Chapter 4: Threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

Edition

Chapter 4: Threads
● Overview
● Multicore Programming
● Multithreading Models
● Thread Libraries
● Implicit Threading
● Threading Issues
● Operating System Examples

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 Objectives
● To introduce the notion of a thread—a fundamental unit of CPU
utilization that forms the basis of multithreaded computer
systems
● To discuss the APIs for the Pthreads, Windows, and Java
thread libraries
● To explore several strategies that provide implicit threading
● To examine issues related to multithreaded programming
● To cover operating system support for threads in Windows and
Linux

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Motivation

● Most modern applications are multithreaded

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

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 Multithreaded Server Architecture

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Benefits

● Responsiveness – may allow continued execution if part of

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

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 Multicore Programming

● Multicore or multiprocessor systems putting pressure on

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

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Multicore Programming (Cont.)

● Types of parallelism
● Data parallelism – distributes subsets of the same data
across multiple cores, same operation on each
● Task parallelism – distributing threads across cores, each
thread performing unique operation
● As # of threads grows, so does architectural support for threading
● CPUs have cores as well as hardware threads
● Consider Oracle SPARC T4 with 8 cores, and 8 hardware
threads per core

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 Concurrency vs. Parallelism
● Concurrent execution on single-core system:

● Parallelism on a multi-core system:

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Single and Multithreaded Processes

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 Amdahl’s Law
● Identifies performance gains from adding additional cores to an
application that has both serial and parallel components
● S is serial portion
● N processing cores

● That is, if application is 75% parallel / 25% serial, moving from 1 to 2

cores results in speedup of 1.6 times
● As N approaches infinity, speedup approaches 1 / S

Serial portion of an application has disproportionate effect on

performance gained by adding additional cores

● But does the law take into account contemporary multicore systems?

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User Threads and Kernel Threads

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

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

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 Multithreading Models

● Many-to-One

● One-to-One

● Many-to-Many

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Many-to-One

● Many user-level threads mapped to

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

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 One-to-One
● Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
● Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
● More concurrency than many-to-one
● Number of threads per process sometimes
restricted due to overhead
● Examples
● Windows
● Linux
● Solaris 9 and later

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Many-to-Many Model
● Allows many user level threads to be
mapped to many kernel threads
● Allows the operating system to create
a sufficient number of kernel threads
● Solaris prior to version 9
● Windows with the ThreadFiber
package

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 Two-level Model
● Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be
bound to kernel thread
● Examples
● IRIX
● HP-UX
● Tru64 UNIX
● Solaris 8 and earlier

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Thread Libraries

● Thread library provides programmer with API for creating

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

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 Pthreads

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

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

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Pthreads Example

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 Pthreads Example (Cont.)

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Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads

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 Windows Multithreaded C Program

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Windows Multithreaded C Program (Cont.)

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 Java Threads

● Java threads are managed by the JVM

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

● Extending Thread class

● Implementing the Runnable interface

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Java Multithreaded Program

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 Java Multithreaded Program (Cont.)

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Implicit Threading

● Growing in popularity as numbers of threads increase,

program correctness more difficult with explicit threads
● Creation and management of threads done by compilers and
run-time libraries rather than programmers
● Three methods explored
● Thread Pools
● OpenMP
● Grand Central Dispatch
● Other methods include Microsoft Threading Building Blocks
(TBB), java.util.concurrent package

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 Thread Pools
● Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
● Advantages:
● Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing
thread than create a new thread
● Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be
bound to the size of the pool
● Separating task to be performed from mechanics of
creating task allows different strategies for running task
i.e.Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
● Windows API supports thread pools:

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OpenMP
● Set of compiler directives and an
API for C, C++, FORTRAN
● Provides support for parallel
programming in shared-memory
environments
● Identifies parallel regions –
blocks of code that can run in
parallel
#pragma omp parallel
Create as many threads as there are
cores
#pragma omp parallel for
for(i=0;i<N;i++) {
c[i] = a[i] + b[i];
}
Run for loop in parallel

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 Grand Central Dispatch

● Apple technology for Mac OS X and iOS operating systems

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

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Grand Central Dispatch

● Two types of dispatch queues:

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

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 Threading Issues
● Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
● Signal handling
● Synchronous and asynchronous
● Thread cancellation of target thread
● Asynchronous or deferred
● Thread-local storage
● Scheduler Activations

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Semantics of fork() and exec()

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

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

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 Signal Handling
● Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
● A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
1. default
2. user-defined
● Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
● User-defined signal handler can override default
● For single-threaded, signal delivered to process

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Signal Handling (Cont.)

● Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
● Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal
applies
● Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
● Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
● Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the
process

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 Thread Cancellation
● Terminating a thread before it has finished
● Thread to be canceled is target thread
● Two general approaches:
● Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread
immediately
● Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically
check if it should be cancelled
● Pthread code to create and cancel a thread:

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Thread Cancellation (Cont.)

● Invoking thread cancellation requests cancellation, but actual
cancellation depends on thread state

● If thread has cancellation disabled, cancellation remains pending

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

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 Thread-Local Storage

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

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

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Scheduler Activations
● Both M:M and Two-level models require
communication to maintain the appropriate
number of kernel threads allocated to the
application
● Typically use an intermediate data structure
between user and kernel threads – lightweight
process (LWP)
● Appears to be a virtual processor on which
process can schedule user thread to run
● Each LWP attached to kernel thread
● How many LWPs to create?
● Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a
communication mechanism from the kernel to
the upcall handler in the thread library
● This communication allows an application to
maintain the correct number kernel threads

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 Operating System Examples

● Windows Threads
● Linux Threads

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Windows Threads

● Windows implements the Windows API – primary API for Win

98, Win NT, Win 2000, Win XP, and Win 7
● Implements the one-to-one mapping, kernel-level
● Each thread contains
● A thread id
● Register set representing state of processor
● Separate user and kernel stacks for when thread runs in
user mode or kernel mode
● Private data storage area used by run-time libraries and
dynamic link libraries (DLLs)
● The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known as
the context of the thread

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 Windows Threads (Cont.)

● The primary data structures of a thread include:

● ETHREAD (executive thread block) – includes pointer to
process to which thread belongs and to KTHREAD, in
kernel space
● KTHREAD (kernel thread block) – scheduling and
synchronization info, kernel-mode stack, pointer to TEB, in
kernel space
● TEB (thread environment block) – thread id, user-mode
stack, thread-local storage, in user space

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Windows Threads Data Structures

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 Linux Threads
● Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads
● Thread creation is done through clone() system call
● clone() allows a child task to share the address space of the
parent task (process)
● Flags control behavior

● struct task_struct points to process data structures

(shared or unique)

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End of Chapter 4

Operating System Concepts – 9th Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013