Chapter 5: Threads

 Overview
 Multithreading Models
 Threading Issues
 Pthreads
 Windows XP Threads
 Linux Threads
 Java Threads

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.1 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Single and Multithreaded Processes

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Benefits
 Responsiveness

 Resource Sharing

 Economy

 Utilization of MP Architectures

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 User Threads
 Thread management done by user-level threads library

 Three primary thread libraries:

 POSIX Pthreads
 Java threads
 Win32 threads

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Kernel Threads
 Supported by the Kernel

 Examples
 Windows XP/2000
 Solaris
 Linux
 Tru64 UNIX
 Mac OS X

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Multithreading Models
 Many-to-One

 One-to-One

 Many-to-Many

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Many-to-One
 Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread

 Examples
 Solaris Green Threads
 GNU Portable Threads

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Many-to-One Model

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 One-to-One
 Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
 Examples
 Windows NT/XP/2000
 Linux
 Solaris 9 and later

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 One-to-one Model

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Many-to-Many Model
 Allows many user level threads to be mapped to many kernel
threads
 Allows the operating system to create a sufficient number of
kernel threads
 Solaris prior to version 9
 Windows NT/2000 with the ThreadFiber package

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Many-to-Many Model

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Two-level Model
 Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be bound to
kernel thread
 Examples
 IRIX
 HP-UX
 Tru64 UNIX
 Solaris 8 and earlier

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Two-level Model

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Threading Issues
 Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
 Thread cancellation
 Signal handling
 Thread pools
 Thread specific data
 Scheduler activations

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Semantics of fork() and exec()
 Does fork() duplicate only the calling thread or all threads?

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Cancellation
 Terminating a thread before it has finished
 Two general approaches:
 Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread
immediately
 Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically check
if it should be cancelled

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Signal Handling
 Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred
 A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled
 Options:
 Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
 Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
 Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
 Assign a specific threa to receive all signals for the process

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Pools
 Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
 Advantages:
 Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing thread
than create a new thread
 Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be bound to the
size of the pool

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Specific Data
 Allows each thread to have its own copy of data
 Useful when you do not have control over the thread creation
process (i.e., when using a thread pool)

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Scheduler Activations
 Both M:M and Two-level models require communication to
maintain the appropriate number of kernel threads allocated to
the application
 Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a communication
mechanism from the kernel to the thread library
 This communication allows an application to maintain the correct
number kernel threads

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Pthreads
 A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
 API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is up
to development of the library
 Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X)

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Pthreads
int sum; /* this data is shared by the thread(s) */
void *runner(void *param); /* the thread */

main(int argc, char *argv[])

{
pthread_t tid; /* the thread identifier */
pthread_attr_t attr; /* set of attributes for the thread */
/* get the default attributes */
pthread_attr_init(&attr);
/* create the thread */
pthread_create(&tid,&attr,runner,argv[1]);
/* now wait for the thread to exit */
pthread_join(tid,NULL);
printf("sum = %d\n",sum);
}

void *runner(void *param) {

int upper = atoi(param);
int i;
sum = 0;
if (upper > 0) {
for (i = 1; i <= upper; i++)
sum += i;
}
pthread_exit(0);
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Windows XP Threads
 Implements the one-to-one mapping
 Each thread contains
 A thread id
 Register set
 Separate user and kernel stacks
 Private data storage area
 The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known as
the context of the threads
 The primary data structures of a thread include:
 ETHREAD (executive thread block)
 KTHREAD (kernel thread block)
 TEB (thread environment block)

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Linux Threads
 Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads
 Thread creation is done through clone() system call
 clone() allows a child task to share the address space of the
parent task (process)

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Java Threads

 Java threads are managed by the JVM

 Java threads may be created by:

 Extending Thread class

 Implementing the Runnable interface

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Extending the Thread Class
class Worker1 extends Thread
{
public void run() {
System.out.println("I Am a Worker Thread");
}
}

public class First

{
public static void main(String args[]) {
Worker1 runner = new Worker1();
runner.start();

System.out.println("I Am The Main Thread");

}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 The Runnable Interface

public interface Runnable

{
public abstract void run();
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Implementing the Runnable Interface

class Worker2 implements Runnable

{
public void run() {
System.out.println("I Am a Worker Thread ");
}
}
public class Second
{
public static void main(String args[]) {
Runnable runner = new Worker2();
Thread thrd = new Thread(runner);
thrd.start();

System.out.println("I Am The Main Thread");

}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Java Thread States

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Joining Threads
class JoinableWorker implements Runnable
{
public void run() {
System.out.println("Worker working");
}
}

public class JoinExample

{
public static void main(String[] args) {
Thread task = new Thread(new JoinableWorker());
task.start();

try { task.join(); }
catch (InterruptedException ie) { }

System.out.println("Worker done");
}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Cancellation

Thread thrd = new Thread (new InterruptibleThread());

Thrd.start();

...

// now interrupt it
Thrd.interrupt();

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Cancellation

public class InterruptibleThread implements Runnable

{
public void run() {
while (true) {
/**
* do some work for awhile
*/

if (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
System.out.println("I'm interrupted!");
break;
}
}

// clean up and terminate

}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Specific Data

class Service
{
private static ThreadLocal errorCode = new ThreadLocal();

public static void transaction() {

try {
/**
* some operation where an error may occur
*/
catch (Exception e) {
errorCode.set(e);
}
}

/**
* get the error code for this transaction
*/
public static Object getErrorCode() {
return errorCode.get();
}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Thread Specific Data

class Worker implements Runnable

{
private static Service provider;

public void run() {

provider.transaction();
System.out.println(provider.getErrorCode());
}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Producer-Consumer Problem

public class Factory

{
public Factory() {
// first create the message buffer
Channel mailBox = new MessageQueue();

// now create the producer and consumer threads

Thread producerThread = new Thread(new Producer(mailBox));

Thread consumerThread = new Thread(new

Consumer(mailBox));

producerThread.start();
consumerThread.start();
}

public static void main(String args[]) {

Factory server = new Factory();
}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Producer Thread

class Producer implements Runnable

{
private Channel mbox;

public Producer(Channel mbox) {

this.mbox = mbox;
}

public void run() {

Date message;

while (true) {
SleepUtilities.nap();
message = new Date();
System.out.println("Producer produced " + message);

// produce an item & enter it into the buffer

mbox.send(message);
}
}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003
 Consumer Thread

class Consumer implements Runnable

{
private Channel mbox;

public Consumer(Channel mbox) {

this.mbox = mbox;
}

public void run() {

Date message;

while (true) {
SleepUtilities.nap();
// consume an item from the buffer
System.out.println("Consumer wants to consume.");

message = (Date)mbox.receive();
if (message != null)
System.out.println("Consumer consumed " + message);
}
}
}

Operating System Concepts with Java 5.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2003