Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

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

 Objectives
 To describe the services an operating system
provides to users, processes, and other systems
 To discuss the various ways of structuring an
operating system

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services
 Operating systems provide an environment for execution
of programs and services to programs and users
 One set of operating-system services provides functions
that are helpful to the user:
 User interface - Almost all operating systems have a
user interface (UI).
 Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics
User Interface (GUI), Touch-Screen
 Program execution - The system must be able to load
a program into memory and to run that program, end
execution, either normally or abnormally (indicating
error)
 I/O operations - A running program may require I/O,
which may involve a file or an I/O device

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 One set of operating-system services provides functions that
are helpful to the user (Cont.):
 File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular
interest. Programs need to read and write files and
directories, create and delete them, search them, list file
Information, permission management.
 Communications – Processes may exchange information,
on the same computer or between computers over a
network
 Communications may be via shared memory or through
message passing (packets moved by the OS)
 Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of
possible errors
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O
devices, in user program
 For each type of error, OS 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 Concepts – 10th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient
operation of the system itself via resource sharing
 Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple
jobs running concurrently, resources must be allocated to
each of them
 Many types of resources - CPU cycles, main memory,
file storage, I/O devices.
 Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much
and what kinds of computer resources
 Protection and security - The owners of information
stored in a multiuser or networked computer system may
want 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - CLI

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
 Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes just
names of programs
 If the latter, adding new features doesn’t
require shell modification

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 - 1973
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI
interfaces
 Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command”
shell
 Apple Mac OS X is “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX
kernel underneath and shells available
 Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI
interfaces (CDE, KDE, GNOME)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Touchscreen Interfaces

 Touchscreen devices
require new interfaces
 Mouse not possible or not
desired
 Actions and selection based
on gestures
 Virtual keyboard for text
entry
 Voice commands.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Calls
 Programming interface to the services
provided by the OS
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or
C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level
Application Programming Interface (API)
rather than direct system call use
 Three most common APIs are Win32 API for
Windows, POSIX API for POSIX-based systems
(including virtually all versions of UNIX, Linux,
and
Note Mac
that theOS X), and Java
system-call APIused
names for the Java
throughout this
virtual
text machine (JVM)
are generic

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to
another file

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of Standard API

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 the 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)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Parameter Passing
 Often, more information is required than simply
identity of desired system call
 Exact type and amount of information vary
according to OS and call
 Three general methods used to pass parameters to
the OS
 Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
 In some cases, 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
 This approach taken by Linux and Solaris
 Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by
the program and popped off the stack by the
operating system
 Block and stack methods do not limit the number
or length of parameters being passed

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls
 Process control
 create process, terminate process
 end, abort
 load, execute
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 wait for time
 wait event, signal event
 allocate and free memory
 Dump memory if error
 Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
 Locks for managing access to shared data between
processes

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls

 File management
 create file, delete file
 open, close file
 read, write, reposition
 get and set file attributes
 Device management
 request device, release device
 read, write, reposition
 get device attributes, set device attributes
 logically attach or detach devices

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Information maintenance
 get time or date, set time or date
 get system data, set system data
 get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
 create, delete communication connection
 send, receive messages if message passing
model to host name or process name
 From client to server
 Shared-memory model create and gain access to
memory regions
 transfer status information
 attach and detach remote devices

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Protection
 Control access to resources
 Get and set permissions
 Allow and deny user access

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls
write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example: MS-DOS

 Single-tasking
 Shell invoked when
system booted
 Simple method to run
program
 No process created
 Single memory space
 Loads program into
memory, overwriting all
but the kernel
 Program exit -> shell
reloaded

At system startup running a

program

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example: FreeBSD
 Unix variant
 Multitasking
 User login -> invoke user’s choice
of shell
 Shell executes fork() system call
to create process
 Executes exec() to load
program into process
 Shell waits for process to
terminate or continues with
user commands
 Process exits with:
 code = 0 – no error
 code > 0 – error code

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment
for program development and execution. They can be
divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information sometimes stored in a File
modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Background services
 Application programs
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by
system programs, not the actual system calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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
 Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount
of available memory, disk space, number of users
 Others provide detailed performance, logging, and
debugging information
 Typically, these programs format and print the
output to the terminal or other output devices
 Some systems implement a registry - used to
store and retrieve configuration information

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs (Cont.)
 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 sometimes
provided
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders,
relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-
loaders, debugging systems for higher-level and
machine language
 Communications - Provide the 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 Concepts – 10th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs (Cont.)
 Background Services
 Launch at boot time
 Some for system startup, then terminate
 Some from system boot to shutdown
 Provide facilities like disk checking, process
scheduling, error logging, printing
 Run in user context not kernel context
 Known as services, subsystems, daemons

 Application programs
 Don’t pertain to system
 Run by users
 Not typically considered part of OS
 Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Structure
 General-purpose OS is very large program
 Various ways to structure ones
 Simple structure – MS-DOS
 More complex -- UNIX
 Layered – an abstrcation
 Microkernel -Mach

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Simple Structure -- MS-DOS

 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

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Non Simple Structure -- UNIX

UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the

original UNIX operating system 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 operating-
system functions; a large number of
functions for one level

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Layered Approach

 The operating system is

divided into a number of
layers (levels), each built
on top of lower layers.
The bottom layer (layer
0), is the hardware; the
highest (layer N) is the
user interface.
 With modularity, layers
are selected such that
each uses functions
(operations) and services
of only lower-level layers

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much from the kernel into user space
 Mach example of microkernel
 Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) partly based on Mach
 Communication takes place between user modules
using message passing
 Benefits:
 Easier to extend a microkernel
 Easier to port the operating system to new
architectures
 More reliable (less code is running in kernel
mode)
 More secure
 Detriments:
 Performance overhead of user space to kernel
space communication

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement
loadable 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
 Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible
 Linux, Solaris, etc

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Solaris Modular Approach

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Hybrid Systems

 Most modern operating systems are actually not one

pure model
 Hybrid combines multiple approaches to address
performance, security, usability needs
 Linux and Solaris kernels in kernel address space,
so monolithic, plus modular for dynamic loading of
functionality
 Windows mostly monolithic, plus microkernel for
different subsystem personalities
 Apple Mac OS X hybrid, layered, Aqua UI plus Cocoa
programming environment
 Below is kernel consisting of Mach microkernel
and BSD Unix parts, plus I/O kit and dynamically
loadable modules (called kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 2

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