Chapter 3: Processes

Slides have been adapted for INSA by T. Monteil

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Chapter 3: Processes
 Process Concept"
 Process Scheduling"
 Operations on Processes"
 Interprocess Communication"
 Examples of IPC Systems"
 Communication in Client-Server Systems"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.2! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 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

scheduling, creation and termination, and communication"

 To describe communication in client-server systems"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.3! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Concept
 An operating system executes a variety of programs:"
 Batch system – jobs"
 Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks"

 Textbook uses the terms job and process almost interchangeably"

 Process – a program in execution; process execution must progress in

sequential fashion"

 A process includes:"
 program counter "
 stack"
 data section"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.4! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 The Process
 Multiple parts"
 The program code, also called text section!
 Current activity including program counter, processor registers"
 Stack containing temporary data"
 Function parameters, return addresses, local variables"
 Data section containing global variables"
 Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time"
 Program is passive entity, process is active "
 Program becomes process when executable file loaded into memory"
 Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks, command line entry of its
name, etc"
 One program can be several processes"
 Consider multiple users executing the same program"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.5! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process in Memory

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.6! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process State
 As a process executes, it changes state"
 new: The process is being created"
 running: Instructions are being executed"
 waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur"
 ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor"
 terminated: The process has finished execution"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.7! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Diagram of Process State

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.8! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process"
 Process state"
 Program counter"
 CPU registers"
 CPU scheduling information"
 Memory-management information"
 Accounting information"
 I/O status information"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.9! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 CPU Switch From Process to Process

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.10! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Context Switch
 When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state
of the old process and load the saved state for the new process via a
context switch."

 Context of a process represented in the PCB"

 Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful work while

switching"
 The more complex the OS and the PCB -> longer the context switch"

 Time dependent on hardware support"

 Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per CPU -> multiple
contexts loaded at once"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.11! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Scheduling

 Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU for time
sharing"
 Process scheduler selects among available processes for next
execution on CPU"
 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"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.12! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Representation in Linux
 Represented by the C structure task_struct
pid t pid; /* process identifier */
long state; /* state of the process */
unsigned int time slice /* scheduling information */ struct
task struct *parent; /* this process’s parent */ struct list
head children; /* this process’s children */ struct files
struct *files; /* list of open files */ struct mm struct
*mm; /* address space of this pro */

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.13! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Ready Queue And Various
I/O Device Queues

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.14! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Representation of Process Scheduling

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.15! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Creation
 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)"

 Resource sharing"
 Parent and children share all resources"
 Children share subset of parent’s resources"
 Parent and child share no resources"

 Execution"
 Parent and children execute concurrently"
 Parent waits until children terminate"
"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.16! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Creation (Cont.)
 Address space"
 Child duplicate of parent"
 Child has a program loaded into it"

 UNIX examples"
 fork system call creates new process"
 exec system call used after a fork to replace the process’ memory space with
a new program"

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.17! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!
 Process Termination
 Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to delete it
(exit)"
 Output data from child to parent (via wait)"
 Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system"

 Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort)"

 Child has exceeded allocated resources"
 Task assigned to child is no longer required"
 If parent is exiting"
 Some operating systems do not allow child to continue if its parent
terminates"
– All children terminated - cascading termination!

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition! 3.18! Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009!