Fred Kuhns 8/27/2003

CS523
Operating Systems

Fred Kuhns
Applied Research Laboratory
Computer Science and Engineering
Washington University in St. Louis

Washington
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST LOUIS

CS523 - Operating Systems

• Instructor: Fred Kuhns

Phone: 935-6598
Email: fredk@cse.wustl.edu
Office Hours:Bryan 411,
Wednesday 4:00 – 5:00

• Location: Lopata Hall, Room 101

Times: 1:00 – 2:30

• Newsgroup: wu.cs.class.523
Web: http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~fredk/Courses/cs523

Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 2

Course Materials
• No Required Textbook, but I will reference the
following:
– Real-Time Systems, Jane W. S. Liu, Prentice Hall, 2000
– Foundations of Multithreaded, Parallel, and Distributed
Programming, Gregory Andrews, Addison Wesley, 2000
– UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers, 2nd edition, Uresh
Vahalia, Prentice Hall, 2001
– The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD
Operating System, McKusick, Bostic, Karels and
Quarterman, Addison Wesley, 1996
– and your favorite undergraduate text
• Selected papers from the literature, web page,
handouts, class notes, and man pages
Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 3

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Course Work and Grading

• Grading scale: 0 – 100 (points)
– 90+ -> A, 80-89 ->B, 70-79 -> C, 60-69 -> D, else F
• Project with report: 45 points
– Implementation must be submitted in 3 stages, 10 points for each
stage
– Project report written as a paper, 15 points
• Final exam: 15 points
• Homework and Quiz: 30 points
– Homework problems or minor programming assignments.
– Quizzes announced or unannounced
• Class participation: 10 points
– everyone starts out with +10 points for just showing up
– if not in class when called on, or not prepared then -1 point

Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 4

Other Policies
• Late Policy
– only with prior approval
• Post questions to the newsgroup, rather than
sending email to me
– all benefit from both the questions and answers
– someone other than I may respond faster
– feel free to discuss homework and projects on the
newsgroup
– do not post answers, but you may post hints or code
snippets

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Programming Project
• Major systems design and implementation
• Project report:
– Introduction and motivation: problem identification, why I should
care and solution outline
• problem, context and solution
– System (i.e. project) implementation overview
– Analysis: this is where you provide quantitative data to support your
claims.
– Related work: what others have done to solve this problem
– Conclusions and Future work
• Software/system development
– Correct, predictable behavior
– Performance (efficiency)
– Completeness of design
– “readability” of code (maintainability and whether I can understand
it)
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Source Code Grading Policy

• Design 30%
– Are all conditions covered
– Have synchronization and scheduling issues been addressed
– Used proper measurement and/or data collection techniques
– Does it demonstrate an understanding of the underlying issues
– Does solution demonstrate insight or have novel approaches been used
• Structure 20%
– Logically structured
– Understandability (comments, names etc)
– Maintainability or portability issues
• Documentation 30%
– Must include a README file (ascii, <= 80 columns/line, UNIX format)
– Does analysis address all required issues and is it insightful
– Logically structured and understandable
– Followed instructions
• Operation 20 %
– Work are specified or does it terminate in error
– Accept required parameters
– Results displayed properly
– Results correct or reasonable
Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 7

Course Overview
• Overview of OS design issues
– Review of general purpose OS services
– Intro to Advanced OS Topics:
• Real-Time, Database, Distributed and Multiprocessor
• Detailed analysis of conventional OS internals:
– Focus on UNIX - Linux, BSD, SVR4 and Mach
– Single/Multi-processor
– Resource management
• Focus on Real- Time: design and implementation
– Performance and predictability issues
– Resource scheduling and managing concurrency

Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 8

Course Topics
• Conventional Systems
– Process and Kernel Model
– Threads, MicroKernel, Multiprocessors
– Synchronization and Inter-Process Communication
– File Systems, Memory Management and Virtual Memory
– Communications, Networking and I/O
• Real-Time: scheduling, reclaiming and reliability
– Clock Driven, Priority Driven -
• periodic, aperiodic and sproadic tasks
– Non-Processor resources and access control
– if time allows, multiprocessor and dependencies
– Flexible Scheduling, Real-Time Communications
• if time permits, a look at the end-to-end problem

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Three Driving Concepts

• Abstraction: resource abstraction used to
manage complexity. Low - level computing
resources (the hardware interface) is
abstracted to create an extended machine.
• Virtualization: Resources are virtualized to
permit controlled sharing and isolation.
• Resource management: OS ensures applications
make progress by providing policies and
mechanisms that enable both implicit and
explicit allocation. Must not impose undue
performance penalties while maximizing
utilization, minimizing overhead, providing
fair/predictable access to system resources.
Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 10

Functions of an OS
• Resource Management:
– Time management - CPU and disk transfer scheduling
– Space management - main and secondary storage allocation
– Synchronization and deadlock handling - IPC, critical section,
coordination
– Accounting and status information - resource usage tracking
• User Environment - OS layer transforms bare hardware
machine into higher level abstractions
– Execution environment - process management, file manipulation,
interrupt handling, I/O operations, language.
– Error detection and handling
– Protection and security
– Fault tolerance and failure recovery

Fred Kuhns (8/27/2003) CS523 – Operating Systems 11

Design Approaches
• Deal with complexities of modern systems
• Separation of Policies and Mechanisms
– Policies - What should be done
– Mechanisms - How it should be done
– Levin, R., E. Cohen, W. Corwin, F. Pollack and W. Wulf,
"Policy/Mechanism Separation in HYDRA," Proceedings
of the 5th Symposium on Principles of Operating
Systems, 1975, pp. 132-140.
• Three common approaches:
– Layered Approach
– Kernel Approach
– Virtual Machine Approach
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Layered Approach
• Simplifies design, implementation and testing
• Modular by dividing OS into functional layers.
• References:
– Dijkstra, E. W., "The Structure of THE Multiprogramming System",
Communications of the ACM, May 1968, pp. 341-346.
– (Ring) Organick, E., The Multics System, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1972.

