SWENG3106

Operating System

Software Engineering Department

AASTU
 Chapter Two
Processes and Threads

2
 Chapter Objectives
To introduce the notion of a process- a program in
execution, which forms the basis of all computation.
To describe the various features of processes,
including creation, scheduling and termination.
To introduce the notion of a thread- a fundamental
unit of CPU utilization that forms the basis of
multithreaded computer systems.

3
 Outline
The Process Concept
Process States
Process Control
Threads

4
The Process Concept

5
 Objectives
After completing this topic you should be able to:
 Define process
 Differentiate program and process
 Explain different types of processes
 Explain different states of process
 Understand how OS manages processes

6
 1 Process Concept
 Process vs. Program
 Program
 It is sequence of instructions defined to perform some task
 It is a passive entity, a file containing a list of instructions stored on
disk(often called an executable file).
 Process, also called job
 It is a program in execution. A process needs certain resources, including
CPU time, memory, files, and I/O devices, to accomplish its task.
 It is an instance of a program running on a computer.
 It is an active entity, with a program counter specifying the next instruction
to execute and a set of associated resources.
 Program becomes process when executable file loaded into memory
 IA process includes:
 The program code, also called text section
 program counter: contains the address of the next instruction to be fetched
 Stack: contains temporary data (such as function parameters, return addresses, and local
variables).
 data section: contains global variables.
 heap: memory that is dynamically allocated during process run time

7
Process in Memory

8
 Process concept(cont’d)
 Real life Example: Consider a computer scientist who is baking
a birthday cake for her daughter and who is interrupted by her
daughter’s bleeding accident

Analysis
Processes Baking Cake First Aid
Processor Computer Scientist Computer Scientist
Program Recipe First Aid Book
Input Ingredients First Aid Kit
Output Cake First Aid Service
Priority Lower Higher
States Running, Idle Running, Idle

9
 Process concept(cont’d)
Sequence of actions
 Bringing ingredients i.e. flour, sugar, eggs, etc
 Placing the mixture into the oven
 Following the baking processes
 Hearing a cry and analyzing it to be because of bleeding
 Recording baking processes state and switching to provide
first aid service
 Providing first aid service
 Coming back and resuming the baking process

The key idea here is that a process is an activity of

some kind. It has a program, input, output, and a
state.

10
 2. Types of Processes
There are two types of processes
 Sequential Processes
 Concurrent Processes

Sequential Processes
 Execution progresses in a sequential fashion.
 At any point in time, at most one process is being executed

Concurrent Processes - two types of concurrent

processes
 True Concurrency (Multiprocessing)
 Two or more processes are executed simultaneously in a
multiprocessor environment
 Supports real parallelism

11
Types of Processes(cont’d)
 Apparent Concurrency (Multiprogramming)
 Two or more processes are executed in parallel in a uniprocessor
environment by switching from one process to another
 Supports pseudo parallelism, i.e. the fast switching among
processes gives illusion of parallelism

12
 3. Process Creation
Principal events that cause process creation:
 System initialization.
 When an operating system is booted, often several processes are
created. Some of them are foreground and others are background.
 Foreground processes: processes that interact with (human) users and
perform work for them.
 Background processes, which are not associated with particular users,
but instead have some specific function. For example, a background
process may be designed to accept incoming requests for web pages
hosted on that machine.
 Execution of a process creation system call by a running
process.
 a running process will issue system calls to create one or more
new processes to help it do its job.
 A user request to create a new process. E.g. open a document
 Initiation of a batch job(on large mainframes).

13
 Process Creation(cont’d)
 Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create other
processes, forming a tree of processes
 Generally, process identified and managed via a process identifier
(pid)
 Resources required when creating process to accomplish its task
 CPU time, files, memory, I/O devices etc.

 Resource sharing options:

 Child process may be able to obtain its resources directly from the OS
 Parent may have to partition its resources among its children

 When a process creates a new process, two possibilities for execution:

 Parent and children execute concurrently
 Parent waits until children terminate
 Two address-space possibilities for the new process:.
 The child process is a duplicate of the parent process (it has the same
program and data as the parent).
 The child process has a new program loaded into it.
[Read the detail from Operating Systems Concepts - Section 3.3.1]

14
A Tree of Processes in Linux

15
 4. Process State
 During its lifetime, a process passes through a number of states.
 The most important states are: Ready, Running, Blocked
(waiting)

 New
 A process that has just been created but has not yet been
admitted to the pool of executable processes by the
operating system
 Information concerning the process is already maintained in
memory but the code is not loaded and no space has been
allocated for the process
 Ready
 A process that is not currently executing but that is ready to be
executed as soon as the operating system dispatches it

16
 Process State(cont’d)
Running
 A process that is currently being executed

Blocked (Waiting)
 A process that is waiting for the completion of some event,
such as completion of an I/O operation

Exit (Terminated)
 A process that has been released from the pool of executable
processes by the operating system, either because it halted or
because it aborted for some reason.
 Conditions:
 Normal exit: processes terminate because they have done their
work

17
Process State(cont’d)
 Error exit: due to a program bug. Examples include executing an
illegal instruction, referencing nonexistent memory, or dividing by
zero.
 Fatal error: For example, if a user types the command cc foo.c
to compile the program foo.c and no such file exists, the compiler
simply exits.
 Killed by another process

18
 4. Control Table
We can think of the OS as that entity that manages the use of
system resources by processes.

