MODULE 1

Introduction to operating systems, System

structures, Operating System Services,
Process Management
Presented By
Ms. Shreekanya Changoli
(Assistant Professor ,VTU Belagavi)
 OPERATING SYSTEM
• An operating system is a program that manages the computer hardware and
acts as an intermediary between the user of a computer and computer
hardware.
• The purpose of an operating system is to provide an environment in which a
user can execute programs conveniently and efficiently.
• A more common definition is that the operating system is the one program
running at all times on the computer (usually called the kernel), with all else
being application programs.
• An operating system is concerned with the allocation of resources and
services, such as memory, processors, devices, and information.
History of Operating System
Fig: Abstract view of the components of a Computer System
 User View
• The user’s view of the computer varies according to the interface being used.
• The goal is to maximize the work that the user is performing.
• In this case OS is designed mostly for ease of use,and resource utilization various hardware and software resources are shared.
• User can sits at a terminal connected to a mainframe or minicomputer.other users are accessing the same computer through
other terminals.
• These users share resources and may exchange information-Maximize resource utilization(CPU time, memory, I/O).
• User dedicates system such as workstations have dedicated resources but frequently use shared resources from Server
(file,compute,and print servers).
• Therefore, their OS is designed to comprise between individual usability and resource utilization.
• Most of the devices are standalone units for individual users. Some are connected to networks, either directly by wire or
through wireless modems and networking. Because of power,speed,and interface limitations, they perform relatively few
remote operations. –Their OS system are designed mostly for individual usability, but performance per amount of battery life
is important as well.
• Some computers have Little or no user view/interface such as ,embedded computers in devices and automobile -Their OS are
designed primarily to run without user intervention.
 System View
• Operating System is a resources allocator, A Computer system has many
resources that may be required to solve a problem:CPU time, memory space,
file-storage space, I/O devices, and so on.
✓Manages all resources
✓Decides between conflicting requests for efficient and fair resource use
• OS is a Control program manages the execution of user programs to prevent
errors and improper use of the computer.
• It is especially concerned with the operation and control of I/O devices.
 Defining Operating System
• The fundamental goal of computer systems is to execute user programs and to
make solving user problems easier. Towards this goal, computer hardware is
constructed.
• Since bare hardware alone is not particularly easy to use, application programs
are developed.
• These programs require certain common operations, such as those controlling
the I/O devices. The common functions of controlling and allocating resources
are then brought together into one piece of software :Operating System.
• Common definition is that the operating system is the one program running at
all times on the computer(usually called kernel),with all else being systems
programs and application programs.
 Computer System Organization

Computer System Storage

Computer- Organisation structure
system
operation

I/O structure
 Computer-system operation
What are the operating system operations?
The operating system operations include memory management, process
management, input/output management, file management, security
management, device management, and user interface management
• A modern general-purpose computer system consists of one or more CPU’s and a number of device controllers
connected through a common bus that provides access to shared memory.
• Each device controller is in charge of a specific type of device (for ex disk drives, audio devices, and video
displays).
• The CPU and the device controllers can execute concurrently,competing for memory cycles.
• To ensure orderly access to the shared memory, a memory controller is provided whose function is to
synchronize access to the memory.
• Bootstrap program tends to be simple typically,it is stored in read-only memory(ROM) or EEPROM,known by
general term firware,with in the computer hardware.
• The bootstrap program must know how to load operating system and to start executing that system.
• operating system start executing the first process, such as “init,” and waits for some event to occur.
• The occurrence of an event is usually signaled by an interrupt from either the hardware or the software.
• Hardware may trigger an interrupt at any time by sending signal to the CPU,Usually by way of the system Bus.
• Software may trigger an interrupt by executing a special operation called a system call(also called a monitor call).
When the CPU is interrupted, it stops what it is doing and
immediately transfers execution to a fixed location. The fixed location
usually contains the starting address where the service routine for the
interrupt is located. The interrupt service routine executes; on
completion, the CPU resumes the interrupted computation.
Step 1: The I/O device receives an I/O request. (I/O device is initially
in idle state)
Step 2: The I/O device starts transferring the data, hence changes to
transferring state.
Step 3: The I/O device finishes it's work of transferring data, hence
changes to idle state. Further it's makes an interrupt.
Step 4: The CPU receives the interrupt and starts executing the
interrupt service routine, which is shown in change of its execution.
Step 5: The CPU continues its previous execution.
 Storage Structure
• Computer programs must be in main memory (RAM) to be executed.
• Main memory is the large memory that the processor can access directly.
• It commonly is implemented in a semiconductor technology called dynamic random-access memory (DRAM).
• Computers provide Read Only Memory(ROM), whose data cannot be changed.
• All forms of memory provide an array of memory words, each word has its own address. Interaction is achieved
through a sequence of load or store instructions to specific memory addresses.
• The load instruction moves a word from main memory to an internal register within the CPU,whereas the store
instruction moves the content of a register to main memory.CPU automatically loads instructions from main memory
for execution.
• A typical instruction-execution cycle, as executed on a system with a Von Neumann architecture, first fetches an
instruction from memory and stores that instruction in the instruction register.
• The instruction is then decoded and may cause operands to be fetched from memory and stored in some internal
register.
• After the instruction on the operands has been executed, the result may be stored back in memory.
• Ideally, we want the programs and data to reside in main memory permanently. This arrangement usually is not possible
for the following two reasons:
1. Main memory is usually too small to store all needed programs and data permanently.
2. Main memory is a volatile storage device that loses its contents when power is turned off.
 Fig: Storage device hierarchy

• Most computer systems provide secondary storage as an extension of main memory.

• The main requirement for secondary storage is that it be able to hold large quantities of data permanently.
• The most common secondary-storage device is a magnetic disk, which provides storage for both programs and data.
• Most programs are stored on a disk until they are loaded into memory.
• Many programs then use the disk as both a source and a destination of the information for their processing.
• The wide variety of storage systems in a computer system can be organized in a hierarchy as shown in the figure, according to speed, cost and capacity.
• The higher levels are expensive, but they are fast. As we move down the hierarchy, the cost per bit generally decreases, whereas the access time and the
capacity of storage generally increases.
• In addition to differing in speed and cost, the various storage systems are either volatile or nonvolatile.
• Volatile storage loses its contents when the power to the device is removed. In the absence of
expensive battery and generator backup systems, data must be written to nonvolatile storage for safe
keeping.
• In the hierarchy shown in figure, the storage systems above the electronic disk are volatile, whereas
those below are nonvolatile.
• An electronic disk can be designed to be either volatile or nonvolatile.
• During normal operation, the electronic disk stores data in a large DRAM array, which is volatile.
• But many electronic-disk devices contain a hidden magnetic hard disk and a battery for backup power.
• If external power is interrupted, the electronic-disk controller copies the data from RAM to the
magnetic disk. Another form of electronic disk is flash memory.
• Caches can be installed to improve performance where a large access-time or transfer-rate disparity
exists between two components.
 I/O Structure

• A large portion of operating system code is dedicated to managing I/O, both

because of its importance to the reliability and performance of a system and
because of the varying nature of the devices.
• Every device have a device controller, maintains some local buffer and a set of
special-purpose registers.
• The device controller is responsible for moving the data between the peripheral
devices.
• The operating systems have a device driver for each device controller.
• To start an I/O operation, the device driver loads the registers within the device
controller. The device controller, examines the contents of these registers to
determine what action to take (such as "read a character from the keyboard").
• The controller starts the transfer of data from the device to its local buffer.
• Once the transfer of data is complete, the device controller informs the device
driver(OS) via an interrupt that it has finished its operation.
• The device driver then returns control to the operating system, and also returns
the data. For other operations, the device driver returns status information.
• This form of interrupt-driven I/O is fine for moving small amounts of data, but
very difficult for bulk data movement. To solve this problem, direct memory
access (DMA) is used.
 Fig: How modern computer system works.

