Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Objectives
● To describe the services an operating system provides to
users, processes, and other systems
● To discuss the various ways of structuring an operating system
● To explain how operating systems are installed, customized
and how they boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Services
● Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs
and services to programs and users
● One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful
to the user:
● User interface - Almost all operating systems have a user
interface (UI).
4 Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User
Interface (GUI), Batch
● Program execution - The system must be able to load a program
into memory and to run that program, end execution, either
normally or abnormally (indicating error)
● I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which may
involve a file or an I/O device

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Services (Cont.)

● One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to the
user (Cont.):
● File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular interest.
Programs need to read and write files and directories, create and delete
them, search them, list file Information, permission management.
● Communications – Processes may exchange information, on the same
computer or between computers over a network
4 Communications may be via shared memory or through message
passing (packets moved by the OS)
● Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of possible errors
4 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O devices, in user
program
4 For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate action to ensure
correct and consistent computing
4 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and programmer’s
abilities to efficiently use the system

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
● Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient operation of the
system itself via resource sharing
● Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running
concurrently, resources must be allocated to each of them
4 Many types of resources - CPU cycles, main memory, file storage,
I/O devices.
● Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what
kinds of computer resources
● Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a
multiuser or networked computer system may want to control use of that
information, concurrent processes should not interfere with each other
4 Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is
controlled
4 Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication,
extends to defending external I/O devices from invalid access
attempts

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 A View of Operating System Services

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 User Operating System Interface - CLI

CLI or command interpreter allows direct command entry

● Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by systems
program
● Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
● Primarily fetches a command from user and executes it
● Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes just names of
programs

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 User Operating System Interface - GUI

● User-friendly desktop metaphor interface

● Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
● Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
● Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface cause
various actions (provide information, options, execute function,
open directory (known as a folder)
● Invented at Xerox PARC
● Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
● Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
● Apple Mac OS X is “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel
underneath and shells available
● Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI interfaces (CDE, KDE,
GNOME)

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 Touchscreen Interfaces

● Touchscreen devices require new

interfaces
● Mouse not possible or not desired
● Actions and selection based on
gestures
● Virtual keyboard for text entry
● Voice commands.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Calls
● Programming interface to the services provided by the OS
● Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
● Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application
Programming Interface (API) rather than direct system
call use
● Three most common APIs are Win32 API for Windows,
POSIX API for POSIX-based systems (including virtually all
versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X), and Java API for
the Java virtual machine (JVM)

Note that the system-call names used throughout this

text are generic

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 Example of System Calls

● System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file

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 API – System Call – OS Relationship

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 System Call Parameter Passing

● Often, more information is required than simply identity of desired

system call
● Exact type and amount of information vary according to OS and
call
● Three general methods used to pass parameters to the OS
● Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
4 In some cases, may be more parameters than registers
● Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory, and address
of block passed as a parameter in a register
4 This approach taken by Linux and Solaris
● Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the program
and popped off the stack by the operating system
● Block and stack methods do not limit the number or length of
parameters being passed

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Parameter Passing via Table

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 Types of System Calls
● Process control
● create process, terminate process
● end, abort
● load, execute
● get process attributes, set process attributes
● wait for time
● wait event, signal event
● allocate and free memory
● Dump memory if error
● Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
● Locks for managing access to shared data between processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls

● File management
● create file, delete file
● open, close file
● read, write, reposition
● get and set file attributes
● Device management
● request device, release device
● read, write, reposition
● get device attributes, set device attributes
● logically attach or detach devices

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

● Information maintenance
● get time or date, set time or date
● get system data, set system data
● get and set process, file, or device attributes
● Communications
● create, delete communication connection
● send, receive messages if message passing model to host
name or process name
4 From client to server
● Shared-memory model create and gain access to memory
regions
● transfer status information
● attach and detach remote devices

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 Standard C Library Example
● C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system call

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 Operating System Design and Implementation

● Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but some

approaches have proven successful

● Internal structure of different Operating Systems can vary widely

● Start the design by defining goals and specifications

● Affected by choice of hardware, type of system

● User goals and System goals

● User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, easy
to learn, reliable, safe, and fast
● System goals – operating system should be easy to design,
implement, and maintain, as well as flexible, reliable, error-free,
and efficient

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 Operating System Design and Implementation (Cont.)

● Important principle to separate

Policy: What will be done?
Mechanism: How to do it?
● Mechanisms determine how to do something, policies decide
what will be done
● The separation of policy from mechanism is a very important
principle, it allows maximum flexibility if policy decisions are to be
changed later (example – timer)
● Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task of
software engineering

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Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Implementation

● Much variation
● Early OSes in assembly language
● Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
● Now C, C++
● Actually usually a mix of languages
● Lowest levels in assembly
● Main body in C
● Systems programs in C, C++, scripting languages like PERL, Python,
shell scripts
● More high-level language easier to port to other hardware
● But slower
● Emulation can allow an OS to run on non-native hardware

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Structure
● General-purpose OS is very large program
● Various ways to structure ones
● Simple structure – MS-DOS
● More complex -- UNIX
● Layered – an abstrcation

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Simple Structure -- MS-DOS

● MS-DOS – written to provide the

most functionality in the least
space
● Not divided into modules
● Although MS-DOS has some
structure, its interfaces and
levels of functionality are not
well separated

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Non Simple Structure -- UNIX

UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the original UNIX

operating system had limited structuring. The UNIX OS consists
of two separable parts
● Systems programs
● The kernel
4 Consists of everything below the system-call interface
and above the physical hardware
4 Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other operating-system functions; a
large number of functions for one level

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 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

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 Layered Approach

● The operating system is divided

into a number of layers (levels),
each built on top of lower layers.
The bottom layer (layer 0), is the
hardware; the highest (layer N) is
the user interface.
● With modularity, layers are
selected such that each uses
functions (operations) and
services of only lower-level
layers

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Modules
● Many modern operating systems implement loadable kernel
modules
● Uses object-oriented approach
● Each core component is separate
● Each talks to the others over known interfaces
● Each is loadable as needed within the kernel
● Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible
● Linux, Solaris, etc

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Solaris Modular Approach

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 iOS

● Apple mobile OS for iPhone, iPad

● Structured on Mac OS X, added functionality
● Does not run OS X applications natively
4 Also runs on different CPU architecture
(ARM vs. Intel)
● Cocoa Touch Objective-C API for developing
apps
● Media services layer for graphics, audio,
video
● Core services provides cloud computing,
databases
● Core operating system, based on Mac OS X
kernel

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 Android
● Developed by Open Handset Alliance (mostly Google)
● Open Source
● Similar stack to IOS
● Based on Linux kernel but modified
● Provides process, memory, device-driver management
● Adds power management
● Runtime environment includes core set of libraries and Dalvik virtual
machine
● Apps developed in Java plus Android API
4 Java class files compiled to Java bytecode then translated
to executable than runs in Dalvik VM
● Libraries include frameworks for web browser (webkit), database
(SQLite), multimedia, smaller libc

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 Android Architecture

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 System Boot
● When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed memory
location
● Firmware ROM used to hold initial boot code
● Operating system must be made available to hardware so hardware
can start it
● Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, stored in ROM or
EEPROM locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
● Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location
loaded by ROM code, which loads bootstrap loader from disk
● Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of kernel from
multiple disks, versions, kernel options
● Kernel loads and system is then running

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 2

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