Processes and Resources

19
 Control Table(cont’d)
 Control Tables
 If the operating system is to manage processes and
resources, it must have information about the current status
of each process and resources
 The operating system constructs and maintains tables of
information, called control tables.
 There are four major control tables:
 Memory tables
 I/O tables
 File tables
 Process tables

20
 Control Table(cont’d)
Memory tables
 Are used to keep track of both main and secondary (virtual)
memory. Some of main memory is reserved for use by the OS;
the remainder is available for use by processes.
 The memory tables must include the following information:
 Allocation of main memory to processes
 Allocation of secondary memory to processes
 Any information needed to manage virtual memory

I/O tables
 Used by the OS to manage the I/O devices.
 If an I/O operation is in progress, the OS needs to know the
status of the I/O operation and the location in main memory
being used as the source or destination of the I/O transfer.
21
 Control Table(cont’d)
File tables
 These tables provide information about the existence of files,
their location on secondary memory, their current status, and
other attributes.

Process tables
 Are used to manage processes
 OS must know the location of each process and the attributes
of each process(process ID and process state)

The tables must be linked or cross-referenced in

some fashion.
To create the tables, the operating system must have
some knowledge of the basic environment, such as
how much main memory exists, what are the I/O
devices and what are their identifiers, and so on.
22
Control Table(cont’d)

General Structure of Operating System Control Tables

23
 Process Control Block
Each process is represented in the OS by process
control block(PCB).
The PCB simply serves as the repository for any
information that may vary from process to process.
Information associated with each process:
 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. Along with the program counter, registers state
information must be saved when an interrupt occurs, to allow
the process to be continued correctly afterward

24
Process Control Block(cont’d)
 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 information as the value of the
base and limit registers, 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 clock time used,
time limits, job or process numbers, and so on.
 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.

25
Process Control Block(cont’d)

26
 5. Process Switching
 Process switch occurs when a running process is interrupted and the
operating system assigns another process to the running state and turns
control over to that process
 Process switch is sometimes called context switch
 A running process may be interrupted by
 Interrupt: An event that occurs outside the process and that is recognized by
the processor (clock interrupt, I/O interrupt)
 Supervisor Call: A procedure call used by user programs to call an operating
system function.
 Trap: An error or exception condition generated within the currently running
process (illegal file access attempt)

 Switching requires performing a state save of the current process and a

state restore of a different process
 Context-switch time is overhead;
 the system does no useful work while switching

27
Process Switching(cont’d)

28
 6. Process Scheduling
 The Objective of multiprogramming is to have some process
running at all times (to maximize CPU utilization.)
 The objective of time sharing is to switch the CPU among
processes so frequently
 To meet these objectives process scheduler selects among
available processes for next execution on CPU
 Process scheduler maintains scheduling queues of processes
 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

29
Representation of Process Scheduling
 Queuing diagram is a common representation of process
scheduling
 Rectangles represents queues (ready and device queues),
 Circles represents resources that serve queues,
 Arrows indicates flows of process in the system

30
 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
 Sometimes the only scheduler in a system

Short-term scheduler is invoked very frequently

(milliseconds)  (must be fast)
Long-term scheduler is invoked very infrequently
(seconds, minutes)  (may be slow)
The long-term scheduler controls the degree of
multiprogramming (the number of processes in memory)
31
 Schedulers(cont’d)
Processes can be described as either:
 I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than
computations, many short CPU bursts
 CPU-bound process – spends more time doing
computations; few very long CPU bursts

long-term scheduler select a good process mix of

I/O-bound and CPU-bound processes.

32
Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of
multiple programming needs to decrease
 Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in
from disk to continue execution: swapping
 Swapping may be necessary to improve the process mix or
when additional memory is required

33
 7. Process Termination
 1. Normal exit (voluntary)
 A process terminates when it finishes executing its last statement and asks
the operating system to delete it (using exit())
 process return a status value (typically an integer) to its parent process (via the
wait() system call)
 Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system

 2. Error exit (voluntary) E.g. compiling a file that does not exist
 3. Fatal error (involuntary) E.g. dividing by zero
 4. Killed by another process (involuntary)
 Parent may terminate the execution of children processes for the following
reasons:
 Child has exceeded allocated resources(the parent must have a mechanism to inspect
the state of its children)
 Task assigned to child is no longer required
 The parent is exiting
 Some operating systems do not allow child to continue if its parent
terminates. All children terminated - cascading termination

34
The Thread Concept

35
 Objectives
After completing this topic you should be able to:
 Define thread
 Differentiate process and thread
 Understand thread management

36
 Processes and Threads
Process holds two characteristics:
 A. Resource ownership: A process includes a virtual address
space to hold the process image; collection of program, data,
stack, and attributes defined in the process control block.
 B. Scheduling/execution: a process has an execution state
(Running, Ready, etc.) and a dispatching priority and is the
entity that is scheduled and dispatched by the OS.
 These two characteristics are independent and could be
treated independently by the OS.
 Processes are used to group resources together, threads are the
entities scheduled for execution on the CPU.