Level Name Objects Example

13 Shell User programming env. Bash statements
environment

12 User process User process Quit,kill,suspend,resume

11 Directories Directories Create,destroy,attach,list
10 Devices External: printer,display Create,open,close
9 File system Files Create,open,close
8 Communications Pipes Crreate,open,close
7 Virtual memory Segments,pages Read,write,fetch
resource

6 Local secondary store Blocks,channel Read,write,fetch

5 Primitive process Process,semaphore Suspend,resume,wait
4 Interrupts Interrupt-handlers Invoke,mask,retry
3 Procedures Procedure,stack,display Mark stack,call,return
HW

2 Instruction set Evaluation stack Load,store,add

1 Electronic circuit Registers,gates,buses Clear,transfer,activate

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Kernel Based Approach

• Kernel contains a collection of primitives which are used to build the OS
• OS implements policy, Kernel implements mechanisms
• References:
– Brinch Hansen, P., "The Nucleus of a Multiprogramming System",
Communications of the ACM, Apr. 1970, pp. 238-241.
– Wulf, W., E. Cohen, W. Corwin, A. Jones, R. Levin, C. Pierson, and F. Pollack,
"HYDRA: The Kernel of a Multiprocessor Operating System",
Communications of the ACM, June 1974, pp. 337-345.

User Sys
User Applications Apps Services
kernel-user interface kernel-user interface

kernel (privileged) kernel (privileged)

hw-sw interface hw-sw interface
hardware hardware

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Virtual Machine Approach

• Virtual software layer over hardware
• Illusion of multiple instances of hardware
• Supports multiple instances of OSs
• References:
– Seawright, L., and R. MacKinnon, "VM/370 - A Study of
Multiplicity and Usefulness", IBM Systems Journal, 1979,
pp. 4-17.

VM1 VM2 VM3 VM4

Virtual machine software
Hardware

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Standard Abstractions and Resources

Processor
System Bus

Secondary Primary I/O Device

I/O Device
Storage Memory I/O Device
I/O Device

• Operating systems are extensions of the computer system upon

which they run.
– The above figure shows a simple computer model
• Common abstractions and models
– Process model: represent and manage resource access (sharing and
isolation), resource ownership (open files, etc), program state (data) and
execution context (threads). Models a running program.
– Memory model: manage the shared memory resource. Instructions and
data reside in main memory and are accessed there by the CPU.
– File systems: high-level abstraction of disk I/O
– Device I/O: network, keyboards, low-level disk, tapes, CDs, etc.
– Protection and Security:

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Examples of where you will find OSes

9 Servers: specialized for processing large volumes of
requests for a given service. Generally has a large number
of necessary resources.
9 web server, file server, print server, time-sharing systems for
interactive use, database management systems.
9 Desktops: specialized for single-user (or limited number
of users).
9 Generally has a GUI that is integral to system software
9 designed to minimize response time to user requests
9 Embedded systems: specialized for managing a limited
number of resources such as power, memory, I/O speed.
9 PDAs, cell phones, smart cards, automobiles.
9 Real-time systems: Specialized systems that must meet
stringent performance and behavior requirements.
9 The goal is to bound worst-case behavior
9 Medical devices, avionic systems, multi-media players, routers.
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Multiple Processor Systems

• Shared-memory multiprocessors: All processors share
the same global memory space and communicate
through it.
– Tightly-coupled.
• Message-passing multicomputer (Clusters): Computers
are interconnected by a high-speed interconnection
fabric. Each processor has its own local memory and
they communicate using the interconnect.
– May share secondary storage.
– Loosely coupled.
• Distributed systems: Each node is separate, standalone
computer and the message delay times over a WAN
can reach 100’s of msecs.
– Loosely coupled

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Why are we looking at UNIX?

• Historical significance
• Advanced features developed for or ported to
UNIX
• Availability of source code and research papers
• Importance to present and future research
activities at WashU
• Highlights key design and architectural issues

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Traditional UNIX kernel

• Bloated kernel
• Inflexible: supported single type of
– file system,
– process scheduling
– executable file format
• References:
– D. M. Ritchie, and K. Thompson, “The UNIX Time-Sharing System”,
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 17, No. 7, Jul. 1974, pp. 365-375.
– (just for fun) D. Milojicic, B. Bolosky, et al. "Operating Systems - Now and
in the Future", IEEE Concurrency, 7(1):12-21, January-March 1999

kernel
file virtual
loader
system memory
block dev char dev

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Designing and Building Systems

• See class handout

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