• DMA is used for high-speed I/O devices, able to transmit information at close to memory
speeds
• Device controller transfers blocks of data from buffer storage directly to main memory
without CPU intervention
• Only one interrupt is generated per block, rather than the one interrupt per byte
 Computer System Architecture
• Categorized roughly according to the number of general-purpose processors
used –
Single-Processor Systems –
• Most systems use a single processor. The variety of single-processor systems
range from PDAs through mainframes.
• On a single-processor system, there is one main CPU capable of executing
instructions from user processes.
• It contains special-purpose processors, in the form of device-specific
processors, for devices such as disk, keyboard, and graphics controllers.
• All special-purpose processors run limited instructions and do not run user
processes.
• These are managed by the operating system, the operating system sends them
information about their next task and monitors their status.
• For example, a disk-controller processor, implements its own disk queue and
scheduling algorithm, thus reducing the task of main CPU.
• Special processors in the keyboard, converts the keystrokes into codes to be
sent to the CPU.
• The use of special-purpose microprocessors is common and does not turn a
single-processor system into a multiprocessor.
• If there is only one general-purpose CPU, then the system is a single-processor
system.
Multiprocessor Systems (parallel systems or tightly coupled
systems) –
• Systems that have two or more processors in close communication, sharing the
computer bus, the clock, memory, and peripheral devices are the multiprocessor
system
Multiprocessor systems have three main advantages:
1.Increased throughput
• In multiprocessor system, as there are multiple processors execution of different
programs take place simultaneously.
• Even if the number of processors is increased the performance cannot be
simultaneously increased.
• This is due to the overhead incurred in keeping all the parts working correctly and also
due to the competation for the shared resources.
• The speed-up ratio with N processors is not N, rather, it is less than N. Thus the speed
of the system is not has expected.
2. Economy of scale –
• Multiprocessor systems can cost less than equivalent number of many single-
processor systems.
• As the multiprocessor systems share peripherals, mass storage, and power
supplies, the cost of implementing this system is economical.
• If several processes are working on the same data, the data can also be shared
among them.
3. Increased reliability-
• In multiprocessor systems functions are shared among several processors.
• If one processor fails, the system is not halted, it only slows down.
• The job of the failed processor is taken up, by other processors.

Two techniques to maintain ‘Increased Reliability’ - graceful degradation & fault

tolerant
• Graceful degradation – As there are multiple processors when one processor
fails other process will take up its work and the system goes down slowly.
• Fault tolerant – When one processor fails, its operations are stopped, the
system failure is then detected, diagnosed, and corrected.
• The HP Non Stop system uses both hardware and software duplication to ensure
continued operation despite faults.
• The system consists of multiple pairs of CPUs.
• Both processors in the pair execute same instruction and compare the results. If
the results differ, then one CPU of the pair is at fault, and both are halted.
• The process that was being executed is then moved to another pair of CPUs, and
the instruction that failed is restarted.
• This solution is expensive, since it involves special hardware and considerable
hardware duplication.
• There are two types of multiprocessor systems –
1)Asymmetric multiprocessing
2)Symmetric multiprocessing
1) Asymmetric multiprocessing – (Master/Slave architecture) Here each
processor is assigned a specific task, by the master processor. A master
processor controls the other processors in the system. It schedules and
allocates work to the slave processors.
2) Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) – All the processors are considered
as peers. There is no master-slave relationship. All the processors have its
own registers and CPU, only memory is shared
• The benefit of this model is that many processes can run simultaneously. N
processes can run if there are N CPUs—without causing a significant
deterioration of performance. Operating systems like Windows, Windows
XP, Mac OS X, and Linux—now provide support for SMP.
• A recent trend in CPU design is to include multiple compute cores on a
single chip. The communication between processors within a chip is more
faster than communication between two single processors.

Fig:Symmetric multiprocessing architecture

• Clustered Systems -Clustered systems are two or more individual systems
connected together via network and sharing software resources.
• Clustering provides high-availability of resources and services.
• The service will continue even if one or more systems in the cluster fail.
• High availability is generally obtained by storing a copy of files (s/w resources) in
the system.
• There are two types of Clustered systems – asymmetric and symmetric
• In asymmetric clustering – one system is in hot-stand by mode while the others
are running the applications.
• The hot-standby host machine does nothing but monitor the active server. If that
server fails, the hot-standby host becomes the active server.
• In symmetric clustering – two or more systems are running applications, and
are monitoring each other.
• This mode is more efficient, as it uses all of the available hardware. If any system
fails, its job is taken up by the monitoring system.
• Other forms of clusters include parallel clusters and clustering over a wide-area
network (WAN).
• Parallel clusters allow multiple hosts to access the same data on the shared
storage.
• Cluster technology is changing rapidly with the help of SAN(storage-area
networks).
• Using SAN resources can be shared with dozens of systems in a cluster, that are
separated by miles.
 Operating-System Structure
• One of the most important aspects of operating systems is the ability to multiprogram.
• A single user cannot keep either the CPU or the I/O devices busy at all times.
• Multiprogramming increases CPU utilization by organizing jobs, so that the CPU
always has one to execute.
• The operating system keeps several jobs in memory simultaneously as shown in figure.
This set of jobs is a subset of the jobs kept in the job pool.
• Since the number of jobs that can be kept simultaneously in memory is usually smaller
than the number of jobs that can be kept in the job pool(in secondary memory).
• The operating system picks and begins to execute one of the jobs in memory.
• Eventually, the job may have to wait for some task, such as an I/O operation, to
complete.
• In a non-multiprogrammed system, the CPU would sit idle. In a multiprogrammed
system, the operating system simply switches to, and executes, another job.
• When that job needs to wait, the CPU is switched to another job, and so on.
• Eventually, the first job finishes waiting and gets the CPU back. Thus the CPU is never
idle.
• Multiprogrammed systems provide an environment in which the various system resources (for example, CPU, memory,
and peripheral devices) are utilized effectively, but they do not provide for user interaction with the computer system.
• In Time sharing (or multitasking) systems, a single CPU executes multiple jobs by switching among them, but the
switches occur so frequently that the users can interact with each program while it is running.
• The user feels that all the programs are being executed at the same time.
• Time sharing requires an interactive (or hands-on) computer system, which provides direct communication between
the user and the system.
• The user gives instructions to the operating system or to a program directly, using a input device such as a keyboard or
a mouse, and waits for immediate results on an output device.
• Accordingly, the response time should be short—typically less than one second.
• In Time sharing (or multitasking) systems, a single CPU executes multiple jobs by switching among them, but the
switches occur so frequently that the users can interact with each program while it is running.
• The user feels that all the programs are being executed at the same time.
• Time sharing requires an interactive (or hands-on) computer system, which provides direct communication between
the user and the system.
• The user gives instructions to the operating system or to a program directly,
using a input device such as a keyboard or a mouse, and waits for immediate
results on an output device.
• Accordingly, the response time should be short—typically less than one second.
• A time-shared operating system allows many users to share the computer
simultaneously.
• As the system switches rapidly from one user to the next, each user is given the
impression that the entire computer system is dedicated to his use only, even
though it is being shared among many users
• A multiprocessor system is a computer system having two or more CPUs
within a single computer system, each sharing main memory and peripherals.
Multiple programs are executed by multiple processors parallel.
 Operating-System Operations

• Modern operating systems are interrupt driven.

