Chapter 3 – Process Concepts

Outline
3.1 Introduction
3.1.1 Definition of Process
3.2 Process States: Life Cycle of a Process
3.3 Process Management
3.3.1 Process States and State Transitions
3.3.2 Process Control Blocks (PCBs)/Process Descriptors
3.3.3 Process Operations
3.3.4 Suspend and Resume
3.3.5 Context Switching
3.4 Interrupts
3.4.1 Interrupt Processing
3.4.2 Interrupt Classes
3.5 Interprocess Communication
3.5.1 Signals
3.5.2 Message Passing
3.6 Case Study: UNIX Processes
3.1 Introduction

 Computers perform operations concurrently

 For example, compiling a program, sending a file to
a printer, rendering a Web page, playing music and
receiving e-mail
 Processes enable systems to perform and track
simultaneous activities
 Processes transition between process states
 Operating systems perform operations on processes
such as creating, destroying, suspending, resuming
and waking
3.1.1 Definition of Process

 A program in execution
 A process has its own address space consisting of:
 Text region
 Stores the code that the processor executes
 Data region
 Stores variables and dynamically allocated memory
 Stack region
 Stores instructions and local variables for active procedure
calls
3.2 Process States: Life
Cycle of a Process
 A process moves through a series of discrete
process states:
 Running state
 The process is executing on a processor
 Ready state
 The process could execute on a processor if one were
available
 Blocked state
 The process is waiting for some event to happen before
it can proceed
 The OS maintains a ready list and a blocked list to
store references to processes not running
3.3 Process Management

 Operating systems provide fundamental services

to processes including:
 Creating processes
 Destroying processes
 Suspending processes
 Resuming processes
 Changing a process’s priority
 Blocking processes
 Waking up processes
 Dispatching processes
 Interprocess communication (IPC)
3.3.1 Process States and
State Transitions
 Process states
 The act of assigning a processor to the first process on the
ready list is called dispatching
 The OS may use an interval timer to allow a process to run
for a specific time interval or quantum
 Cooperative multitasking lets each process run to
completion
 State Transitions
 At this point, there are four possible state transitions
 When a process is dispatched, it transitions from ready to
running
 When the quantum expires, it transitions from running to ready
 When a process blocks, it transitions from running to blocked
 When the event occurs, it transitions from blocked to ready
3.3.1 Process States and
State Transitions
3.3.2 Process Control Blocks
(PCBs)/Process Descriptors

 PCBs maintain information that the OS needs to

manage the process
 Typically include information such as
 Process identification number (PID)
 Process state
 Program counter
 Scheduling priority
 Credentials
 A pointer to the process’s parent process
 Pointers to the process’s child processes
 Pointers to locate the process’s data and instructions in
memory
 Pointers to allocated resources
3.3.2 Process Control Blocks
(PCBs)/Process Descriptors

 Process table
 The OS maintains pointers to each process’s PCB in a
system-wide or per-user process table
 Allows for quick access to PCBs
 When a process is terminated, the OS removes the
process from the process table and frees all of the
process’s resources
3.3.2 Process Control Blocks
(PCBs)/Process Descriptors
3.3.3 Process Operations

 A process may spawn a new process

 The creating process is called the parent process
 The created process is called the child process
 Exactly one parent process creates a child
 When a parent process is destroyed, operating
systems typically respond in one of two ways:
 Destroy all child processes of that parent
 Allow child processes to proceed independently of their
parents
3.3.3 Process Operations
3.3.4 Suspend and
Resume
Suspending a process
 Indefinitely removes it from contention for time on a processor
without being destroyed
 Useful for detecting security threats and for software debugging
purposes
 A suspension may be initiated by the process being suspended or
by another process
 A suspended process must be resumed by another process
 Two suspended states:
 Suspendedready: When a process suspends a ready process, the
ready process transitions from ready to suspendedready.
 Suspendedblocked: A blocked process will make the transition from
blocked to suspendedblocked when it is suspended by another
process.
3.3.4 Suspend and
Resume
3.3.5 Context Switching

 Context switches
 Performed by the OS to stop executing a running
process and begin executing a previously ready
process
 Save the execution context of the running process to
its PCB
 Load the ready process’s execution context from its
PCB
 Must be transparent to processes
 Require the processor to not perform any “useful”
computation
 OS must therefore minimize context-switching time
 Performed in hardware by some architectures
3.3.5 Context Switching
3.4 Interrupts

 Interrupts enable software to respond to signals from

hardware
 May be initiated by a running process
 Interrupt is called a trap
 Synchronous with the operation of the process
 For example, dividing by zero or referencing protected memory
 May be initiated by some event that may or may not be related
to the running process
 Asynchronous with the operation of the process
 For example, a key is pressed on a keyboard or a mouse is moved
 Low overhead
 Polling is an alternative approach
 Processor repeatedly requests the status of each device
 Increases in overhead as the complexity of the system increases
3.4.1 Interrupt Processing

 Handling interrupts
 After receiving an interrupt, the processor completes
execution of the current instruction, then pauses the
current process
 The processor will then execute one of the kernel’s
interrupt-handling functions
 The interrupt handler determines how the system
should respond
 Interrupt handlers are stored in an array of pointers
called the interrupt vector
 After the interrupt handler completes, the
interrupted process is restored and executed or the
next process is executed
3.4.1 Interrupt Processing
 3.4.2 Interrupt Classes
 Supported interrupts depend on a system’s architecture
 The IA-32 specification distinguishes between two types of signals a
processor may receive:
 Interrupts
 Notify the processor that an event has occurred or that an external device’s status
has changed
 Generated by devices external to a processor
 Exceptions
 Indicate that an error has occurred, either in hardware or as a result of a software
instruction
 Classified as faults, traps or aborts
3.4.2 Interrupt Classes
Figure 3.8 Common interrupt types recognized in the Intel IA-32 architecture.
3.4.2 Interrupt Classes
Figure 3.9 Intel IA-32 exception classes.
 3.5.1 Signals
 Software interrupts that notify a process that an event has occurred
 Do not allow processes to specify data to exchange with other processes
 Processes may catch, ignore or mask a signal
 Catching a signal involves specifying a routine that the OS calls when it
delivers the signal
 Ignoring a signal relies on the operating system’s default action to handle the
signal
 Masking a signal instructs the OS to not deliver signals of that type until the
process clears the signal mask
 3.5.2 Message Passing
 Message-based interprocess communication
 Messages can be passed in one direction at a time
 One process is the sender and the other is the receiver
 Message passing can be bidirectional
 Each process can act as either a sender or a receiver
 Messages can be blocking or nonblocking
 Blocking requires the receiver to notify the sender when the message is
received
 Nonblocking enables the sender to continue with other processing
 Popular implementation is a pipe
 A region of memory protected by the OS that serves as a buffer, allowing two
or more processes to exchange data
 3.5.2 Message Passing
 IPC in distributed systems
 Transmitted messages can be flawed or lost
 Acknowledgement protocols confirm that transmissions have been properly
received
 Timeout mechanisms retransmit messages if acknowledgements are not
received
 Ambiguously named processes lead to incorrect message referencing
 Messages are passed between computers using numbered ports on which
processes listen, avoiding this problem
 Security is a significant problem
 Ensuring authentication