Balkh University

Computer science Faculty

Technical Foundation of
Computer science-1 (TFCS-1)
Chapter 2: OS Structure

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Chapter 2: Operating-System Structures

▸ Operating System Services

▸ User Operating System Interface
▸ System Calls
▸ Types of System Calls
▸ System Programs
▸ Operating System Design and Implementation
▸ Operating System Structure
▸ Virtual Machines

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Objectives
 To describe the services an operating system provides to users,
processes, and other systems

 To discuss the various ways of structuring an operating system

 To explain how operating systems are installed and customized and

how they boot

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 Operating System Services
▸ Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs
and services to programs and users
▸ One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful
to the user:
▹ User interface - Almost all operating systems have a user interface
(UI).
▹ Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User Interface
(GUI), Batch
▹ Program execution - The system must be able to load a program
into memory and to run that program, end execution, either normally
or abnormally (indicating error)
▹ I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which may
involve a file or an I/O device
▹ File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular interest.
Programs need to read and write files and directories, create and
delete them, search them, list file Information, permission
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Operating System Services (Cont.)

Communications – Processes may exchange information, on the

same computer or between computers over a network
Communications may be via shared memory or through message
passing (packets moved by the OS)

Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of possible errors

May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O devices, in user
program
For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate action to ensure
correct and consistent computing
Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and programmer’s
abilities to efficiently use the system

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 Operating System Services (Cont.)
▸ Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient operation of the
system itself via resource sharing
▹ Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running
concurrently, resources must be allocated to each of them
▹ Many types of resources - Some (such as CPU cycles, main memory,
and file storage) may have special allocation code, others (such as I/O
devices) may have general request and release code
▹ Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what kinds of
computer resources
▹ Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a multiuser or
networked computer system may want to control use of that information,
concurrent processes should not interfere with each other
▹ Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is
controlled
▹ Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication,
extends to defending external I/O devices from invalid access
attempts
▹ If a system is to be protected and secure, precautions must be
instituted throughout it. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
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A View of Operating System Services

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User Operating System Interface - CLI

 Command Line Interface (CLI) or command interpreter allows direct

command entry
 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by systems program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and executes it
Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes just names of programs
 If the latter, adding new features doesn’t require shell modification

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User Operating System Interface - GUI

 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface

 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
 Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
 Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface cause various actions
(provide information, options, execute function, open directory (known as a
folder)
 Invented at Xerox PARC

 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces

 Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
 Apple Mac OS X as “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel underneath and
shells available
 Solaris is CLI with optional GUI interfaces (Java Desktop, KDE)

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Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

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The Mac OS X GUI

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 System Calls

▸ Programming interface to the services provided by the OS

▸ Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)

▸ Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application Program

Interface (API) rather than direct system call use

▸ Three most common APIs are Win32 API for Windows, POSIX API for POSIX-
based systems (including virtually all versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS
X), and Java API for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

▸ Why use APIs rather than system calls?

(Note that the system-call names used throughout this text are generic)

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Example of System Calls

System call sequence to copy the contents of one

file to another file

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 Example of Standard API
 Consider the ReadFile() function in the
 Win32 API—a function for reading from a file

 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

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System Call Implementation

 Typically, a number associated with each system call

 System-call interface maintains a table indexed according to these
numbers

 The system call interface invokes intended system call in OS kernel and returns
status of the system call and any return values

 The caller need know nothing about how the system call is implemented
 Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will do as a result call
 Most details of OS interface hidden from programmer by API
• Managed by run-time support library (set of functions built into libraries
included with compiler)

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API – System Call – OS Relationship

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Standard C Library Example

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

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 System Call Parameter Passing

 Often, more information is required than simply identity of desired

system call
 Exact type and amount of information vary according to OS and
call

 Three general methods used to pass parameters to the OS

▹ Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
▹ In some cases, may be more parameters than registers
▹ Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory, and address of
block passed as a parameter in a register
▹ This approach taken by Linux and Solaris
▹ Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the program and
popped off the stack by the operating system
▹ Block and stack methods do not limit the number or length of
parameters being passed

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Parameter Passing via Table

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Types of System Calls
 Process control
 end, abort
 load, execute
 create process, terminate process
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 wait for time
 wait event, signal event
 allocate and free memory
 File management
 create file, delete file
 open, close file
 read, write, reposition
 get and set file attributes

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Types of System Calls (Cont.)
 Device management
 request device, release device
 read, write, reposition
 get device attributes, set device attributes
 logically attach or detach devices
 Information maintenance
 get time or date, set time or date
 get system data, set system data
 get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
 create, delete communication connection
 send, receive messages
 transfer status information
 attach and detach remote devices
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Examples of Windows and
Unix System Calls

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Example: MS-DOS

 Single-tasking
 Shell invoked when system booted
 Simple method to run program
 No process created
 Single memory space
 Loads program into memory, overwriting all but the kernel
 Program exit -> shell reloaded