• If there are no processes to execute, no I/O devices to service, and no users to
whom to respond, an operating system will sit quietly, waiting for something to
happen.
• Events are signaled by the occurrence of an interrupt or a trap. A trap (or an
exception) is a software-generated interrupt.
• For each type of interrupt, separate segments of code in the operating system
determine what action should be taken.
• An interrupt service routine is provided that is responsible for dealing with the
interrupt.
Fig:Transition from user to Kernel mode.
a) Dual-Mode Operation
• Since the operating system and the user programs share the hardware and software
resources of the computer system, it has to be made sure that an error in a user program
cannot cause problems to other programs and the Operating System running in the
system.
• The approach taken is to use a hardware support that allows us to differentiate among
various modes of execution.
The system can be assumed to work in two separate modes of operation:
• user mode and
• kernel mode (supervisor mode, system mode, or privileged mode).
• A hardware bit of the computer, called the mode bit, is used to indicate the current
mode: kernel (0) or user (1).
• With the mode bit, we are able to distinguish between a task that is executed by the
operating system and one that is executed by the user.
• When the computer system is executing a user application, the system is in user mode.
• When a user application requests a service from the operating system (via a system
call), the transition from user to kernel mode takes place.
• At system boot time, the hardware starts in kernel mode.
• The operating system is then loaded and starts user applications in user mode.
• Whenever a trap or interrupt occurs, the hardware switches from user mode to
kernel mode (that is, changes the mode bit from 1 to 0).
• Thus, whenever the operating system gains control of the computer, it is in
kernel mode.
• The dual mode of operation provides us with the means for protecting the
operating system from errant users—and errant users from one another.
• The hardware allows privileged instructions to be executed only in kernel mode.
• If an attempt is made to execute a privileged instruction in user mode, the
hardware does not execute the instruction but rather treats it as illegal and traps
it to the operating system.
• The instruction to switch to user mode is an example of a privileged instruction.
• Initial control is within the operating system, where instructions are
executed in kernel mode.
• When control is given to a user application, the mode is set to user
mode.
• Eventually, control is switched back to the operating system via an
interrupt, a trap, or a system call.
b) Timer
• Operating system uses timer to control the CPU. A user program
cannot hold CPU for a long time, this is prevented with the help of
timer.
• A timer can be set to interrupt the computer after a specified period.
• The period may be fixed (for example, 1/60 second) or variable (for
example, from 1 millisecond to 1 second).
• Fixed timer – After a fixed time, the process under execution is
interrupted.
• Variable timer – Interrupt occurs after varying interval. This is
implemented using a fixed-rate clock and a counter.
• The operating system sets the counter. Every time the clock ticks, the
counter is decremented.
• When the counter reaches 0, an interrupt occurs.
• Before changing to the user mode, the operating system ensures that
the timer is set to interrupt.
• If the timer interrupts, control transfers automatically to the operating
system, which may treat the interrupt as a fatal error or may give the
program more time.
 Process Management
• A program under execution is a process. A process needs resources
like CPU time, memory, files, and I/O devices for its execution.
• These resources are given to the process when it is created or at run
time.
• When the process terminates, the operating system reclaims the
resources.
• The program stored on a disk is a passive entity and the program
under execution is an active entity.
• A single-threaded process has one program counter specifying the
next instruction to execute. The CPU executes one instruction of the
process after another, until the process completes.
• A multithreaded process has multiple program counters, each pointing to the
next instruction to execute for a given thread.
• The operating system is responsible for the following activities in connection
with process management:
• Scheduling process and threads on the CPU
• Creating and deleting both user and system processes
• Suspending and resuming processes
• Providing mechanisms for process synchronization
• Providing mechanisms for process communication
 Memory Management
• Main memory is a large array of words or bytes. Each word or
byte has its own address.
• Main memory is the storage device which can be easily and
directly accessed by the CPU.
• As the program executes, the central processor reads instructions
and also reads and writes data from main memory.
• To improve both the utilization of the CPU and the speed of the
computer's response to its users, general-purpose computers must
keep several programs in memory, creating a need for memory
management.
• The operating system is responsible for the following activities in
connection with memory management:
1.Keeping track of which parts of memory are currently being
used by user.
2.Deciding which processes and data to move into and out of
memory.
3.Allocating and deallocating memory space as needed.
 Storage Management
• There are three types of storage management
i)File system management
ii) Mass-storage management
iii) Cache management.
File-System Management:
• File management is one of the most visible components of an operating
system.
• Computers can store information on several different types of physical
media. Magnetic disk, optical disk, and magnetic tape are the most common.
• Each of these media has its own characteristics and physical organization.
• Each medium is controlled by a device, such as a disk drive or tape drive,
that also has its own unique characteristics.
• A file is a collection of related information defined by its creator.
• Commonly, files represent programs and data.
• Data files may be numeric, alphabetic, alphanumeric, or binary.
• Files may be free-form (for example, text files), or they may be
formatted rigidly (for example, fixed fields).
• The operating system implements the abstract concept of a file by
managing mass storage media.
• Files are normally organized into directories to make them easier to
use.
• When multiple users have access to files, it may be desirable to
control by whom and in what ways (read, write, execute) files may be
accessed.
The operating system is responsible for the following activities in connection
with file management:
• Creating and deleting files
• Creating and deleting directories to organize files
• Supporting primitives for manipulating files and directories
• Mapping files onto secondary storage
• Backing up files on stable (nonvolatile) storage media
Mass-Storage Management
• As the main memory is too small to accommodate all data and programs,
and as the data that it holds are erased when power is lost, the computer
system must provide secondary storage to back up main memory.
• Most modern computer systems use disks as the storage medium for both
programs and data.
• Most programs—including compilers, assemblers, word processors,
editors, and formatters—are stored on a disk until loaded into memory and
then use the disk as both the source and destination of their processing.
• Hence, the proper management of disk storage is of central importance to a
computer system.
• The operating system is responsible for the following activities in
connection with disk management:
 • Free-space management
• Storage allocation
• Disk scheduling
• As the secondary storage is used frequently, it must be used
efficiently.
• The entire speed of operation of a computer may depend on the
speeds of the disk.
• Magnetic tape drives and their tapes, CD, DVD drives and platters are
tertiary storage devices.
• The functions that operating systems provides include mounting and
unmounting media in devices, allocating and freeing the devices for
exclusive use by processes, and migrating data from secondary to
tertiary storage.
Caching
• Caching is an important principle of computer systems.
• Information is normally kept in some storage system (such as main
memory).
• As it is used, it is copied into a faster storage system— the cache—as
temporary data.
• When a particular piece of information is required, first we check
whether it is in the cache.
• If it is, we use the information directly from the cache; if it is not in
cache, we use the information from the source, putting a copy in the
cache under the assumption that we will need it again soon.
• Because caches have limited size, cache management is an important
design problem.
• Careful selection of the cache size and page replacement policy can
result in greatly increased performance.
• The movement of information between levels of a storage hierarchy
may be either explicit or implicit, depending on the hardware design
and the controlling operating-system software.
• For instance, data transfer from cache to CPU and registers is usually
a hardware function, with no operating-system intervention.
• In contrast, transfer of data from disk to memory is usually
controlled by the operating system.
• In a hierarchical storage structure, the same data may appear in
different levels of the storage system.
• For example, suppose to retrieve an integer A from magnetic disk to the
processing program.
• The operation proceeds by first issuing an I/O operation to copy the disk block
on which A resides to main memory.
• This operation is followed by copying A to the cache and to an internal register.
• Thus, the copy of A appears in several places: on the magnetic disk, in main
memory, in the cache, and in an internal register.

Fig:Migration of integer A from disk to register.

• In a multiprocessor environment, in addition to maintaining internal
registers, each of the CPUs also contains a local cache.
• In such an environment, a copy of A may exist simultaneously in
several caches.
• Since the various CPUs can all execute concurrently, any update done
to the value of A in one cache is immediately reflected in all other
caches where A resides.
• This situation is called cache coherency, and it is usually a hardware
problem (handled below the operating-system level).
I/O Systems
• One of the purposes of an operating system is to hide the peculiarities
of specific hardware devices from the user.
• The I/O subsystem consists of several components:
I/O Systems
• One of the purposes of an operating system is to hide the peculiarities
of specific hardware devices from the user.
The I/O subsystem consists of several components:
• A memory-management component that includes buffering,
caching, and spooling
• A general device-driver interface
• Drivers for specific hardware devices Only the device driver
knows the peculiarities of the specific device to which it is assigned
 Protection and Security
• If a computer system has multiple users and allows the concurrent
execution of multiple processes, then access to data must be regulated.
• For that purpose, mechanisms ensure that files, memory segments,
CPU, and other resources can be operated on by only those processes
that have gained proper authorization from the operating system.
• If a computer system has multiple users and allows the concurrent
execution of multiple processes, then access to data must be regulated.
• For that purpose, there are mechanisms which ensure that files,
memory segments, CPU, and other resources can be operated on by
only those processes that have gained proper authorization from the
operating system
• For example, memory-addressing hardware ensures that a process can
execute only within its own address space.
• The timer ensures that no process can gain control of the CPU for a
long time.
• Device-control registers are not accessible to users, so the integrity of
the various peripheral device
• Protection is a mechanism for controlling the access of processes or
users to the resources defined by a computer system.
• This mechanism must provide means for specification of the controls
to be imposed and means for enforcement.
• Protection improves reliability. A protection-oriented system provides
a means to distinguish between authorized and unauthorized usage.
• A system can have adequate protection but still be prone to failure and
allow inappropriate access.
• Consider a user whose authentication information is stolen. Her data
could be copied or deleted, even though file and memory protection
are working.
• It is the job of security to defend a system from external and internal
attacks. Such attacks spread across a huge range and include viruses
and worms, denial-of service attacks etc.
• Protection and security require the system to be able to distinguish
among all its users.
• Most operating systems maintain a list of user names and associated
user identifiers (user IDs).
• When a user logs in to the system, the authentication stage determines
the appropriate user ID for the user.
 Distributed Systems
• Individual systems that are connected and share the resource available in network is called Distributed system.
• Access to a shared resource increases computation speed, functionality, data availability, and reliability.
• A network is a communication path between two or more systems.
• Distributed systems depend on networking for their functionality.
• Networks vary by the protocols used, the distances between nodes, and the transport media.
• TCP/IP is the most common network protocol. Most operating systems support TCP/IP.
• Networks are characterized based on the distances between their nodes.
• A local-area network (LAN) connects computers within a room, a floor, or a building.
• A wide-area network (WAN) usually links buildings, cities, or countries.
• A global company may have a WAN to connect its offices worldwide.
• A metropolitan-area network (MAN) links buildings within a city.
• A small-area network connects systems within a several feet using wireless technology. Eg. BlueTooth and 802.11.
• The media to carry networks also vary - copper wires, fiber strands, and wireless transmissions between satellites,
microwave dishes, and radios.
• A network operating system is an operating system that provides features such as file sharing across the network and
that allows different processes on different computers to exchange messages.
• A computer running a network operating system acts autonomously from all other computers on the network, although it
is aware of the network and is able to communicate with other networked computers.
 Special-Purpose Systems
• There are different classes of computer systems, whose functions are
more limited and specific and it deal with limited computation
domains.
• The systems can be classified as Real-Time Embedded Systems,
Multimedia Systems and Handheld Systems.
Real-Time Embedded Systems
• Embedded computers are the most prevalent form of computers in
existence.
• These devices are found everywhere, from car engines and
manufacturing robots to VCRs and microwave ovens.
• They tend to have very specific tasks. Usually, they have little user
interface, and more time is spent for monitoring and managing
hardware devices, eg. automobile engines and robotic arms.
• The Operating Systems, in these embedded systems vary considerably.
Some systems have standard operating systems—such as UNIX—with
special-purpose applications.
• Others have special-purpose embedded operating system providing
just the functionality desired.
• Embedded systems always run real-time operating systems.
• A real-time system is used when there is restricted time for an
operation or for the flow of data.
• A real-time system functions correctly only if it returns the correct
result within its time constraints.
• Sensors bring data to the computer. The computer must analyze the
data and perform certain action.
• Some medical imaging systems, automobile-engine fuel-injection
systems, home-appliance controllers, and weapon systems are real-
time systems.
• A real-time system has well-defined, fixed time constraints.
• Processing must be done within the defined constraints, or the system
will fail.
• For instance, the robot arm should be halted before it has smashed into
the car, it was building.
• Entire houses can be computerized, so that a computer —can control
heating and lighting, alarm systems, and even coffee makers.
• Web access can enable a home owner to tell the house to heat up
before she arrives home.
Multimedia Systems
• Multimedia data consist of audio and video files as well as
conventional files.
• These data differ from conventional data in that multimedia data—
such as frames of video—must be delivered (streamed) according to
certain time restrictions (for example, 30 frames per second).
• Multimedia describes a wide range of applications like audio files -
MP3, DVD movies, video conferencing, and short video clips of
movie previews or news.
• Multimedia applications may also include live webcasts of speeches
or sporting events and even live webcams.
• Multimedia applications can be either audio or video or combination
of both. For example, a movie may consist of separate audio and
video tracks.
Handheld System
• Handheld systems include personal digital assistants (PDAs), such as
Palm and Pocket-PCs, and cellular telephones.
• Developers of these systems face many challenges, due to the limited
memory, slow processors and small screens in such devices.
• The amount of physical memory in a handheld depends upon the
device, the operating system and applications must manage memory
efficiently.
• This includes returning all allocated memory back to the memory
manager when the memory is not being used.
• A second issue of concern to developers of handheld devices is the
speed of the processor used in the devices.
• Processors for most handheld devices run at faster speed than the
processor in a PC.
• Faster processors require more power and so, a larger battery is
required. Another issue is the usage of I/O devices.
• Generally, the limitations in the functionality of PDAs are balanced by
their convenience and portability.
• Their use continues to expand as network connections become more
available and other options, such as digital cameras and MP3 players,
expand their utility.
 Computing Environments
• The different computing environments are –
Traditional Computing
• The current trend is toward providing more ways to access these
computing environments.
• Web technologies are stretching the boundaries of traditional
computing. Companies establish portals, which provide web
accessibility to their internal servers.
• Network computers are essentially terminals that understand web-
based computing.
• Handheld computers can synchronize with PCs to allow very portable
use of company information.
• Handheld PDAs can also connect to wireless networks to use the company's web
portal.
• The fast data connections are allowing home computers to serve up web pages
and to use networks.
• Some homes even have firewalls to protect their networks.
• In the latter half of the previous century, computing resources were scarce. Years
before, systems were either batch or interactive.
• Batch system processed jobs in bulk, with predetermined input (from files or
other sources of data).
• Interactive systems waited for input from users.
• To optimize the use of the computing resources, multiple users shared time on
these systems.
• Time-sharing systems used a timer and scheduling algorithms to rapidly cycle
processes through the CPU, giving each user a share of the resources.
• Today, traditional time-sharing systems are used everywhere.
• The same scheduling technique is still in use on workstations and
servers, but frequently the processes are all owned by the same user
(or a single user and the operating system).
• User processes, and system processes that provide services to the user,
are managed so that each frequently gets a slice of computer time.
Client-Server Computing
• Designers shifted away from centralized system architecture to -
terminals connected to centralized systems.
• As a result, many of today’s systems act as server systems to satisfy
requests generated by client systems.
• This form of specialized distributed system, called client-server
system.
Server systems can be broadly categorized as compute servers and
file servers:
• The compute-server system provides an interface to which a client
can send a request to perform an action (for example, read data); in
response, the server executes the action and sends back results to the
client. A server running a database that responds to client requests for
data is an example of such a svstem.
• The file-server system provides a file-system interface where clients can
create, update, read, and delete files. An example of such a system is a web
server that delivers files to clients running the web browsers.
Peer-to-Peer Computing
• In this model, clients and servers are not distinguished from one
another; here, all nodes within the system are considered peers,
and each may act as either a client or a server, depending on
whether it is requesting or providing a service.
• In a client-server system, the server is a bottleneck, because all
the services must be served by the server.
• But in a peer-to-peer system, services can be provided by several
nodes distributed throughout the network.
• To participate in a peer-to-peer system, a node must first join the network of
peers.
• Once a node has joined the network, it can begin providing services to—and
requesting services from—other nodes in the network.
• Determining what services are available is accomplished in one of two general
ways:
• When a node joins a network, it registers its service with a centralized lookup
service on the network. Any node desiring a specific service first contacts this
centralized lookup service to determine which node provides the service. The
remainder of the communication takes place between the client and the
service provider.
• A peer acting as a client must know, which node provides a desired service by
broadcasting a request for the service to all other nodes in the network. The
node (or nodes) providing that service responds to the peer making the
request. To support this approach, a discovery protocol must be provided that
allows peers to discover services provided by other peers in the network.
 Web-Based Computing
• Web computing has increased the importance on networking.
• Devices that were not previously networked now include wired or wireless
access.
• Devices that were networked now have faster network connectivity.
• The implementation of web-based computing has given rise to new categories
of devices, such as load balancers, which distribute network connections
among a pool of similar servers.
• Operating systems like Windows 95, which acted as web clients, have evolved
into Linux and Windows XP, which can act as web servers as well as clients.
• Generally, the Web has increased the complexity of devices, because their users
require them to be web-enabled.
• The design of an operating system is a major task.
• It is important that the goals of the new system be
well defined before the design of OS begins.
• These goals form the basis for choices among
various algorithms and strategies.
Operating-System Services
• An operating system provides an environment for the execution of programs.
• It provides certain services to programs and to the users of those programs.
• OS provide services for the users of the system, including:
• User Interfaces - Means by which users can issue commands to the system.
Depending on the operating system these may be a command-line interface (
e.g. sh, csh, ksh, tcsh, etc.), a Graphical User Interface (e.g. Windows, X-
Windows, KDE, Gnome, etc.), or a batch command systems.
• In Command Line Interface(CLI)- commands are given to the system.
• In Batch interface – commands and directives to control these commands are
put in a file and then the file is executed.
• In GUI systems- windows with pointing device to get inputs and keyboard to
enter the text.
• Program Execution - The OS must be able to load a program into
RAM, run the program, and terminate the program, either normally or
abnormally.
• I/O Operations - The OS is responsible for transferring data to and from
I/O devices, including keyboards, terminals, printers, and files. For
specific devices, special functions are provided(device drivers) by OS.
• File-System Manipulation – Programs need to read and write files or
directories. The services required to create or delete files, search for a
file, list the contents of a file and change the file permissions are
provided by OS.
• Communications - Inter-process communications, IPC, either between
processes running on the same processor, or between processes running
on separate processors or separate machines. May be implemented by
using the service of OS- like shared memory or message passing.
• Error Detection - Both hardware and software errors must be
detected and handled appropriately by the OS.
• Errors may occur in the CPU and memory hardware (such as power
failure and memory error), in I/O devices (such as a parity error on
tape, a connection failure on a network, or lack of paper in the
printer), and in the user program (such as an arithmetic overflow, an
attempt to access an illegal memory location).
• OS provide services for the efficient operation of the system,
including:
• Resource Allocation – Resources like CPU cycles, main memory,
storage space, and I/O devices must be allocated to multiple users
and multiple jobs at the same time.
• Accounting – There are services in OS to keep track of system
activity and resource usage, either for billing purposes or for
statistical record keeping that can be used to optimize future
performance.
• Protection and Security – The owners of information(file) in
multiuser or networked computer system may want to control the use
of that information. When several separate processes execute
concurrently, one process should not interfere with other or with OS.
Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is
controlled. Security of the system from outsiders must also be done,
by means of a password.
 User Operating-System Interface

