Chapter 2: Operating-System

Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Objectives
 Identify services provided by an operating system
 Illustrate how system calls are used to provide operating
system services
 Compare and contrast monolithic, layered, microkernel,
modular, and hybrid strategies for designing operating
systems
 Illustrate the process for booting an operating system
 Apply tools for monitoring operating system performance
 Design and implement kernel modules for interacting with a
Linux kernel

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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, Batch
• 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
• 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.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 One set of operating-system services provides functions that are
helpful to the user (Cont.):
• 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 ©2018
 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.
• Logging - 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 ©2018
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Command Line interpreter
 CLI 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 ©2018
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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
 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 ©2018
 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 ©2018
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 Mac OS X), and Java API for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

Note that the system-call names used throughout this text are
generic

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 ©2018
 Example of Standard API

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Call Implementation
 Typically, a number is 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 ©2018
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 ©2018
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 ©2018
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)
 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 ©2018
 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 ©2018
 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 ©2018
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 ©2018
 Example: Arduino

 Single-tasking
 No operating system
 Programs (sketch) loaded via
USB into flash memory
 Single memory space
 Boot loader loads program
 Program exit -> shell
reloaded

At system startup running a program

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 ©2018
 Operating System Structure

 General-purpose OS is very large program

 Various ways to structure ones
• Simple structure – MS-DOS
• More complex – UNIX
• Layered – an abstraction
• Microkernel – Mach

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Monolithic Structure – Original 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 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Linux System Structure
Monolithic plus modular design

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 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 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Microkernels
 Moves as much from the kernel into user space
 Mach is an 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 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Microkernel System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement loadable kernel
modules (LKMs)
• 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 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Hybrid Systems
 Most modern operating systems are 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 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 macOS and iOS Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Darwin

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Android
 Developed by Open Handset Alliance (mostly Google)
• Open Source
 Similar stack to iOS
 Based on Linux kernel but modified
• Provides process, memory, device-driver management
• Adds power management
 Runtime environment includes core set of libraries and Dalvik
virtual machine
• Apps developed in Java plus Android API
 Java class files compiled to Java bytecode then translated
to executable thnn runs in Dalvik VM
 Libraries include frameworks for web browser (webkit), database
(SQLite), multimedia, smaller libc

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Android Architecture

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 2

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018