Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 2: Operating-System Structures

 Operating System Services

 User Operating System Interface
 System Calls
 Types of System Calls
 Operating System Structure

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 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), 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

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 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

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 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

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 A View of Operating System Services

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 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

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 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

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 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)

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 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.

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 The Mac OS X GUI

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 System Calls
 System calls provides an interface to the services Made
available by an operating system.
 These calls are generally available as functions written in C
and C++.
 Example to illustrate how system calls are used:
 writing a simple program to read data from one file and
copy them to another file.
 The first input that the program will need is the names of the
two files: the input file and the output file.
 These names can be specified in many ways, depending on
the operating-system design.
 One approach is to pass the names of the two files as part
of the command—for example, the UNIX cp command:
cp in.txt out.txt
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  Promopt for file names
 Selection of file names

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 Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file

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 Application Programming Interface

 Frequently, systems execute thousands of system calls per

second.
 Most programmers never see this level of detail, however.
Typically, applicationdevelopers design programs according
to an application programming interface (API).
 The API specifies a set of functions that are available to an
application programmer, including the parameters that are
passed to each function and the return values the
programmer can expect.

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  Three of the most common APIs available to application
programmers are the Windows API for Windows systems
 The POSIX API for POSIX-based systems (which include virtually
all versions of UNIX, Linux, and macOS)
 The Java API for programs that run on the Java virtual machine.
 Behind the scenes, the functions that make up an API typically
invoke the actual system calls on behalf of the application
programmer.
 The Windows function CreateProcess() (which, unsurprisingly, is
used to create a new process) actually invokes the
NTCreateProcess() system call in the Windows kernel.

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 Example of Standard API

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 API – System Call – OS Relationship

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 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

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 Parameter Passing via Table

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

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

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 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

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 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system call

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

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 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

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 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

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 Microkernel System Structure

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 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

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 Solaris Modular Approach

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 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)

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 Mac OS X Structure

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 iOS

 Apple mobile OS for iPhone, iPad

 Structured on Mac OS X, added functionality
 Does not run OS X applications natively
 Also runs on different CPU architecture
(ARM vs. Intel)
 Cocoa Touch Objective-C API for
developing apps
 Media services layer for graphics, audio,
video
 Core services provides cloud computing,
databases
 Core operating system, based on Mac OS X
kernel

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 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 than runs in Dalvik VM
 Libraries include frameworks for web browser (webkit), database
(SQLite), multimedia, smaller libc

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 Android Architecture

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 End of Chapter 2

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013