• There are several ways for users to interface with the operating
system.
1) Command-line interface, or command interpreter, allows users to
directly enter commands to be performed by the operating system.
2) Graphical user interface(GUI), allows users to interface with the
operating system using pointer device and menu system.
 Command Interpreter
• Command Interpreters are used to give commands to the OS.
• There are multiple command interpreters known as shells. In UNIX and Linux
systems, there are several different shells, like the Bourne shell, C shell, Bourne-
Again shell, Korn shell, and others.
• The main function of the command interpreter is to get and execute the user-specified
command. Many of the commands manipulate files: create, delete, list, print, copy,
execute, and so on.
• The commands can be implemented in two general ways-
1) The command interpreter itself contains the code to execute the command. For
example, a command to delete a file may cause the command interpreter to jump to a
particular section of its code that sets up the parameters and makes the appropriate
system call.
2) The code to implement the command is in a function in a separate file. The
interpreter searches for the file and loads it into the memory and executes it by
passing the parameter. Thus by adding new functions new commands can be added
easily to the interpreter without disturbing it.
Graphical User Interface, GUI
• Another way of interfacing with the operating system is through a user
friendly graphical user interface, or GUI.
• Here, rather than entering commands directly via a command-line interface,
users employ a mouse-based window and menu system.
• The user moves the mouse to position its pointer on images, or icons on the
screen (the desktop) that represent programs, files, directories, and system
functions.
• Depending on the mouse pointer's location, clicking a button on the mouse
can invoke a program, select a file or directory-known as a folder-or pull
down a menu that contains commands.
• Most modern systems allow individual users to select their desired
interface, and to customize its operation, as well as the ability to switch
between different interfaces as needed.
 System Calls
• System calls is a means to access the services of the operating system.
• Generally written in C or C++, although some are written in assembly for
optimal performance.
• The below figure illustrates the sequence of system calls required to copy a file
content from one file(input file) to another file (output file).
• There are number of system calls used to finish this task.
• The first system call is to write a message on the screen (monitor). Then to
accept the input filename.
• Then another system call to write message on the screen, then to accept the
output filename. When the program tries to open the input file, it may find that
there is no file of that name or that the file is protected against access.
• In these cases, the program should print a message on the console(another
system call) and then terminate abnormally (another system call) and create a
new one (another system call).
• Now that both the files are opened, we enter a loop that reads from the input
file(another system call) and writes to output file (another system call).
• Finally, after the entire file is copied, the program may close both files (another
system call), write a message to the console or window(system call), and finally
terminate normally (final system call).
• Most programmers do not use the low-level system calls directly, but instead use
an "Application Programming Interface", API.
• The APIs instead of direct system calls provides for greater program portability
between different systems. The API then makes the appropriate system calls
through the system call interface, using a system call table to access specific
numbered system calls, as shown in Figure 2.6.
• Each system call has a specific numbered system call. The system call table
(consisting of system call number and address of the particular service) invokes a
particular service routine for a specific system call.
• The caller need know nothing about how the system call is implemented or what
it does during execution.
Three general methods used to pass parameters to OS are –
• To pass parameters in registers
• If parameters are large blocks, address of block (where parameters are stored in
memory) is sent to OS in the register. (Linux & Solaris).
• Parameters can be pushed onto the stack by program and popped off the stack by
OS.
Types of System Calls
•The system calls can be categorized into six major categories:
• Process Control
• File management
• Device management
• Information management
• Communications
• Protection
a) Process Control
• Process control system calls include end, abort, load, execute, create
process, terminate process, get/set process attributes, wait for time or
event, signal event, and allocate and free memory.
• Processes must be created, launched, monitored, paused, resumed, and
eventually stopped.
• When one process pauses or stops, then another must be launched or
resumed
• Process attributes like process priority, max. allowable execution time etc.
are set and retrieved by OS.
• After creating the new process, the parent process may have to wait (wait
time), or wait for an event to occur(wait event). The process sends back a
signal when the event has occurred (signal event).
In DOS, the command interpreter loaded first.Then loads the process and
transfers control to it. The interpreter does not resume until the process has
completed, as shown in Figure 2.10:
• Because UNIX is a multi-tasking system, the command interpreter remains
completely resident when executing a process, as shown in Figure 2.11 below.
• The user can switch back to the command interpreter at any time, and can place the
running process in the background even if it was not originally launched as a
background process.
• In order to do this, the command interpreter first executes a "fork" system call, which
creates a second process which is an exact duplicate ( clone ) of the original
command interpreter. The original process is known as the parent, and the cloned
process is known as the child, with its own unique process ID and parent ID.
• The child process then executes an "exec" system call, which replaces its code with
that of the desired process.
• The parent ( command interpreter ) normally waits for the child to complete before
issuing a new command prompt, but in some cases it can also issue a new prompt
right away, without waiting for the child process to complete. ( The child is then said
to be running "in the background", or "as a background process". )
❑ Transmit messages along the connection.
❑Wait for incoming messages, in either a blocking or non-blocking state.
❑ Delete the connection when no longer needed.
• The shared memory model must support calls to:
➢Create and access memory that is shared amongst processes (and threads. )
➢ Free up shared memory and/or dynamically allocate it as needed.
• Message passing is simpler and easier, ( particularly for inter-computer
communications ), and is generally appropriate for small amounts of data. It is
easy to implement, but there are system calls for each read and write process.
• Shared memory is faster, and is generally the better approach where large
amounts of data are to be shared. This model is difficult to implement, and it
consists of only few system calls.
 b) File Management
The file management functions of OS are –
• File management system calls include create file, delete file, open, close,
read, write, reposition, get file attributes, and set file attributes.
• After creating a file, the file is opened. Data is read or written to a file.
• The file pointer may need to be repositioned to a point.
• The file attributes like filename, file type, permissions, etc. are set and
retrieved using system calls.
• These operations may also be supported for directories as well as ordinary
files.
c) Device Management
• Device management system calls include request device, release device,
read, write, reposition, get/set device attributes, and logically attach or
detach devices.
• When a process needs a resource, a request for resource is done. Then the
control is granted to the process. If requested resource is already attached
to some other process, the requesting process has to wait.
• In multiprogramming systems, after a process uses the device, it has to be
returned to OS, so that another process can use the device.
• Devices may be physical ( e.g. disk drives ), or virtual / abstract ( e.g. files,
partitions, and RAM disks ).
d) Information Maintenance
• Information maintenance system calls include calls to get/set the time, date,
system data, and process, file, or device attributes.
• These system calls care used to transfer the information between user and the
OS. Information like current time & date, no. of current users, version no. of
OS, amount of free memory, disk space etc. are passed from OS to the user.
e) Communication
• Communication system calls create/delete communication connection,
send/receive messages, transfer status information, and attach/detach remote
devices.
• The message passing model must support calls to:
❑ Identify a remote process and/or host with which to communicate.
❑ Establish a connection between the two processes.
❑ Open and close the connection as needed.
f) Protection
• Protection provides mechanisms for controlling which users / processes have
access to which system resources.
• System calls allow the access mechanisms to be adjusted as needed, and for
non-priveleged users to be granted elevated access permissions under carefully
controlled temporary circumstances.
2.4 System Programs
• A collection os programs that provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution (other than OS) are called system programs or
system utilities.
• It is not a part of the kernel or command interpreters.
• System programs may be divided into five categories:
➢File management - programs to create, delete, copy, rename, print, list, and
generally manipulate files and directories.
➢Status information - Utilities to check on the date, time, number of users,
processes running, data logging, etc. System registries are used to store and
recall configuration information for particular applications.
➢ File modification - e.g. text editors and other tools which can change file
contents.
➢ Programming-language support - E.g. Compilers, linkers, debuggers,
profilers, assemblers, library archive management, interpreters for common
languages, and support for make.
➢ Program loading and execution - loaders, dynamic loaders, overlay loaders,
etc., as well as interactive debuggers.
➢Communications - Programs for providing connectivity between processes
and users, including mail, web browsers, remote logins, file transfers, and
remote command execution.
 Operating-System Design and Implementation
1)Design Goals
Any system to be designed must have its own goals and specifications. Similarly
the OS to be built will have its own goals depending on the type of system in
which it will be used, the type of hardware used in the system etc.
• Requirements define properties which the finished system must have, and are a
necessary steps in designing any large complex system. The requirements may
be of two basic groups:
1. User goals (User requirements)
2. System goals (system requirements)
• User requirements are features that users care about and understand like system
should be convenient to use, easy to learn, reliable, safe and fast.
• System requirements are written for the developers, ie. People who design the OS.
Their requirements are like easy to design, implement and maintain, flexible, reliable,
error free and efficient.
2) Mechanisms and Policies
• Policies determine what is to be done. Mechanisms determine how it is to be
implemented.
• Example: in timer, counter and decrementing counter is the mechanism and deciding
how long the time has to be set is the policies.
• Policies change overtime. In the worst case, each change in policy would require a
change in the underlying mechanism.
• If properly separated and implemented, policy changes can be easily adjusted without
re-writing the code, just by adjusting parameters or possibly loading new data /
configuration files.
3) Implementation
• Traditionally OS were written in assembly language.
• In recent years, Os are written in C, or C++. Critical sections of code are still
written in assembly language.
• The first OS that was not written in assembly language was the Master Control
Program (MCP).
• The advantages of using a higher-level language for implementing operating
systems are: The code can be written faster, more compact, easy to port to other
systems and is easier to understand and debug.
• The only disadvantages of implementing an operating system in a higher-level
language are reduced speed and increased storage requirements.
 Operating-System Structure

