Lecture Outline

1. Overview
2. Multicore Programming
3. Multithreading Models
4. Thread Libraries
5. Implicit Threading
6. Threading Issues
7. Operating System Examples
Single and Multithreaded Processes
Multithreaded Server Architecture
 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 multicore architectures
 Multicore Programming
❑Multicore or multiprocessor systems putting pressure on programmers,
challenges include:
❑Dividing activities
❑Balance
❑Data splitting
❑Data dependency
❑Testing and debugging
❑Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task simultaneously
❑Concurrency supports more than one task making progress
❑Single processor / core, scheduler providing concurrency
 Concurrency vs. Parallelism
❑ Concurrent execution on single-core system:

❑ Parallelism on a multi-core system:

 Multicore Programming

❑Types of parallelism
❑Data parallelism – Data parallelism focuses on distributing subsets of the same
data across multiple computing cores and performing the same operation on each
core.

❑Task parallelism – Task parallelism involves distributing not data but tasks
(threads) across multiple computing cores.
Data and Task Parallelism
 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
❑But does the law take into account contemporary multicore systems?
Amdahl’s Law
 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
❑Linux
❑Mac OS X
❑iOS
❑Android
User and Kernel Threads
 Multithreading Models

❑Many-to-One

❑One-to-One

❑Many-to-Many
 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 multicore system
because only one may be in kernel at a time
❑Few systems currently use this model
❑Examples:
❑Solaris Green Threads
❑GNU Portable Threads
 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
 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
❑Windows with the ThreadFiber package
❑Otherwise not very common
 Two-level Model
❑Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user
thread to be bound to kernel thread
 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
 Pthreads

❑Pthreads refers to the POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) defining an API for
thread creation and synchronization
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 (Linux & Mac OS X)
Pthreads Example
Pthreads Example (Cont’n) (cont’d)
Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads
Windows Multithreaded C Program
Windows Multithreaded C Program (cont’d)
 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

❑Standard practice is to implement Runnable interface

 Java Threads
Implementing Runnable interface:

Creating a thread:

Waiting on a thread:
 Java Executor Framework
❑Rather than explicitly creating threads, Java also allows
thread creation around the Executor interface:

❑The Executor is used as follows:

Java Executor Framework
Java Executor Framework (cont’d)
 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
❑Five methods explored
❑Thread Pools
❑Fork-Join
❑OpenMP
❑Grand Central Dispatch
❑Intel Threading Building Blocks
 Thread Pools
❑Create a number of 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
❑i.e.Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
❑Windows API supports thread pools:
 Java Thread Pools
❑Three factory methods for creating thread
pools in Executors class:
Java Thread Pools (cont’d)
 Fork-Join Parallelism

❑Multiple threads (tasks) are forked, and then joined.

 Fork-Join Parallelism

❑General algorithm for fork-join strategy:

Fork-Join Parallelism
Fork-Join Parallelism in Java
Fork-Join Parallelism in Java
 Fork-Join Parallelism in Java
❑The ForkJoinTask is an abstract base class
❑RecursiveTask and RecursiveAction classes extend
ForkJoinTask
❑RecursiveTask returns a result (via the return value from the
compute() method)
❑RecursiveAction does not return a result
 Grand Central Dispatch
❑Apple technology for macOS and iOS operating systems
❑Extensions to C, C++ and Objective-C languages, API, and run-
time library
❑Allows identification of parallel sections
❑Manages most of the details of threading
❑Block is in “^{ }” :
ˆ{ printf("I am a block"); }

❑Blocks placed in dispatch queue

❑Assigned to available thread in thread pool when removed from queue
 Grand Central Dispatch
❑Two types of dispatch queues:
❑serial – blocks removed in FIFO order, queue is per process,
called main queue
❑Programmers can create additional serial queues within program
❑concurrent – removed in FIFO order but several may be
removed at a time
❑Four system wide queues divided by quality of service:
❑QOS_CLASS_USER_INTERACTIVE
❑QOS_CLASS_USER_INITIATED
❑QOS_CLASS_USER_UTILITY
❑QOS_CLASS_USER_BACKGROUND
 Grand Central Dispatch
❑For the Swift language a task is defined as a closure –
similar to a block, minus the caret
❑Closures are submitted to the queue using the
dispatch_async() function:
 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
 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
 Signal Handling
❑Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
❑A signal handler is used to process signals
❑ Signal is generated by particular event
❑ Signal is delivered to a process
❑ Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
❑ default
❑ user-defined
❑Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
❑ User-defined signal handler can override default
❑ For single-threaded, signal delivered to process
 Signal Handling (cont’d)

❑Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?

❑ Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
❑ Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
❑ Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
❑ Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the process
 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:
 Thread Cancellation(cont’n) (cont’d)

❑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
 Thread-Local Storage

❑Thread-local storage (TLS) allows each thread to have

its own copy of data
❑Useful when you do not have control over the thread
creation process (i.e., when using a thread pool)
❑Different from local variables
❑Local variables visible only during single function invocation
❑TLS visible across function invocations
❑Similar to static data
❑TLS is unique to each thread
 Scheduler Activations
❑Both M:M and Two-level models require communication to maintain
the appropriate number of kernel threads allocated to the application
❑Typically use an intermediate data structure between user and kernel
threads – lightweight process (LWP)
❑Appears to be a virtual processor on which process can schedule user thread to
run
❑Each LWP attached to kernel thread
❑How many LWPs to create?
❑Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a communication mechanism
from the kernel to the upcall handler in the thread library
❑This communication allows an application to maintain the correct
number kernel threads
 Operating System Examples

❑Windows Threads
❑Linux Threads
 Windows Threads
❑Windows API – primary API for Windows applications
❑Implements the one-to-one mapping, kernel-level
❑Each thread contains
❑A thread id
❑Register set representing state of processor
❑Separate user and kernel stacks for when thread runs in user mode or kernel mode
❑Private data storage area used by run-time libraries and dynamic link libraries (DLLs)
❑The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known as the context of
the thread
 Windows Threads (cont’d)

❑The primary data structures of a thread include:

❑ETHREAD (executive thread block) – includes pointer to process to which thread
belongs and to KTHREAD, in kernel space
❑KTHREAD (kernel thread block) – scheduling and synchronization info, kernel-
mode stack, pointer to TEB, in kernel space
❑TEB (thread environment block) – thread id, user-mode stack, thread-local
storage, in user space
Windows Threads Data Structures
 Linux Threads
❑Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads
❑Thread creation is done through clone() system call
❑clone() allows a child task to share the address space of the parent task
(process)
❑Flags control behavior

❑struct task_struct points to process data structures (shared or unique)