Chapter 2: Process Management

2.2. Threads & Concurrency

GV: Nguyễn Thị Thanh Vân

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018

Outline

 Overview
 Multicore Programming
 Multithreading Models
 Thread Libraries
 Implicit Threading
 Threading Issues
 Operating System Examples

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 Objectives

 Identify the basic components of a thread, and contrast threads and

processes
 Describe the benefits and challenges of designing multithreaded
applications
 Illustrate different approaches to implicit threading including thread
pools, fork-join, and Grand Central Dispatch
 Describe how the Windows and Linux operating systems represent
threads
 Design multithreaded applications using the Pthreads, Java, and
Windows threading APIs

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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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 Single and Multithreaded Processes

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

 Parallelism on a multi-core system:

 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
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Data and Task Parallelism

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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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Amdahl’s Law

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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, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS, Android

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Multithreading Models
 One-to-One  Many-to-One  Many-to-Many

 Each user-level thread maps to  Many user-level threads  Allows many user level threads
kernel thread mapped to single kernel thread to be mapped to many kernel
 Creating a user-level thread  One thread blocking causes all threads
creates a kernel thread to block  Allows the operating system to
 More concurrency than many-  Multiple threads may not run in create a sufficient number of
to-one parallel on muticore system kernel threads
because only one may be in  Windows with the ThreadFiber
 Number of threads per process kernel at a time
sometimes restricted due to package
overhead  Few systems currently use this  Otherwise not very common
model
 Examples
 Examples:
• Windows
• Solaris Green Threads
• Linux
• GNU Portable Threads

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 Two-level Model
 Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be bound to
kernel thread

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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 (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

• Standard practice is to implement Runnable interface

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Java Threads
Implementing Runnable interface:

Creating a thread:

Waiting on a thread:

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 Java Executor Framework

 Rather than explicitly creating threads, Java also allows thread creation
around the Executor interface:

 The Executor is used as follows:

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Java Executor Framework

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 Java Executor Framework (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
 Five methods explored
• Thread Pools
• Fork-Join
• OpenMP
• Grand Central Dispatch
• Intel Threading Building Blocks

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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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Java Thread Pools

 Three factory methods for creating thread pools in Executors class:

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 Java Thread Pools (Cont.)

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Fork-Join Parallelism

 Multiple threads (tasks) are forked, and then joined.

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 Fork-Join Parallelism

 General algorithm for fork-join strategy:

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Fork-Join Parallelism

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 Fork-Join Parallelism in Java

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Fork-Join Parallelism in Java

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 Fork-Join Parallelism in Java

 The ForkJoinTask is an abstract base class

 RecursiveTask and RecursiveAction classes extend
ForkJoinTask
 RecursiveTask returns a result (via the return value from the
compute() method)
 RecursiveAction does not return a result

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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

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 Run the Loop in Parallel

 Run the for loop in parallel

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Grand Central Dispatch

 Apple technology for macOS and iOS operating systems
 Extensions to C, C++ and Objective-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
 Four system wide queues divided by quality of service:
o QOS_CLASS_USER_INTERACTIVE
o QOS_CLASS_USER_INITIATED
o QOS_CLASS_USER_UTILITY
o QOS_CLASS_USER_BACKGROUND

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Grand Central Dispatch

 For the Swift language a task is defined as a closure – similar to a

block, minus the caret
 Closures are submitted to the queue using the dispatch_async()
function:

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 Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB)

 Template library for designing parallel C++ programs

 A serial version of a simple for loop

 The same for loop written using TBB with parallel_for statement:

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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 Cancellation in Java

 Deferred cancellation uses the interrupt() method, which sets the

interrupted status of a thread.

 A thread can then check to see if it has been interrupted:

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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 API – primary API for Windows applications
 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 2.2

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