Chapter 2: System Structures

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 2: System Structures

Operating System Services

User Operating System Interface
System Calls
Types of System Calls
System Programs
Operating System Design and Implementation
Operating System Structure
Operating System Debugging
Operating System Generation
System Boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.2 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 and customized and

how they boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.3 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).
 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
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.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
Communications – Processes may exchange information, on the
same computer or between computers over a network
 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
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O devices, in
user program
 For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate action to
ensure correct and consistent computing
 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.5 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
 Many types of resources - Some (such as CPU cycles, main memory,
and file storage) may have special allocation code, others (such as I/O
devices) may have general request and release code
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
 Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is
controlled
 Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication,
extends to defending external I/O devices from invalid access attempts
 If a system is to be protected and secure, precautions must be
instituted throughout it. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
» If the latter, adding new features doesn’t require shell
modification

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.9 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)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Touchscreen Interfaces

Touchscreen devices require new

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.12 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 Program

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)

Why use APIs rather than system calls?

(Note that the system-call names used throughout this text are
generic)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example of System Calls
System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example of Standard API

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Call Implementation
Typically, a number associated with each system call
System-call interface maintains a table indexed according to
these numbers

The system call interface invokes intended system call in OS kernel

and returns status of the system call and any return values

The caller need know nothing about how the system call is
implemented
Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will do as a
result call
Most details of OS interface hidden from programmer by API
 Managed by run-time support library (set of functions built into
libraries included with compiler)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
 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
 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 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls
Process control
end, abort
load, execute
create process, terminate process
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 2.20 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 2.21 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
 From client to server
Shared-memory model create and gain access to memory regions
transfer status information
attach and detach remote devices

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)
Protection
Control access to resources
Get and set permissions
Allow and deny user access

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Examples of Windows and
Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Standard C Library Example
C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs

System programs provide a convenient environment for program

development and execution. They can be divided into:
File manipulation
Status information sometimes stored in a File modification
Programming language support
Program loading and execution
Communications
Background services
Application programs

Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by system

programs, not the actual system calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs
Provide a convenient environment for program development and
execution
Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others
are considerably more complex

File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, dump, list,

and generally manipulate files and directories

Status information
Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available
memory, disk space, number of users
Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging
information
Typically, these programs format and print the output to the
terminal or other output devices
Some systems implement a registry - used to store and retrieve
configuration information

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs (Cont.)
File modification
Text editors to create and modify files
Special commands to search contents of files or perform
transformations of the text

Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,

debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided

Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable

loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems for
higher-level and machine language

Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual

connections among processes, users, and computer systems
Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse
web pages, send electronic-mail messages, log in remotely,
transfer files from one machine to another

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 System Programs (Cont.)
Background Services
Launch at boot time
 Some for system startup, then terminate
 Some from system boot to shutdown
Provide facilities like disk checking, process scheduling, error
logging, printing
Run in user context not kernel context
Known as services, subsystems, daemons

Application programs
Don’t pertain to system
Run by users
Not typically considered part of OS
Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example: MS-DOS
Single-tasking
Shell invoked when system
booted
Simple method to run
program
No process created
Single memory space
Loads program into memory,
overwriting all but the kernel
Program exit -> shell
reloaded

(a) At system startup (b) running a program

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example: FreeBSD
Unix variant
Multitasking
User login -> invoke user’s choice of
shell
Shell executes fork() system call to create
process
Executes exec() to load program into
process
Shell waits for process to terminate or
continues with user commands
Process exits with code of 0 – no error or
> 0 – error code

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example: 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
 Consists of everything below the system-call interface and
above the physical hardware
 Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other operating-system functions; a large
number of functions for one level

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Modules
Most 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 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operating-System Debugging
Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs
OSes generate log files containing error information
Failure of an application can generate core dump file capturing
memory of the process
Operating system failure can generate crash dump file containing
kernel memory
Beyond crashes, performance tuning can optimize system performance
Sometimes using trace listings of activities, recorded for analysis
Profiling is periodic sampling of instruction pointer to look for
statistical trends

Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the

first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you
are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Performance Tuning
Improve performance by
removing bottlenecks
OS must provide means of
computing and displaying
measures of system
behavior
For example, “top” program
or Windows Task Manager

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Reading Assignment
Read the following sections as a reading assignment. You will be
responsible from the reading assignments in the exam.
Sections 2.1-2.5,
Sections 2.7.1-2.7.3
Section 2.10

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013