Chapter 3: Processes

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne

 Chapter 3: Processes
 Process Concept
 Process Scheduling
 Operations on Processes
 Interprocess Communication
 IPC in Shared-Memory Systems
 IPC in Message-Passing Systems
 Examples of IPC Systems
 Communication in Client-Server Systems

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Objectives
 Identify the separate components of a process and
illustrate how they are represented and scheduled in an
operating system.
 Describe how processes are created and terminated in
an operating system, including developing programs
using the appropriate system calls that perform these
operations.
 Describe and contrast interprocess communication using
shared memory and message passing.
 Design programs that uses pipes and POSIX shared
memory to perform interprocess communication.
 Describe client-server communication using sockets and
remote procedure calls.
 Design kernel modules that interact with the Linux
operating system.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Process Concept
 An operating system executes a variety of programs
that run as a process.
 Process – a program in execution; process execution
must progress in sequential fashion. No parallel
execution of instructions of a single process
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Process Concept (Cont.)
 Program is passive entity stored on disk
(executable file); process is active
• Program becomes process when an executable
file is 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Process in Memory

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Memory Layout of a C Program

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Diagram of Process State

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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
 Explore in detail in Chapter 4

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Process Representation in Linux

Represented by the C structure task_struct

pid t_pid; /* process identifier */

long state; /* state of the process */
unsigned int time_slice /* scheduling information */
struct task_struct *parent;/* this process’s parent */
struct list_head children; /* this process’s children */
struct files_struct *files;/* list of open files */
struct mm_struct *mm; /* address space of this process */

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Process Scheduling
 Process scheduler selects among
available processes for next execution on
CPU core
 Goal -- Maximize CPU use, quickly switch
processes onto CPU core
 Maintains scheduling queues of processes
• Ready queue – set of all processes
residing in main memory, ready and
waiting to execute
• Wait queues – set of processes waiting
for an event (i.e., I/O)
• Processes migrate among the various
queues

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Representation of Process Scheduling

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 CPU Switch From Process to Process
A context switch occurs when the CPU switches from
one process to another.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 pure 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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,
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition3.17
small memory use
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operations on Processes

 System must provide mechanisms for:

• Process creation
• Process termination

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Process Creation (Cont.)
 Address space
• Child duplicate of parent
• Child has a program loaded into it
 UNIX examples
• fork() system call creates new process
• exec() system call used after a fork() to replace the
process’ memory space with a new program
• Parent process calls wait()waiting for the child to
terminate

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 A Tree of Processes in Linux

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 C Program Forking Separate Process

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Android Process Importance Hierarchy

 Mobile operating systems often have to terminate

processes to reclaim system resources such as memory.
From most to least important:
• Foreground process
• Visible process
• Service process
• Background process
• Empty process
 Android will begin terminating processes that are least
important.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Communications Models
(a) Shared memory. (b) Message passing.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 IPC – Message Passing

 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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?

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Implementation of Communication Link

 Physical:
• Shared memory
• Hardware bus
• Network
 Logical:
• Direct or indirect
• Synchronous or asynchronous
• Automatic or explicit buffering

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Direct Communication
 Processes must name each other explicitly:
• send (P, message) – send a message to process P
• receive(Q, message) – receive a message from
process Q
 Properties of communication link
• Links are established automatically
• A link is associated with exactly one pair of
communicating processes
• Between each pair there exists exactly one link
• The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-
directional

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Indirect Communication

 Messages are directed and received from mailboxes

(also referred to as ports)
• Each mailbox has a unique id
• Processes can communicate only if they share a
mailbox
 Properties of communication link
• Link established only if processes share a common
mailbox
• A link may be associated with many processes
• Each pair of processes may share several
communication links
• Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Indirect Communication (Cont.)

 Operations
• Create a new mailbox (port)
• Send and receive messages through mailbox
• Delete a mailbox
 Primitives are defined as:
• send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
• receive(A, message) – receive a message from
mailbox A

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Indirect Communication (Cont.)

 Mailbox sharing
• P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A
• P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive
• Who gets the message?
 Solutions
• Allow a link to be associated with at most
two processes
• Allow only one process at a time to execute a
receive operation
• Allow the system to select arbitrarily the
receiver. Sender is notified who the receiver
was.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 3

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne