Process

Thread
Lecture 4
 Processes
• Process Concept
• Process Scheduling
• Operations on Processes
• Interprocess Communication
• Examples of IPC Systems
• Communication in Client-Server Systems
 Process Concept
• An operating system executes a variety of programs:
• Batch system – jobs
• Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks
• Textbook uses the terms job and process almost
interchangeably
• Process – a program in execution; process execution must
progress in sequential fashion
• Multiple parts
• The program code, also called text section
• Current activity including program counter, processor registers
• Stack containing temporary data
• Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
• Data section containing global variables
• Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time
 Process Concept (Cont.)
• Program is passive entity stored on disk
(executable file), process is active
• Program becomes process when executable file
loaded into memory
• Execution of program started via GUI mouse
clicks, command line entry of its name, etc
• One program can be several processes
• Consider multiple users executing the same
program
Process in Memory
 Process State

• As a process executes, it changes state

• new: The process is being created
• running: Instructions are being executed
• waiting: The process is waiting for some event to
occur
• ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a
processor
• terminated: The process has finished execution
Diagram of Process State
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process
(also called task control block)
• Process state – running, waiting, etc
• Program counter – location of instruction
to next execute
• CPU registers – contents of all process-
centric registers
• CPU scheduling information- priorities,
scheduling queue pointers
• Memory-management information –
memory allocated to the process
• Accounting information – CPU used, clock
time elapsed since start, time limits
• I/O status information – I/O devices
allocated to process, list of open files
CPU Switch From Process to Process
Threads
• So far, process has a single thread of
execution
• Consider having multiple program counters
per process
• Multiple locations can execute at once
• Multiple threads of control -> threads
• Must then have storage for thread details,
multiple program counters in PCB
 Process Scheduling

• Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto

CPU for time sharing
• Process scheduler selects among available
processes for next execution on CPU
• Maintains scheduling queues of processes
• Job queue – set of all processes in the system
• Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main
memory, ready and waiting to execute
• Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O
device
• Processes migrate among the various queues
Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues
 Representation of Process Scheduling

 Queueing diagram represents queues, resources, flows

Schedulers
• Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should be executed
next and allocates CPU
• Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
• Short-term scheduler is invoked frequently (milliseconds)  (must be fast)
• Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should be brought
into the ready queue
• Long-term scheduler is invoked infrequently (seconds, minutes)  (may be
slow)
• The long-term scheduler controls the degree of multiprogramming
• Processes can be described as either:
• I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than computations, many
short CPU bursts
• CPU-bound process – spends more time doing computations; few very long
CPU bursts
• Long-term scheduler strives for good process mix
 Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
 Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of multiple
programming needs to decrease
 Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in
from disk to continue execution: swapping
Multitasking in Mobile Systems
• Some mobile systems (e.g., early version of iOS) allow only
one process to run, others suspended
• Due to screen real estate, user interface limits iOS provides
for a
• Single foreground process- controlled via user interface
• Multiple background processes– in memory, running, but not on
the display, and with limits
• Limits include single, short task, receiving notification of events,
specific long-running tasks like audio playback
• Android runs foreground and background, with fewer limits
• Background process uses a service to perform tasks
• Service can keep running even if background process is suspended
• Service has no user interface, small memory use
Context Switch
• When CPU switches to another process, the system
must save the state of the old process and load the
saved state for the new process via a context
switch
• Context of a process represented in the PCB
• Context-switch time is overhead; the system does
no useful work while switching
• The more complex the OS and the PCB  the longer
the context switch
• Time dependent on hardware support
• Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per
CPU  multiple contexts loaded at once
Operations on Processes

• System must provide mechanisms for:

• process creation,
• process termination,
• and so on as detailed next
Process Creation
• Parent process create children processes,
which, in turn create other processes,
forming a tree of processes
• Generally, process identified and managed
via a process identifier (pid)
• Resource sharing options
• Parent and children share all resources
• Children share subset of parent’s resources
• Parent and child share no resources
• Execution options
• Parent and children execute concurrently
• Parent waits until children terminate
Process Termination

• Process executes last statement and then asks the

operating system to delete it using the exit()
system call.
• Returns status data from child to parent (via wait())
• Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
• Parent may terminate the execution of children
processes using the abort() system call. Some
reasons for doing so:
• Child has exceeded allocated resources
• Task assigned to child is no longer required
• The parent is exiting and the operating systems does
not allow a child to continue if its parent terminates
Process Termination
• Some operating systems do not allow child to exists if its parent
has terminated. If a process terminates, then all its children must
also be terminated.
• cascading termination. All children, grandchildren, etc. are terminated.
• The termination is initiated by the operating system.
• The parent process may wait for termination of a child process by
using the wait()system call. The call returns status
information and the pid of the terminated process
pid = wait(&status);
• If no parent waiting (did not invoke wait()) process is a zombie
• If parent terminated without invoking wait , process is an
orphan
 Multiprocess Architecture – Chrome Browser

• Many web browsers ran as single process (some still

do)
• If one web site causes trouble, entire browser can hang or
crash
• Google Chrome Browser is multiprocess with 3
different types of processes:
• Browser process manages user interface, disk and network
I/O
• Renderer process renders web pages, deals with HTML,
Javascript. A new renderer created for each website opened
• Runs in sandbox restricting disk and network I/O, minimizing effect
of security exploits
• Plug-in process for each type of plug-in
Interprocess Communication
• Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating
• Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other
processes, including sharing data
• Reasons for cooperating processes:
• Information sharing
• Computation speedup
• Modularity
• Convenience
• Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
• Two models of IPC
• Shared memory
• Message passing
Communications Models
(a) Message passing. (b) shared memory.
 Cooperating Processes
• Independent process cannot affect or be affected
by the execution of another process
• Cooperating process can affect or be affected by
the execution of another process
• Advantages of process cooperation
• Information sharing
• Computation speed-up
• Modularity
• Convenience
 Interprocess Communication – Shared Memory

• An area of memory shared among the

processes that wish to communicate
• The communication is under the control of
the users processes not the operating
system.
• Major issues is to provide mechanism that
will allow the user processes to
synchronize their actions when they access
shared memory.
 Interprocess Communication – Message Passing

• Mechanism for processes to communicate

and to synchronize their actions

• Message system – processes communicate

with each other without resorting to shared
variables

• IPC facility provides two operations:

• send(message)
• receive(message)

• The message size is either fixed or variable

Message Passing (Cont.)

• If processes P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:

• Establish a communication link between them
• Exchange messages via send/receive
• Implementation issues:
• How are links established?
• Can a link be associated with more than two processes?
• How many links can there be between every pair of
communicating processes?
• What is the capacity of a link?
• Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or
variable?
• Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?
Message Passing (Cont.)

• Implementation of communication link

• Physical:
• Shared memory
• Hardware bus
• Network
• Logical:
• Direct or indirect
• Synchronous or asynchronous
• Automatic or explicit buffering
Synchronization
• Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking
• Blocking is considered synchronous
• Blocking send -- the sender is blocked until the message is
received
• Blocking receive -- the receiver is blocked until a message is
available
• Non-blocking is considered asynchronous
• Non-blocking send -- the sender sends the message and
continue
• Non-blocking receive -- the receiver receives:
 A valid message, or
 Null message
Different combinations possible
If both send and receive are blocking, we have a rendezvous