Chap02 Operating System Structures

Chapter 2: Operating-System
Structures
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition, Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Outline
 Operating-System Services
 User Operating-System Interface
 System Calls
 Types of System Calls
 System Programs
 Operating-System Design and Implementation
 Operating-System Structure
 Virtual Machines
 Operating-System Debugging
 Operating-System Generation
 System Boot
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Objectives
 To describe the services an OS provides to users,

processes, and other systems
 To discuss the various ways of structuring an OS
 To explain how OS are installed, customized and how
they boot
Operating System Services
 OS services that are helpful to the user:

 User interface (UI)
 Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User Interface (GUI), Batch
 Program execution - to load a program into memory and to run
that program, end execution, either normally or abnormally
 I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which
may involve a file or an I/O device
 File-system manipulation - to read and write files and
directories, create and delete them, search them, list file
information, permission management.
A View of Operating System Services
Operating System Services (Cont)
 OS services that are helpful to the user (Cont):

 Communications – to exchange information, on the same
computer or between computers over a network
 via shared memory or through message passing
 Error detection –to be constantly aware of possible errors
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, I/O devices, or user
program
 Should take the appropriate action to ensure correct and consistent
computing
 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system
Operating System Services (Cont)
 OS services for ensuring the efficient operation of the system itself via resource sharing
 Resource allocation – to allocate resources to each of multiple users or jobs running concurrently
 Many types of resources
–
 Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what kinds of computer resources
 Protection and security - to control use of that information,
concurrent processes should not interfere with each other
 Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is
controlled
 Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication,
extends to defending external I/O devices from invalid access
attempts
 A chain is only as strong as its weakest link
User Operating System Interface - CLI
 Command Line Interface (CLI) or command interpreter

allows direct command entry
 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by systems
program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and executes it
 Either commands built-in, or just names of programs
– If the latter, adding new features doesn’t require shell
modification
Bourne Shell Command Interpreter
 An example in Solaris 10
User Operating System Interface - GUI
 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface
 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
 Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
 Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface cause various
actions (provide information, options, execute function, open
directory (known as a folder)
 Invented at Xerox PARC (in 1970s)
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
 Microsoft Windows: GUI with CLI “command” shell
 Apple Mac OS X: “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel
underneath and shells available
 Solaris: CLI with optional GUI interfaces (Java Desktop, KDE)
The Mac OS X GUI
System Calls
 Programming interface to the OS services

 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level
Application Program Interface (API) rather than direct
system call use
 Three most common APIs:
 Win32 API for Windows
 POSIX API for POSIX-based systems
– versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X
 Java API for the Java virtual machine (JVM)
 Why use APIs rather than system calls?
 Portability
 Actual system calls might be more detailed and difficult to work
with
Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to
another file
Example of Standard API
 Consider the ReadFile() function in the Win32 API—a function for reading
from a file
 A description of the parameters passed to ReadFile()

 HANDLE file—the file to be read
 LPVOID buffer—a buffer where the data will be read into and written
from
 DWORD bytesToRead—the number of bytes to be read into the buffer
 LPDWORD bytesRead—the number of bytes read during the last read
 LPOVERLAPPED ovl—indicates if overlapped I/O is being used
System Call Implementation
 Typically, a number associated with each system call
 System-call interface maintains a table indexed according to these
numbers
 The system call interface invokes intended system call in OS
kernel and returns status of the system call and any return
values
 The caller need know nothing about how the system call is
implemented
 Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will do as a result call
 Most details of OS interface hidden from programmer by API
 Managed by run-time support library (set of functions built into libraries
included with compiler)
API – System Call – OS Relationship
Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls
write() system call
System Call Parameter Passing
 Often, more information is required than simple identity of
desired system call
 Exact type and amount of information vary according to OS and call
 Three general methods to pass parameters to the OS
 Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
 may be more parameters than registers
 Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory, and address of
block passed as a parameter in a register
 Ex: Linux and Solaris
 Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the program and
popped off the stack by the OS
 Block and stack methods do not limit the number or length of parameters
being passed
Parameter Passing via Table
Types of System Calls
 Process control
 File management
 Device management
 Information maintenance
 Communications
 Protection
Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls
MS-DOS execution
(a) At system startup (b) running a program
FreeBSD Running Multiple Programs
System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment

for program development and execution
 File manipulation
 Status information
 File modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Most users’ view of the OS is defined by system
programs, not the actual system calls
System Programs
 Provide a convenient environment for program development and
execution
 Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others
are considerably more complex
 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, dump, list,
and generally manipulate files and directories
 Status information
 System info - date, time, amount of available memory, disk
space, number of users
 Detailed performance, logging, and debugging information
 Some systems implement a registry - used to store and retrieve
configuration information
System Programs (cont’d)
 File modification
 Text editors to create and modify files
 Special commands to search contents of files or perform
transformations of the text
 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,
debuggers and interpreters
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable
loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems
for higher-level and machine language
 Communications - mechanism for creating virtual connections
among processes, users, and computer systems
 Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse web
pages, send electronic-mail messages, log in remotely, transfer files
from one machine to another
Operating-System Design and Implementation
 Design and implementation of OS not “solvable”, but

some approaches have proven successful
 Internal structure of different OS’s can vary widely
 Start by defining goals and specifications
 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system
 Design goals
 User goals – OS should be convenient to use, easy to learn,
reliable, safe, and fast
 System goals – OS should be easy to design, implement, and
maintain, as well as flexible, reliable, error-free, and efficient
Operating-System Design and Implementation (Cont)
 The separation of policy from mechanism
Policy: What will be done?

Mechanism: How to do it?
 a very important principle
 it allows maximum flexibility if policy decisions are to be
changed later
OS Structure
 Simple structure
 Layered
 Microkernel
 Modular
 Hybrid
Simple Structure
 MS-DOS – written to provide the most functionality in
the least space
 Not divided into modules
 Although MS-DOS has some structure, its interfaces and levels
of functionality are not well separated
MS-DOS Layer Structure
UNIX
 UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the

original UNIX OS had limited structuring
 The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts
 Systems programs
 The kernel
 Consists of everything below the system-call interface and
above the physical hardware
 Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other OS functions; a large number of
functions for one level
Traditional UNIX System Structure
Layered Approach
 The OS is divided into a number of layers (levels), each

built on top of lower layers
 The bottom layer (layer 0): hardware
 The highest (layer N): user interface
 Advantage: simplicity of construction and debugging
 With modularity, layers are selected such that each uses
functions (operations) and services of only lower-level layers
 Major difficulty: appropriately defining the layers
 They tend to be less efficient
Layered Operating System
Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much from the kernel into “user” space
 Communication takes place between user modules using
message passing
 Benefits:
 Easier to extend a microkernel
 Easier to port the OS to new architectures
 More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode)
 More secure
 Detriments:
 Performance overhead of user space to kernel space communication
Modules
 Most modern OS’s implement kernel modules
 Uses object-oriented approach
 Each core component is separate
 Each talks to the others over known interfaces
 Each is loadable as needed within the kernel
 Similar to layers, but more flexible
 Any module can call any other module
 Similar to microkernel, but more efficient
 No message passing among modules
Solaris Modular Approach
Mac OS X Structure
 Hybrid structure – layered, with Mach microkernel
Virtual Machines
 A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its

logical conclusion
 It treats hardware and the OS kernel as though they were all
hardware
 It provides an interface identical to the underlying bare hardware
 The OS host creates the illusion that a process has its
own processor with its own (virtual) memory
 Each guest provided with a (virtual) copy of underlying
computer
Virtual Machines History and Benefits
 First appeared commercially in IBM mainframes in 1972

 Benefits:
 Multiple execution environments (different OS) can share the same
hardware
 Protection from each other
 Some sharing of file can be permitted, controlled
 Communication via networking
 Useful for development, testing
 Consolidation of many low-resource use systems onto fewer busier
systems
 “Open Virtual Machine Format”: standard format of virtual
machines
 Allows a VM to run on any virtual machine (host) platform
 DMTF OVF V1.0.0 (preliminary standard)
Virtual Machines (Cont)
Non-virtual Machine Virtual Machine
(a) Nonvirtual machine (b) virtual machine
Para-virtualization
 Presents guest with system similar but not identical to
hardware
 Guest must be modified to run on paravirtualized
hardware
 Guest can be an OS, or in the case of Solaris 10
applications running in containers (zones)
Solaris 10 with Two Containers
VMware Architecture
The Java Virtual Machine
Operating-System Debugging
 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs
 OSes generate log files containing error information
 Application failure can generate core dump file capturing
memory of the process
 OS failure can generate crash dump file containing kernel
memory
 Performance tuning can optimize system performance
 To identify bottlenecks
 Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as
writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write
the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition,
not smart enough to debug it.”
 DTrace tool in Solaris, FreeBSD, Mac OS X allows live
instrumentation on production systems
 Probes fire when code is executed, capturing state data and
sending it to consumers of those probes
Solaris 10 dtrace Following System Call
Operating System Generation
 OS’s are designed to run on any of a class of machines

 the system must be configured for each specific computer site
 SYSGEN program obtains information concerning the specific
configuration of the hardware system
 Booting – starting a computer by loading the kernel
 Bootstrap program – code stored in ROM that is able to
locate the kernel, load it into memory, and start its
execution
System Boot
 OS must be made available to hardware so hardware can
start it
 Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, locates the kernel, loads
it into memory, and starts it
 Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location
loads bootstrap loader
 When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed
memory location
 Firmware used to hold initial boot code
End of Chapter 2
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition, Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009

Chap02 Operating System Structures

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Chapter 2: Operating-System

 To describe the services an OS provides to users,

 OS services that are helpful to the user:

 OS services that are helpful to the user (Cont):

 Command Line Interface (CLI) or command interpreter

 Programming interface to the OS services

 A description of the parameters passed to ReadFile()

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

 System programs provide a convenient environment

 Design and implementation of OS not “solvable”, but

 The separation of policy from mechanism

Policy: What will be done?

 UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the

 The OS is divided into a number of layers (levels), each

 Hybrid structure – layered, with Mach microkernel

 A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its

 First appeared commercially in IBM mainframes in 1972

Non-virtual Machine Virtual Machine

(a) Nonvirtual machine (b) virtual machine

 OS’s are designed to run on any of a class of machines

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