Operating

Systems
Lecture 9
 Agenda for Today
 Review of previous lecture
 UNIX/Linux IPC tools and
associated system calls
 UNIX/Linux standard files and
kernel’s mechanism for file access
 Use of pipe in a program and at the
command line
 Recap of the lecture
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 Review of Lecture 8
 Interprocess communication (IPC)
 Establishlink and use send/recv
 Issues about links: establishing links,
link capacity, links per pair of processes,
processes per link, message size, uni-
or bi-directional
 Direct communication
 Indirect communication
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 Review of Lecture 8
 Process synchronization
 Buffering capacity of a link

 IPC in UNIX and Linux

 Pipe, FIFO, Socket, etc.

 Per process file descriptor table

 pipe, read, write, close

system calls
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 UNIX/Linux IPC Tools
 Pipe: For communication between
related processes on a system

P1 P2

Pipe

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UNIX/Linux System
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 UNIX/Linux IPC Tools
 Named pipe (FIFO): For
communication between unrelated
processes on a system
P1 P2

FIFO

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UNIX/Linux System
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 UNIX/Linux IPC Tools
 Socket: For communication
between unrelated processes on
the same or different systems
P1 P2

Network
Socket Connection Socket

Computer
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 UNIX/Linux Pipe
 Important system calls
open, read, write, close,
pipe
 open: Open or create a file
 read: Read from a pipe
 write: Write data to a pipe
 close: Close/destroy a pipe
 pipe: Create a pipe for IPC
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 open System Call
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

int open (const char *path, int oflag,

/* mode_t mode */ ...);
 ‘oflag’ specifies purpose of
opening the file and ‘mode’ specifies
permission on the file if it is to be
created.
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 open System Call
 Returns a file descriptor on success
and –1 on failure
 Can specify that read and write will
be blocking or non-blocking
 ‘oflag’ value is constructed by
ORing various flags: O_RDONLY,
O_WRONLY, O_RDWR, O_NDELAY (or
O_NONBLOCK), O_APPEND, O_CREAT,
etc.
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 open System Call
 Call fails
 Non-existent file
 Operation specified is not allowed
due to file permissions
 Search not allowed on a
component of pathname
 User’s disk quota on the file
system has been exhausted
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 open System Call
 Call fails
 No write permission on the directory
in which the file is being created
 Signal was caught during open
 Process has reached the limit of
maximum open files
 System limit reached on maximum
number of simultaneous open files
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 read System Call
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/uio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
ssize_t read(int fildes, void *buf, size_t nbyte);

 Returns number of bytes read or -1

 Call fails and errno set accordingly
 Invalid ‘fildes’, ‘buf’, or ‘nbyte’
 Signal caught during read
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 write System Call
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
ssize_t write (int fildes, const void *buf,
size_t nbyte);
 Returns the number of bytes written
or -1

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 write System Call
 Call fails
 Invalid argument
 File size limit for process or for
system would exceed
 Disk is full

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 File Descriptor to File
Contents
Per Process
File File Descriptor File Inode
Descriptor Table Table Table
0
1
2 File’s
3 contents
…
4 …
…
… …

OPEN_MAX — 1
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 Standard Descriptors
in UNIX/Linux
 Three files are automatically
opened for every process for the
process to read its input from and
send its output and error messages
to. These files are called standard
files: standard input, standard
output, and standard error.
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 Standard Descriptors
in UNIX/Linux
 By default, standard files are
attached to the terminal on which a
process runs
 Descriptors for standard files are
known as standard file descriptors.
 Standard input: 0 (keyboard)
 Standard output: 1 (display screen)
 Standard error: 2 (display screen)
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 pipe() Call
 int pipe (int pipedes[2]);
 Call fails
 At least two slots not empty in the
PPFDT—too many files or pipe open
in the process
 Buffer space not available in the
kernel
 File table is full
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 UNIX/Linux Pipe
 Important characteristics of a pipe
 Used for communication between
related processes
 Used as half-duplex channel
 Bounded buffer
 Maximum data written is PIPE_BUF
(defined in <sys/param.h> in UNIX
and in <linux/param.h> in Linux)—
5120 and 4096, respectively
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 Example

parent child
fork
P P

Read Write
end end

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 Sample Code
/* Parent creates pipe, forks a child, child writes into
pipe, and parent reads from pipe */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
main()
{
int pipefd[2], pid, n, rc, nr, status;
char *testString
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akistan = "Hello, world!\n“, buf[1024];
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 Sample Code
rc = pipe (pipefd);
if (rc < 0) {
perror("pipe");
exit(1);
}
pid = fork ();
if (pid < 0) {
perror("fork");
exit(1);
}
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 Sample Code
if (pid == 0) { /* Child’s Code */
close(pipefd[0]);
write(pipefd[1], testString, strlen(testString));
close(pipefd[1]);
exit(0);
}

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 Sample Code
/* Parent’s Code */
close(pipefd[1]);
n = strlen(testString);
nr = read(pipefd[0], buf, n);
rc = write(1, buf, nr);
wait(&status);
printf("Good work child!\n");
return(0);
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} akistan
 Command Line Use of
Pipes
 Connect standard output of a
command to standard input of
another
 Use the pipe operator, |
 Syntax:
cmd1 | cmd2 | … | cmdN
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 Command Line Use of
Pipes
cmd1 | cmd2 | … | cmdN

cmd1 pipe cmd2 pipe pipe cmdN

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 Command Line Use of
Pipes

cat /etc/passwd | grep zaheer

cat Display
pipe grep
Screen

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 Without Using a Pipe

cat /etc/passwd | grep zaheer

$ cat /etc/passwd > temp1

$ grep “zaheer” temp1
$ rm temp1
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 Recap of Lecture
 Review of previous lecture
 UNIX/Linux IPC tools and
associated system calls
 UNIX/Linux standard files and
kernel’s mechanism for file access
 Use of pipe in a program and at the
command line
 Recap of the lecture
May 28, 2024 © Copyright Virtual University of P
akistan