Chapter 4: Threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 4: Threads
Overview
Multicore Programming
Multithreading Models
Thread Libraries
Implicit Threading
Threading Issues

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Overview

All modern operating systems provide features enabling a

process to contain multiple threads of control.
A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization
Comprises: thread id, program counter, register set, stack
Shares: code section, data section, operating system
resources (such as files)

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 Single and Multithreaded Processes

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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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 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 multiprocessor
architectures

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 Multicore Programming

Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task

simultaneously

Concurrency supports more than one task making progress

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 Multicore Programming (Cont.)

Multicore or multiprocessor systems putting pressure on

programmers, challenges include:
Dividing activities
Balance
Data splitting
Data dependency
Testing and debugging

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
Solaris
Linux
Tru64 UNIX
Mac OS X

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 Multithreading Models

Many-to-One

One-to-One

Many-to-Many

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 Many-to-One

Many user-level threads mapped to

single kernel thread
One thread blocking causes all to block
Multiple threads may not run in parallel
on muticore system because only one
may be in kernel at a time
Few systems currently use this model
Examples:
Solaris Green Threads
GNU Portable Threads

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 One-to-One
Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
More concurrency than many-to-one
Number of threads per process sometimes
restricted due to overhead
Examples
Windows
Linux
Solaris 9 and later

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 Many-to-Many Model
Allows many user level threads to be
mapped to many kernel threads
Allows the operating system to create
a sufficient number of kernel threads
Solaris prior to version 9
Windows with the ThreadFiber
package

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 Two-level Model

Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be

bound to kernel thread
Examples
IRIX
HP-UX
Tru64 UNIX
Solaris 8 and earlier

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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

Three main libraries are in use today:

POSIX Pthreads
Windows
Java

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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 (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X)

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 Pthreads Example

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 Windows Threads

Kernel-level library available on Windows systems

Similar to the Pthreads in many ways
windows.h header file must be included

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 Windows Multithreaded C Program

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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

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 Java Multithreaded Program #1

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 Java Multithreaded Program #1 (Cont.)

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 Java Multithreaded Program #2

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 Java Multithreaded Program #2 (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
Several methods for implicit threading:
Thread Pools
OpenMP
Grand Central Dispatch
Microsoft Threading Building Blocks

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread Pools
Create several 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
 Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically

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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
n Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
n 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
n Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
l User-defined signal handler can override default
l For single-threaded, signal delivered to process

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 Signal Handling (Cont.)
n Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
l Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal
applies
l Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
l Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
l 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:

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 4

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013