counting
We can keep the address of the first free block and the number n of free contiguous blocks that follow the
first block.
Each entry in the free-space list then consists of a disk address and a count.
Although each entry requires more space than would a simple disk address, the overall list will be shorter,
as long as the count is generally greater than 1.
34
File System Implementation in Operating System
A file is a collection of related information. The file system resides on secondary storage and provides efficient
and convenient access to the disk by allowing data to be stored, located, and retrieved.
35
• File organization Module –
It has information about files, location of files and their logical and physical blocks.Physical blocks do
not match with logical numbers of logical block numbered from 0 to N. It also has a free space which
tracks unallocated blocks.
Advantages :
2. Each file system can have its own logical file system.
Disadvantages :
If we access many files at same time then it results in low performance.
1. On-disk Structures –
Generally they contain information about total number of disk blocks, free disk blocks, location of them and etc.
Below given are different on-disk structures :
3. Directory Structure –
They store file names and associated inode numbers.In UNIX, includes file names and
associated file names and in NTFS, it is stored in master file table.
4. Per-File FCB –
It contains details about files and it has a unique identifier number to allow association with
directory entry. In NTFS it is stored in master file table.
36
2. In-Memory Structure :
They are maintained in main-memory and these are helpful for file system management for caching. Several in-
memory structures given below :
5. Mount Table –
It contains information about each mounted volume.
6. Directory-Structure cache –
This cache holds the directory information of recently accessed directories.
37
Directory Implementation :
9. Linear List –
It maintains a linear list of filenames with pointers to the data blocks.It is time-consuming
also.To create a new file, we must first search the directory to be sure that no existing file has the
same name then we add a file at end of the directory.To delete a file, we search the directory for
the named file and release the space.To reuse the directory entry either we can mark the entry as
unused or we can attach it to a list of free directories.
Disk-Space Management
Since all the files are normally stored on disk one of the main concerns of file system is
management of disk space.
Block Size
The main question that arises while storing files in a fixed-size blocks is the size of the
block. If the block is too large space gets wasted and if the block is too small time gets
waste. So, to choose a correct block size some information about the file-size
distribution is required. Performance and space-utilization are always in conflict.
Keeping track of free blocks
After a block size has been finalized the next issue that needs to be catered is how to
keep track of the free blocks. In order to keep track there are two methods that are
widely used:
38
• Using a linked list: Using a linked list of disk blocks with each block holding as
many free disk block numbers as will fit.
• Bitmap: A disk with n blocks has a bitmap with n bits. Free blocks are
represented using 1's and allocated blocks as 0's as seen below in the figure.
Disk quotas
Multiuser operating systems often provide a mechanism for enforcing disk quotas. A
system administrator assigns each user a maximum allotment of files and blocks and the
operating system makes sure that the users do not exceed their quotas. Quotas are kept
track of on a per-user basis in a quota table.
39
File-system Backups
• Backing up files that haven't been changed from previous backup leads
to incremental dumps. So it's better to take a backup of only those files which
have changed from the time of previous backup. But recovery gets complicated
in such cases.
There are two ways for dumping a disk to the backup disk:
• Physical dump: In this way dump starts at block 0 of the disk, writes all the
disk blocks onto thee output disk in order and stops after copying the last one.
Advantages: Simplicity and great speed.
Disadvantages: inability to skip selected directories, make incremental dumps,
and restore individual files upon request
• Logical dump: In this way the dump starts at one or more specified directories
and recursively dump all files and directories found that have been changed
since some given base date. This is the most commonly used way.
40
The above figure depicts a popular algorithm used in many UNIX systems wherein
squares depict directories and circles depict files. This algorith dumps all the files and
directories that have been modified and also the ones on the path to a modified file or
directory. The dump algorithm maintains a bitmap indexed by i-node number with
several bits per i-node. Bits will be set and cleared in this map as the algorithm proceeds.
Although logical dumping is straightforward, there are few issues associated with it.
• Since the free block list is not a file, it is not dumped and hence it must be
reconstructed from scratch after all the dumps have been restored
• Special files, named pipes and all other files that are not real should never be
dumped.
File-system Consistency
To deal with inconsistent file systems, most computers have a utility program that
checks file-system consistency. For example, UNIX has fsck and Windows has sfc. This
utility can be run whenever the system is booted. The utility programs perform two
kinds of consistency checks.
• Blocks: To check block consistency the program builds two tables, each one
containing a counter for each block, initially set to 0. If the file system is
consistent, each block will have a 1 either in the first table or in the second table
as you can see in the figure below.
41
In case if both the tables have 0 in it that may be because the block is missing
and hence will be reported as a missing block. The two other situations are if a
block is seen more than once in free list and same data block is present in two or
more files.
• In addition to checking to see that each block is properly accounted for, the file-
system checker also checks the directory system. It too uses a table of counters
but per file-size rather than per block. These counts start at 1 when a file is
created and are incremented each time a (hard) link is made to the file. In a
consistent file system, both counts will agree
File-system Performance
Since the access to disk is much slower than access to memory, many file systems have
been designed with various optimizations to improve performance as described below.
Caching
The most common technique used to reduce disk access time is the block cache or buffer
cache. Cache can be defined as a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden
or inaccessible place. The most common algorithm for cache works in such a way that if
a disk access is initiated, the cache is checked first to see if the disk block is present. If
yes then the read request can be satisfied without a disk access else the disk block is
copied to cache first and then the read request is processed.
42
The above figure depicts how to quickly determine if a block is present in a cache or not.
For doing so a hash table can be implemented and look up the result in a hash table.
Block Read Ahead
Another technique to improve file-system performance is to try to get blocks into the
cache before they are needed to increase the hit rate. This works only when files are read
sequentially. When a file system is asked for block 'k' in the file it does that and then
also checks before hand if 'k+1' is available if not it schedules a read for the block k+1
thinking that it might be of use later.
43
In the above figure all the i-nodes are near the start of the disk, so the average distance
between an inode and its blocks will be half the number of cylinders, requiring long
seeks. But to increase the performance the placement of i-nodes can be modified as
below.
Defragmenting Disks
Due to continuous creation and removal of files the disks get badly fragmented with files
and holes all over the place. As a consequence, when a new file is created, the blocks
used for it may be spread all over the disk, giving poor performance. The performance
can be restored by moving files around to make them contiguous and to put all (or at
least most) of the free space in one or more large contiguous regions on the disk.
44
45