• OS structure must be carefully designed. The task of OS is divided into small

components and then interfaced to work together.
Simple Structure
• Many operating systems do not have well-defined structures. They started as
small, simple, and limited systems and then grew beyond their original scope.
Eg: MS-DOS.
• In MS-DOS, the interfaces and levels of functionality are not well separated.
• Application programs can access basic I/O routines to write directly to the
display and disk drives.
• Such freedom leaves MS-DOS in bad state and the entire system can crash
down when user programs fail.
• UNIX OS consists of two separable parts: the kernel and the system programs.
The kernel is further separated into a series of interfaces and device drivers. The
kernel provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory management, and
other operating-system functions through system calls.
Layered Approach
• The OS is broken into number of layers (levels). Each layer rests on the
layer below it, and relies on the services provided by the next lower layer.
• Bottom layer(layer 0) is the hardware and the topmost layer is the user
interface.
• A typical layer, consists of data structure and routines that can be invoked
by higher-level layer.
Advantage of layered approach is simplicity of construction and debugging.
• The layers are selected so that each uses functions and services of only
lower-level layers. So simplifies debugging and system verification.
• The layers are debugged one by one from the lowest and if any layer
doesn’t work, then error is due to that layer only, as the lower layers are
already debugged. Thus the design and implementation is simplified.
A layer need not know how its lower level layers
are implemented. Thus hides the operations from
higher layers.
Disadvantages of layered approach:
• The various layers must be appropriately defined, as a layer
can use only lower level layers.
• Less efficient than other types, because any interaction with
layer 0 required from top layer. The system call should pass
through all the layers and finally to layer 0. This is an
overhead
 Microkernels
• The basic idea behind micro kernels is to remove all non-essential services
from the kernel, thus making the kernel as small and efficient as possible.
• The removed services are implemented as system applications.
• Most microkernels provide basic process and memory management, and
message passing between other services.
• Benefit of microkernel - System expansion can also be easier, because it
only involves adding more system applications, not rebuilding a new
kernel.
• Mach was the first and most widely known microkernel, and now forms a
major component of Mac OSX.
• Disadvantage of Microkernel is, it suffers from reduction in performance
due to increases system function overhead.
 Modules
• Modern OS development is object-oriented, with a relatively small core
kernel and a set of modules which can be linked in dynamically.
• Modules are similar to layers in that each subsystem has clearly defined
tasks and interfaces, but any module is free to contact any other module,
eliminating the problems of going through multiple intermediary layers.
• The kernel is relatively small in this architecture, similar to microkernels,
but the kernel does not have to implement message passing since modules
are free to contact each other directly. Eg: Solaris, Linux and MacOSX.
• The Max OSX architecture relies on the Mach microkernel for basic system
management services, and the BSD kernel for additional services. Application
services and dynamically loadable modules ( kernel extensions ) provide the
rest of the OS functionality.

• Resembles layered system, but a module can call any other module.