37
 Processes and Threads(cont’d)
The unit of dispatching is usually referred to as a
thread or lightweight process, while the unit of
resource ownership is usually still referred to as a
process or task.
A process is a collection of one or more threads and
associated system resources.
Traditional operating systems are single-threaded
systems. Modern operating systems are
multithreaded systems

38
 Multithreading
 Multithreading is a technique in which a process, executing an
application, is divided into threads that can run concurrently.
 Handles several independent tasks of an application
 Multithreading can make your program more responsive and interactive, as
well as enhance performance. Example:
 A good word processor lets you print or save a file while you are typing.
 When downloading a large file, we can put multiple threads to work—one to
download the clip, and another to play it.
 Web server - Multiple threads allow for multiple requests to be satisfied
simultaneously

 A single thread of execution per process is referred to as a single-

threaded approach. E.g. MS-DOS.

39
Single and Multithreaded Processes

40
 Shared and Private Items

A(Items shared by all threads in a process) B(Items private to each thread)

41
 Benefits of Threads
 The key benefits of threads derive from the performance
implications:
 It takes far less time to create a new thread in an existing process
than to create a brand-new process.
 E.g. In Solaris, creating a process is about thirty times slower than is
creating a thread, and context switching is about five times slower.
 It takes less time to terminate a thread than a process.
 It takes less time to switch between two threads within the same
process than to switch between processes.
 Threads enhance efficiency in communication between different
executing programs.
 Threads within the same process share memory and files(If one thread
opens a file with read privileges, other threads in the same process can
also read from that file), they can communicate with each other without
invoking the kernel.

42
 Multicore Programming
 Recent systems have multiple computing cores on a single chip.
These systems is called multicore or multiprocessor.
 Each core appears as a separate processor to the operating system.
 Multithreaded programming provides a mechanism for more
efficient use of multiple computing cores and improved
concurrency.

(a) Concurrent execution on single-core system

(b) Parallel execution on a multicore system 43

 Multicore Programming(cont’d)
 Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task simultaneously
 Concurrency supports more than one task by allowing all the tasks to make progress
 It is possible to have concurrency without parallelism
 Multicore systems putting pressure on programmers to make better use of the multiple
computing cores, challenges include:
 Dividing tasks: involves examining applications to find areas that can be divided into separate,
concurrent tasks
 Balance: ensure that the tasks perform equal work of equal value
 Data splitting: data accessed and manipulated by the tasks must be divided to run on separate
cores
 Data dependency: When one task depends on data from another, programmers must ensure that
the execution of the tasks is synchronized
 Testing and debugging: many different execution paths are possible, testing and debugging such
concurrent programs is inherently more difficult than testing and debugging single-threaded
applications.

 Multicore systems will require an entirely new approach to designing software systems
44
 User-Level and Kernel-Level Threads
 Threads can be managed in the kernel or user space
 Kernel Space
 thread management is done by the kernel
 Advantage:
 The operating system is aware of the existence of multiple threads. When a thread
blocks, the operating system chooses the next one to run, either from the same
process or a different one
 Each kernel-level thread can run in parallel on a multiprocessor system
 Disadvantage:
 Thread management is slow (requires a mode switch to the kernel)
 Creating a user thread requires creating the corresponding kernel, has effect on
performance, restrict the number of threads supported by the system
 Virtually all contemporary operating systems — including Windows, Linux,
Mac OS X, and Solaris— support kernel threads
 User Space
 All of the work of thread management is done by the application and the
kernel is not aware of the existence of multiple threads
 The user space has a thread table
 Thread management is much faster (specially switching)
45
User-Level and Kernel-Level Threads(cont’d)
 Advantage of ULT
 Thread switching does not require kernel mode privileges, saves the overhead
of two mode switches
 Can be implemented on an operating system that does not support threads.
 Allow each process to have its own customized scheduling algorithm.

 Disadvantages of ULTs
 when a thread is blocked, all of the threads within that process are blocked
 If a thread starts running, no other thread in that process will ever run unless
the first thread voluntarily gives up the CPU
 cannot take advantage of multiprocessing
 kernel assigns one process to only one processor at a time

 Combined Approach
 Thread creation is done completely in user space
 Multiple ULTs from a single application are mapped onto some (smaller or
equal) number of KLTs. The kernel is aware of only the kernel-level threads
and schedules those(user can create any number of user-level threads).
 Combine the advantages of the pure ULT and KLT approaches while
minimizing the disadvantages
 E.g. Solaris prior to version 9
46
User-Level and Kernel-Level Threads(cont’d)

User-Level and Kernel-Level Threads

47