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MS-DOS execution

(a) At system startup (b) running a program

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Example: FreeBSD

 Unix variant
 Multitasking
 User login -> invoke user’s choice of shell
 Shell executes fork() system call to create process
 Executes exec() to load program into process
 Shell waits for process to terminate or continues with
user commands
 Process exits with code of 0 – no error or > 0 – error
code

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FreeBSD Running Multiple Programs

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System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment
for program development and execution. They can
be divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information
 File modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Application programs

 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined

by system programs, not the actual system calls

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System Programs

 Provide a convenient environment for program development and execution

 Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others are
considerably more complex

 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, dump, list, and
generally manipulate files and directories

 Status information
 Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available memory,
disk space, number of users
 Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging information
 Typically, these programs format and print the output to the terminal or
other output devices
 Some systems implement a registry - used to store and retrieve
configuration information

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System Programs (Cont.)
 File modification
 Text editors to create and modify files
 Special commands to search contents of files or perform transformations of
the text

 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers, debuggers and

interpreters sometimes provided

 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable loaders, linkage

editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems for higher-level and machine
language

 Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual connections

among processes, users, and computer systems
 Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse web
pages, send electronic-mail messages, log in remotely, transfer files from
one machine to another
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 Operating System Design
and Implementation
 Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but some approaches have
proven successful

 Internal structure of different Operating Systems can vary widely

 Start by defining goals and specifications

 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system

 User goals and System goals

 User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, easy to
learn, reliable, safe, and fast
 System goals – operating system should be easy to design, implement,
and maintain, as well as flexible, reliable, error-free, and efficient
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 Operating System Design and
Implementation (Cont.)

 Important principle to separate

Policy: What will be done?
Mechanism: How to do it?

 Mechanisms determine how to do something, policies decide what will be done

 The separation of policy from mechanism is a very important principle, it
allows maximum flexibility if policy decisions are to be changed later

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Simple Structure

 MS-DOS – written to provide the most functionality in the least space

 Not divided into modules
 Although MS-DOS has some structure, its interfaces and levels of
functionality are not well separated

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MS-DOS Layer Structure

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 Modules

 Most modern operating systems implement kernel modules

 Uses object-oriented approach
 Each core component is separate
 Each talks to the others over known interfaces
 Each is loadable as needed within the kernel

 Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible

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Solaris Modular Approach

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 Virtual Machines

 A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its logical conclusion. It treats
hardware and the operating system kernel as though they were all hardware.

 A virtual machine provides an interface identical to the underlying bare hardware.

 The operating system host creates the illusion that a process has its own
processor and (virtual memory).

 Each guest provided with a (virtual) copy of underlying computer.

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 Virtual Machines History and Benefits

 First appeared commercially in IBM mainframes in 1972

 Fundamentally, multiple execution environments (different operating systems) can
share the same hardware
 Protect from each other
 Some sharing of file can be permitted, controlled
 Commutate with each other, other physical systems via networking
 Useful for development, testing
 Consolidation of many low-resource use systems onto fewer busier systems
 “Open Virtual Machine Format”, standard format of virtual machines, allows a VM
to run within many different virtual machine (host) platforms

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 Virtual Machines (Cont.)

(a) Nonvirtual machine (b) virtual machine

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 Para-virtualization

 Presents guest with system similar but not identical to hardware

 Guest must be modified to run on paravirtualized hardware

 Guest can be an OS, or in the case of Solaris 10 applications running in

containers

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Virtualization Implementation

 Difficult to implement – must provide an exact duplicate of underlying machine

 Typically runs in user mode, creates virtual user mode and virtual kernel
mode
 Timing can be an issue – slower than real machine
 Hardware support needed
 More support-> better virtualization
 i.e. AMD provides “host” and “guest” modes

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Solaris 10 with Two Containers

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VMware Architecture

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The Java Virtual Machine

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 Operating-System Debugging

 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs

 OSes generate log files containing error information
 Failure of an application can generate core dump file capturing memory of the
process
 Operating system failure can generate crash dump file containing kernel memory
 Beyond crashes, performance tuning can optimize system performance
 Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not
smart enough to debug it.”
 DTrace tool in Solaris, FreeBSD, Mac OS X allows live instrumentation on
production systems
 Probes fire when code is executed, capturing state data and sending it to
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Solaris 10 dtrace Following System Call

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 Operating System Generation

 Operating systems are designed to run on any of a class of machines; the

system must be configured for each specific computer site

 SYSGEN program obtains information concerning the specific configuration of

the hardware system

 Booting – starting a computer by loading the kernel

 Bootstrap program – code stored in ROM that is able to locate the kernel, load
it into memory, and start its execution

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End of Chapter 2

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