I/O Management

Amir H. Payberah
[email protected]
2022
Overview

I I/O management is a major component of OS design and operation.

I Ports, busses, device controllers connect to various devices.

I Device drivers encapsulate device details.

• Present uniform device-access interface to I/O subsystem.

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I/O Hardware

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I/O Hardware

I Variety of I/O devices:

• Storage, e.g., disks, tapes
• Transmission, e.g., network connections, bluetooth
• Human-interface, e.g., screen, keyboard, mouse, audio in and out

I We only need to understand how the devices are attached and how the
software can control the hardware.

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Common Concepts in I/O Hardware

I Port: connection point for device.

I Bus: set of wires and protocols that specify the messages that can be
sent on the wires.

I Controller: integrated or separate circuit board that operate a port, a

bus, or a device.

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Port

I Device I/O ports addresses on PCs.

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Bus

I PCI bus: connects the processor-memory subsystem to fast devices.

I Expansion bus: connects relatively slow devices.
I Serial-attached SCSI (SAS)

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Host-Device Interaction

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Host-Device Interaction

I Polling

I Interrupt

I Direct memory access (DMA)

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Polling (1/2)

I A handshake between the host and a controller.

I Assume 2 bits for coordination: busy and command-ready bits.

I For each byte of I/O:
1. Host reads the busy bit from the status register until 0.
2. Host sets the write bit and if write copies data into the data-out
register.
3. Host sets the command-ready bit.
4. Controller sets the busy bit, executes transfer.
5. Controller clears the busy bit, error bit, and command-ready bit when
transfer done.

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Polling (2/2)

I Step 1 is busy-wait cycle (polling) to wait for I/O from device.

I Reasonable if device is fast.

I But inefficient if device slow.

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Interrupts (1/3)

I Polling can happen in 3 instruction cycles.

• (1) read status, (2) extract status bit, and (3) branch if not zero.
• Inefficient, but more efficient way?

I CPU interrupt-request line is triggered by I/O device.

• Checked by processor after each instruction.
• Saves state and jumps to interrupt-handler routine at a fixed address in
memory.

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Interrupts (2/3)

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Interrupts (3/3)

I The interrupt mechanism accepts an address: a number that selects a

specific interrupt-handling routine.

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Direct Memory Access (DMA)

I Bypasses CPU to transfer data

directly between I/O device and
memory.

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Application I/O Interface

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Application I/O Interface

I I/O system calls encapsulate device behaviors in generic classes.

I Device-driver layer hides differences among I/O controllers from kernel.

I Each OS has its own I/O subsystem structures and device driver frame-
works.

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A Kernel I/O Structure

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Characteristics of I/O Devices (1/2)

I Devices vary in many dimensions

• Data-transfer mode: character or block
• Access method: sequential or random-access
• Transfer schedule: synchronous or asynchronous (or both)
• Sharing: sharable or dedicated
• Device speed: speed of operation
• I/O direction: read-write, read only, or write only

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Characteristics of I/O Devices (2/2)

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Character Devices

I Character devices include keyboards, mouse, serial ports.

I A character device transfers bytes one by one.

I Commands include get() and put().

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Block Devices

I Block devices include disk drives.

I Commands include read() and write() and seek() for random-access

devices.

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Network Devices

I Varying enough from block and character to have own interface.

I Linux, Unix, Windows and many others include socket interface.

• Separates network protocol from network operation.

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Clocks and Timers

I Provide current time, elapsed time, and timer (trigger operation X at

time T)

I Programmable interval timer, the hardware used for timings, and periodic
interrupts.

I Normal resolution about 1/60 second.

I Some systems provide higher-resolution timers.

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Blocking, Nonblocking and Asynchronous I/O

I Blocking: process suspended until I/O completed

• Insufficient for some needs

I Nonblocking: I/O call returns as much as available

• User interface, data copy (buffered I/O)
• Implemented via multi-threading
• select() to find if data ready then read() or write() to transfers.

I Asynchronous: process runs while I/O executes

• I/O subsystem signals process when I/O completed.

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Synchronous vs. Asynchronous I/O Methods

Synchronous Asynchronous

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Kernel I/O Subsystem

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Kernel I/O Subsystem

I Kernels provide many services related to I/O:

• Scheduling
• Buffering
• Caching
• Spooling
• Device reservation
• Error handling

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Scheduling (1/2)

I Determine a good order in which to execute I/O requests.

I Some I/O request ordering via per-device queue.

I Some OSs try fairness.

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Scheduling (2/2)

I In asynchronous I/O the kernel must be able to keep track of many I/O
requests at the same time.
• The OS attaches the wait queue to a device-status table.
• The table contains an entry for each I/O device.
• If the device is busy with a request, the type of request and other
parameters will be stored in the table entry for that device.

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Buffering and Caching

I Buffering: stores data in memory while transferring between devices.

• To cope with device speed mismatch.
• To cope with device transfer size mismatch, e.g., fragmentation and
reassembly of messages.
• To maintain copy semantics.

I Caching: faster device holding copy of data.

• Always just a copy
• Key to performance

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Spooling and Device Reservation

I Spooling: a buffer that holds output for a device.

• If device can serve only one request at a time, i.e., printing

I Device reservation: provides exclusive access to a device.

• System calls for allocation and de-allocation
• Watch out for deadlock

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Error Handling

I OS can recover from disk read, device unavailable, and transient write
failures.
• Retry a read or write.
• Track error frequencies, stop using device with increasing frequency of
retry-able errors.

I Most return an error number when I/O request fails.

I System error logs hold problem reports.

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I/O Protection

I A user process may accidentally or purposefully attempt to disrupt normal

operation via illegal I/O instructions.
I I/O must be performed via system calls.

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Summary

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Summary

I I/O hardware: port, bus, controller

I Host-device interaction: polling, interrupt, DMA

I Devices: char, block, network

I Kernel I/O: schedulling, buffering, caching, spooling, device reservation,

error handling

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 Questions?
Acknowledgements
Some slides were derived from Avi Silberschatz slides.

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