Computer Architecture and Operating Systems

Lecture 3: System Calls

Andrei Tatarnikov
[email protected]
@andrewt0301
 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 3
 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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 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)
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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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Example of Standard API

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 System Call Implementation
Typically, a number 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) 9
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 15
 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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 Example: MS-DOS
 Single-tasking
 Shell invoked when system
booted
 Simple method to run
program
 No process created
 Single memory space
 Loads program into memory,
overwriting all but the kernel At system startup running a program
 Program exit -> shell reloaded
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 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
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 System Programs
System programs provide a convenient environment
for program development and execution. They can be
divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information sometimes stored in a File
modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Background services
 Application programs
Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by
system programs, not the actual system calls
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 System Programs
 Provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution
 Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others
are considerably more complex
 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print,
dump, list, and generally manipulate files and directories
 Status information
 Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available
memory, disk space, number of users
 Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging
information
 Typically, these programs format and print the output to the
terminal or other output devices
 Some systems implement a registry - used to store and retrieve
configuration information 22
 System Programs (Cont.)
 File modification
 Text editors to create and modify files
 Special commands to search contents of files or perform transformations of
the text
 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers, debuggers
and interpreters sometimes provided
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable
loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems for
higher-level and machine language
 Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual
connections among processes, users, and computer systems
 Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse web pages,
send electronic-mail messages, log in remotely, transfer files from one 23
machine to another
 System Programs (Cont.)
Background Services
 Launch at boot time
 Some for system startup, then terminate
 Some from system boot to shutdown
 Provide facilities like disk checking, process scheduling, error
logging, printing
 Run in user context not kernel context
 Known as services, subsystems, daemons
Application programs
 Don’t pertain to system
 Run by users
 Not typically considered part of OS
 Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke
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 Operating System Design and Implementation
 Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but some
approaches have proven successful
 Internal structure of different Operating Systems can vary
widely
 Start the design by defining goals and specifications
 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system
 User goals and System goals
 User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, easy to
learn, reliable, safe, and fast
 System goals – operating system should be easy to design,
implement, and maintain, as well as flexible, reliable, error-free, and
efficient
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 Operating System Design and Implementation (Cont.)
Important principle to separate
Policy: What will be done?
Mechanism: How to do it?
Mechanisms determine how to do something,
policies decide what will be done
The separation of policy from mechanism is a very
important principle, it allows maximum flexibility if
policy decisions are to be changed later (example –
timer)
Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task
of software engineering 26
 Implementation
Much variation
 Early OSes in assembly language
 Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
 Now C, C++
Actually usually a mix of languages
 Lowest levels in assembly
 Main body in C
 Systems programs in C, C++, scripting languages like PERL,
Python, shell scripts
More high-level language easier to port to other hardware
 But slower
Emulation can allow an OS to run on non-native hardware27
 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 32
 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
Application File Device user
Program System Driver mode

messages messages

Interprocess memory CPU kernel

Communication managment scheduling mode

microkernel

hardware

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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) 37
 Mac OS X Structure
graphical user interface
Aqua

application environments and services

Java Cocoa Quicktime BSD

kernel environment
BSD

Mach

I/O kit kernel extensions

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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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Any Questions?

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