• Resembles microkernel, the primary module has only core functions and the
knowledge of how to load and communicate with other modules.
 Virtual Machines
• The fundamental idea behind a virtual machine is to abstract the hardware
of a single computer (the CPU, memory, disk drives, network interface
cards, and so forth) into several different execution environments, thereby
creating the illusion that each separate execution environment is running
its own private computer.
• Creates an illusion that a process has its own processor with its own memory.
Host OS is the main OS installed in system and the other OS installed in the
system are called guest OS.
Virtual machines first appeared as the VM Operating System
for IBM mainframes in 1972.
 Benefits
• Able to share the same hardware and run several different execution environments(OS).
• Host system is protected from the virtual machines and the virtual machines are protected from one another. A
virus in guest OS, will corrupt that OS but will not affect the other guest systems and host systems.
• Even though the virtual machines are separated from one another, software resources can be shared among
them. Two ways of sharing s/w resource for communication are: a)To share a file system volume(part of
memory). b)To develop a virtual communication network to communicate between the virtual machines.
• The operating system runs on and controls the entire machine. Therefore, the current system must be stopped
and taken out of use while changes are made and tested. This period is commonly called system development
time. In virtual machines such problem is eliminated. User programs are executed in one virtual machine and
system development is done in another environment.
• Multiple OS can be running on the developer’s system concurrently. This helps in rapid porting and testing of
programmers code in different environments.
• System consolidation – two or more systems are made to run in a single system.
 Simulation –
• Here the host system has one system architecture and the guest system is
compiled in different architecture. The compiled guest system programs
can be run in an emulator that translates each instructions of guest program
into native instructions set of host system.
• Para-Virtualization –
• This presents the guest with a system that is similar but not identical to the
guest’s preferred system. The guest must be modified to run on the para-
virtualized hardware.
 Examples
Vmware
• VMware is a popular commercial application that abstracts Intel 80X86
hardware into isolated virtual machines. The virtualization tool runs in the
user-layer on top of the host OS. The virtual machines running in this tool
believe they are running on bare hardware, but the fact is that it is running
inside a user-level applic ation.
• VMware runs as an application on a host operating system such as Windows
or Linux and allows this host system to concurrently run several different
guest operating systems as independent virtual machines.
• In below scenario, Linux is running as the host operating system;
FreeBSD, Windows NT, and Windows XP are running as guest operating
systems. The virtualization layer is the heart of VMware, as it abstracts the
physical hardware into isolated virtual machines running as guest
operating systems. Each virtual machine has its own virtual CPU, memory,
disk drives, network interfaces, and so forth.
 The Java Virtual Machine
• Java was designed from the beginning to be platform independent, by
running Java only on a Java Virtual Machine, JVM, of which different
implementations have been developed for numerous different underlying
HW platforms.
• Java source code is compiled into Java byte code in .class files. Java byte
code is binary instructions that will run on the JVM.
• The JVM implements memory management and garbage collection.
• JVM consists of class loader and Java Interpreter. Class loader loads
compiled .class files from both java program and java API for the
execution of java interpreter. Then it checks the .class file for validity.
Operating-System Generation
• OSes may be designed and built for a specific HW configuration at a
specific site, but more commonly they are designed with a number of
variable parameters and components, which are then configured for a
particular operating environment.
• Systems sometimes need to be re-configured after the initial installation,
to add additional resources, capabilities, or to tune performance, logging,
or security.
• At one extreme the OS source code can be edited, re-compiled, and
linked into a new kernel.
• More commonly configuration tables determine which modules to link
into the new kernel, and what values to set for some key important
parameters
• This approach may require the configuration of complicated make
files, which can be done either automatically or through interactive
configuration programs;
• Then make is used to actually generate the new kernel specified by
the new parameters.
• At the other extreme a system configuration may be entirely defined
by table data, in which case the "rebuilding" of the system merely
requires editing data tables.
• Once a system has been regenerated, it is usually required to reboot
the system to activate the new kernel. Because there are possibilities
for errors, most systems provide some mechanism for booting to
older or alternate kernels.
System Boot
• The general approach when most computers boot up goes something like this:
• When the system powers up, an interrupt is generated which loads a memory
address into the program counter, and the system begins executing instructions
found at that address. This address points to the "bootstrap" program located
in ROM chips ( or EPROM chips ) on the motherboard.
• The ROM bootstrap program first runs hardware checks, determining what
physical resources are present and doing power-on self tests ( POST ) of all
HW for which this is applicable.
Some devices, such as controller cards may have their own on-board
diagnostics, which are called by the ROM bootstrap program.
• The user generally has the option of pressing a special key during the POST
process, which will launch the ROM BIOS configuration utility if pressed. This
utility allows the user to specify and configure certain hardware parameters as
where to look for an OS and whether or not to restrict access to the utility with
a password.
oSome hardware may also provide access to additional configuration setup
programs, such as for a RAID disk controller or some special graphics or
networking cards.
• Assuming the utility has not been invoked, the bootstrap program then looks for
a non-volatile storage device containing an OS. Depending on configuration, it
may look for a floppy drive, CD ROM drive, or primary or secondary hard
drives, in the order specified by the HW configuration utility.
• Assuming it goes to a hard drive, it will find the first sector on the hard drive
and load up the f disk table, which contains information about how the physical
hard drive is divided up into logical partitions, where each partition starts and
ends, and which partition is the "active" partition used for booting the system.
• There is also a very small amount of system code in the portion of the first disk
block not occupied by the fdisk table.
• This bootstrap code is the first step that is not built into the hardware, i.e. the
first part which might be in any way OS-specific. Generally this code knows
just enough to access the hard drive, and to load and execute a ( slightly )
larger boot program.
• For a single-boot system, the boot program loaded off of the hard disk will then
proceed to locate the kernel on the hard drive, load the kernel into memory, and
then transfer control over to the kernel.
There may be some opportunity to specify a particular kernel to be loaded at this
stage, which may be useful if a new kernel has just been generated and doesn't
work, or if the system has multiple kernels available with different
configurations for different purposes.
( Some systems may boot different configurations automatically, depending on
what hardware has been found in earlier steps. )
• For dual-boot or multiple-boot systems, the boot program will give the
user an opportunity to specify a particular OS to load, with a default choice
if the user does not pick a particular OS within a given time frame.
• The boot program then finds the boot loader for the chosen single-boot OS,
and runs that program as described in the previous bullet point.
• Once the kernel is running, it may give the user the opportunity to enter
into single-user mode, also known as maintenance mode.
• This mode launches very few if any system services, and does not enable
any logins other than the primary log in on the console.
• This mode is used primarily for system maintenance and diagnostics.
 Processes Concept
• A process is a program under execution.
• Its current activity is indicated by PC(Program
Counter) and CPU registers.
The Process
The Process
Process memory is divided into four sections as shown
in the figure below:
✓ The stack is used to store local variables, function
parameters, function return values, return address
etc.
✓ The heap is used for dynamic memory allocation.
✓ The data section stores global and static variables.
✓ The text section comprises the compiled program
code.
✓ Note that, there is a free space between the stack and
the heap. When the stack is full, it grows downwards
and when the heap is full, it grows upwards.
 Process State
• The State of process is defined in part by the current activity of that
process.
A Process has 5 states. Each process may be in one of the following states –
➢New - The process is in the stage of being created.
➢Ready - The process has all the resources it needs to run. It is waiting to
be assigned to the processor.
➢ Running – Instructions are being executed..
➢ Waiting - The process is waiting for some event to occur. For example the
process may be waiting for keyboard input, disk access request, inter-
process messages, a timer to go off, or a child process to finish.
➢ Terminated - The process has completed its execution.
• These names are arbitrary, and they vary
across operating systems.
• The states that they represent are found on
all systems, however.
• Certain operating system also more finely
delineate process states.
• It is important to realize that only one
process can be running on any processor at
any instant.
• Many processes may be ready and waiting.
Process Control Block
• For each process there is a Process Control Block (PCB), which stores the process-specific
information as shown below –
Process State – The state of the process may be new, ready, running, waiting,
and so on. Program counter – The counter indicates the address of the next
instruction to be executed for this process.
CPU registers - The registers vary in number and type, depending on the
computer architecture. They include accumulators, index registers, stack
pointers, and general-purpose registers. Along with the program counter, this
state information must be saved when an interrupt occurs, to allow the process
to be continued correctly afterward.
CPU scheduling information- This information includes a process priority,
pointers to scheduling queues, and any other scheduling parameters.
Memory-management information – This include information such as the
value of the base and limit registers, the page tables, or the segment tables.
Accounting information – This information includes the amount of CPU and
real time used, time limits, account numbers, job or process numbers, and so on.
I/O status information – This information includes the list of I/O devices
allocated to the process, a list of open files, and so on. The PCB simply serves
as the repository for any information that may vary from process to process.
• The task of switching a CPU from one
process to another process is called
context switching. Context-switch times
are highly dependent on hardware support
(Number of CPU registers).
• Whenever an interrupt occurs (hardware
or software interrupt), the state of the
currently running process is saved into
the PCB and the state of another process
is restored from the PCB to the CPU.
• Context switch time is an overhead, as the
system does not do useful work while
switching
 Process Scheduling
• Process Scheduler selects an available process for program execution on the CPU. In a multiprocessor system -
one process will be under execution and the rest of the processes have to wait until the CPU is free and can be
rescheduled.
The main objective of process scheduling is to keep the CPU busy at all times.
Scheduling Queues
• All processes admitted to the system are stored in the job queue.
• Processes in main memory and ready to execute are placed in the ready queue.
• Processes waiting for a device to become available are placed in device queues. There is generally a separate
device queue for each device.

These queues are generally stored as a linked list of PCBs. A queue header will contain two pointers - the head
pointer pointing to the first PCB and the tail pointer pointing to the last PCB in the list. Each PCB has a pointer
field that points to the next process in the queue.

When a process is allocated to the CPU, it executes for a while and eventually quits, interrupted, or waits for the
completion of an I/O request. Since there are many processes in the system, the disk may be busy with the I/O
request of some other process. The process therefore may have to wait for the disk in the device queue.
 • A common representation of process scheduling is a queueing
diagram. Each rectangular box in the diagram represents a queue.
Two types of queues are present: the ready queue and a set of
device queues. The circles represent the resources that serve the
queues, and the arrows indicate the flow of processes in the
system.
• A new process is initially put in the ready queue. It waits in the
ready queue until it is selected for execution and is given the
CPU. Once the process is allocated the CPU and is executing,
one of several events could occur:

• The process could issue an I/O request, and then be placed in an

I/O queue.
• The process could create a new sub process and wait for its
termination.
• The process could be removed forcibly from the CPU, as a result
of an interrupt, and be put back in the ready queue.
• In the first two cases, the process eventually switches from the waiting state to
the ready state, and is then put back in the ready queue. A process continues
this cycle until it terminates, at which time it is removed from all queues.
 Schedulers
• Schedulers are software which selects an available program to be assigned to
CPU.
✓ A long-term scheduler or Job scheduler – selects jobs from the job pool (of
secondary memory, disk) and loads them into the memory.
If more processes are submitted, than that can be executed immediately,
such processes will be in secondary memory. It runs infrequently, and can take
time to select the next process.
✓ The short-term scheduler, or CPU Scheduler – selects job from memory and
assigns the CPU to it. It must select the new process for CPU frequently.
✓ The medium-term scheduler - selects the process in ready queue and
reintroduced into the memory.
Processes can be described as either:
I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than computations,
CPU-bound process – spends more time doing computations and few I/O operations.
An efficient scheduling system will select a good mix of CPU-bound processes and I/O
bound processes.
❖ If the scheduler selects more I/O bound process, then I/O queue will be full and
ready queue will be empty
❖ If the scheduler selects more CPU bound process, then ready queue will be full and
I/O queue will be empty
• Time sharing systems employ a medium-term scheduler.
• It swaps out the process from ready queue and swap in the process to ready queue.
• When system loads get high, this scheduler will swap one or more processes out of
the ready queue for a few seconds, in order to allow smaller faster jobs to finish up
quickly and clear the system.
Advantages of medium-term scheduler –
• To remove process from memory and thus reduce the degree of
multiprogramming (number of processes in memory).
• To make a proper mix of processes(CPU bound and I/O bound )
 Operations on Processes
Process Creation
A process may create several new processes. The creating process is called a
parent process, and the new processes are called the children of that process. Each
of these new processes may in turn create other processes. Every process has a
unique process ID.
• On typical Solaris systems, the process at the top of the tree is the ‘sched’
process with PID of 0. The ‘sched’ process creates several children processes –
init, pageout and fsflush. Pageout and fsflush are responsible for managing
memory and file systems. The init process with a PID of 1, serves as a parent
process for all user processes.
A process will need certain resources (CPU time, memory, files, I/O devices) to
accomplish its task. When a process creates a sub process, the sub process may
be able to obtain its resources in two ways :
• directly from the operating system
• Sub process may take the resources of the parent process.
The resource can be taken from parent in two ways-
✓ The parent may have to partition its resources among its children
✓ Share the resources among several children.
There are two options for the parent process after creating the child
• Wait for the child process to terminate and then continue execution. The parent
makes a wait( ) system call.
• Run concurrently with the child, continuing to execute without waiting.
Two possibilities for the address space of the child relative to the parent:
• The child may be an exact duplicate of the parent, sharing the same program
and data segments in memory. Each will have their own PCB, including program
counter, registers, and PID. This is the behaviour of the fork system call in
UNIX.
• The child process may have a new program loaded into its address space, with
all new code and data segments. This is the behaviour of the spawn system calls
in Windows.
• In UNIX OS, a child process can be created by fork() system call. The fork system call, if
successful, returns the PID of the child process to its parents and returns a zero to the child
process. If failure, it returns -1 to the parent. Process IDs of current process or its direct parent
can be accessed using the getpid( ) and getppid( ) system calls respectively.
• The parent waits for the child process to complete with the wait() system call. When the child
process completes, the parent process resumes and completes its execution.
• In windows the child process is created using the function create process( ). The create
process( ) returns 1, if the child is created and returns 0, if the child is not created.
Process Termination
• A process terminates when it finishes executing its last statement and asks
the operating system to delete it, by using the exit( ) system call. All of the
resources assigned to the process like memory, open files, and I/O buffers,
are deallocated by the operating system.
A process can cause the termination of another process by using appropriate
system call. The parent process can terminate its child processes by knowing
of the PID of the child.
A parent may terminate the execution of children for a variety of reasons,
such as:
• The child has exceeded its usage of the resources, it has been allocated.
• The task assigned to the child is no longer required.
• The parent is exiting, and the operating system terminates all the children.
This is called cascading termination.
Note : Processes which are trying to terminate but which cannot because their
parent is not waiting for them are termed zombies. These are eventually
inherited by init as orphans and killed off. (Modern UNIX shells do not produce
as many orphans and zombies as older systems used to. )
 Interprocess Communication
Processes executing may be either co-operative or independent processes.
• Independent Processes – processes that cannot affect other processes or be affected
by other processes executing in the system.
• Cooperating Processes – processes that can affect other processes or be affected by
other processes executing in the system.
Co-operation among processes are allowed for following reasons
• Information Sharing - There may be several processes which need to access the same
file. So the information must be accessible at the same time to all users.
• Computation speedup - Often a solution to a problem can be solved faster if the
problem can be broken down into sub-tasks, which are solved simultaneously
( particularly when multiple processors are involved. )
• Modularity - A system can be divided into cooperating modules and executed by
sending information among one another.
• Convenience - Even a single user can work on multiple task by information sharing.
• Cooperating processes require some type of inter-process communication. This
is allowed by two models :
1) Shared Memory systems 2)Message Passing systems.
Difference between Shared Memory and Message passing
Sl. Shared Memory Message passing
No.
1. A region of memory is shared by Message exchange is done among the processes by
communicating processes, into which the using objects.
information is written and read
2. Useful for sending large block of data Useful for sending small data.
3. System call is used only to create shared System call is used during every read and write
memory operation.
4. Message is sent faster, as there are no system Message is communicated slowly.
calls
• Shared Memory is faster once it is set up, because no system calls are required and access occurs at normal
memory speeds. Shared memory is generally preferable when large amounts of information must be shared
quickly on the same computer.
• Message Passing requires system calls for every message transfer, and is therefore slower, but it is simpler to set
up and works well across multiple computers. Message passing is generally preferable when the amount and/or
frequency of data transfers is small
Shared-Memory Systems
• A region of shared-memory is created within the address space of a
process, which needs to communicate. Other processes that needs to
communicate uses this shared memory.
• The form of data and position of creating shared memory area is decided
by the process. Generally a few messages must be passed back and forth
between the cooperating processes first in order to set up and coordinate
the shared memory access.
• The process should take care that the two processes will not write the data
to the shared memory at the same time.
Producer-Consumer Example Using Shared Memory
• This is a classic example, in which one process is producing data and
another process is consuming the data.
• The data is passed via an intermediary buffer (shared memory). The
producer puts the data to the buffer and the consumer takes out the data
from the buffer. A producer can produce one item while the consumer is
consuming another item.
• The producer and consumer must be synchronized, so that the consumer
does not try to consume an item that has not yet been produced. In this
situation, the consumer must wait until an item is produced
There are two types of buffers into which information can be put –
• Unbounded buffer • Bounded buffer
• With Unbounded buffer, there is no limit on the size of the buffer, and so on the
data produced by producer. But the consumer may have to wait for new items.
• With bounded-buffer – As the buffer size is fixed. The producer has to wait if the
buffer is full and the consumer has to wait if the buffer is empty.
• This example uses shared memory as a circular queue. The in and out are two
pointers to the array. Note in the code below that only the producer changes "in",
and only the consumer changes "out".
First the following data is set up in the shared memory area:
Message-Passing Systems

A mechanism to allow process communication without sharing address space. It is used in

distributed systems.
• Message passing systems uses system calls for "send message" and "receive message".
• A communication link must be established between the cooperating processes before
messages can be sent.
• There are three methods of creating the link between the sender and the receiver_
✓ Direct or indirect communication ( naming )
✓ Synchronous or asynchronous communication (Synchronization)
✓ Automatic or explicit buffering.
a)Naming
The processes that wants to communicate should have a way to refer eachother. ( using
some identity)
Direct communication the sender and receiver must explicitly know each others name.
The syntax for send() and receive() functions are as follows-

send (P, message) – send a message to process P

receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q

Properties of communication link :

• A link is established automatically between every pair of processes that wants to
communicate. The processes need to know only each other's identity to communicate.
• A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating processes
• Between each pair, there exists exactly one link.
Types of addressing in direct communication –
• Symmetric addressing – the above described communication is symmetric
communication. Here both the sender and the receiver processes have to name
each other to communicate.
• Asymmetric addressing – Here only the sender name is mentioned, but the
receiving data can be from any system.
send(P, message) --- Send a message to process P
receive(id, message). Receive a message from any process
Disadvantages of direct communication – any changes in the identifier of a
process, may have to change the identifier in the whole system(sender and
receiver), where the messages are sent and received.
Indirect communication uses shared mailboxes, or ports.
A mailbox or port is used to send and receive messages. Mailbox is an object into which
messages can be sent and received. It has a unique ID. Using this identifier messages are
sent and received.
Two processes can communicate only if they have a shared mailbox.
The send and receive functions are –
send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
receive(A, message) – receive a message from mailbox A
Properties of communication link:
• A link is established between a pair of processes only if they have a shared mailbox
• A link may be associated with more than two processes
• Between each pair of communicating processes, there may be any number of links, each
link is associated with one mailbox.
• A mail box can be owned by the operating system. It must take steps to –
✓create a new mailbox
✓send and receive messages from mailbox
✓delete mailboxes.
b) Synchronization
The send and receive messages can be implemented as either blocking or non-blocking.
• Blocking (synchronous) send - sending process is blocked (waits) until the message is
received by receiving process or the mailbox.
• Non-blocking (asynchronous) send - sends the message and continues (does not wait)
• Blocking (synchronous) receive - The receiving process is blocked until a message is
available
• Non-blocking (asynchronous) receive - receives the message without block. The received
message may be a valid message or null.
c) Buffering
when messages are passed, a temporary queue is created. Such queue can be of
three capacities:
• Zero capacity – The buffer size is zero (buffer does not exist). Messages are
not stored in the queue. The senders must block until receivers accept the
messages.
• Bounded capacity- The queue is of fixed size(n). Senders must block if the
queue is full. After sending ‘n’ bytes the sender is blocked.
• Unbounded capacity - The queue is of infinite capacity. The sender never
blocks