Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction

 What Operating Systems Do

 Computer-System Organization
 Computer-System Architecture
 Operating-System Structure
 Operating-System Operations
 Process Management
 Memory Management
 Storage Management
 Protection and Security
 Distributed Systems
 Special-Purpose Systems
 Computing Environments

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Objectives

 To provide a grand tour of the major operating systems

components
 To provide coverage of basic computer system organization

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 What is an Operating System?

 A program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a

computer and the computer hardware.
 Coordination between users/programs and the HW.
 Control.
 Operating system goals:
 Execute user programs and make solving user problems
easier.
 Make the computer system convenient to use.
 Use the computer hardware in an efficient manner.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Computer System Structure

 Computer system can be divided into four components

 Hardware – provides basic computing resources
 CPU, memory, I/O devices
 Operating system
 Controls and coordinates use of hardware among various
applications and users
 Application programs – define the ways in which the system
resources are used to solve the computing problems of the
users
 Word processors, compilers, web browsers, database
systems, video games
 Users
 People, machines, other computers

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Four Components of a Computer System

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Operating System Definition

 OS is a resource allocator
 Manages all resources
 Decides between conflicting requests for efficient and fair
resource use
 OS is a control program
 Controls execution of programs to prevent errors and improper
use of the computer

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Operating System Definition (Cont.)

 No universally accepted definition

 “Everything a vendor ships when you order an operating system”
is good approximation
 But varies wildly
 “The one program running at all times on the computer” is the
kernel. Everything else is either a system program (ships with
the operating system) or an application program

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Computer Startup

 bootstrap program is loaded at power-up or reboot

 Typically stored in ROM or EEPROM (electrically erasable
programmable read-only memory), generally known as
firmware
 Initializates all aspects of system
 Loads operating system kernel and starts execution

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Computer System Organization

 Computer-system operation
 One or more CPUs, device controllers connect through
common bus providing access to shared memory
 Concurrent execution of CPUs and devices competing for
memory cycles

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Computer-System Operation

 I/O devices and the CPU can execute concurrently (see the figure
in slide 14).
 Each device controller is in charge of a particular device type.
 Each device controller has a local buffer.
 CPU moves data from/to main memory to/from local buffers
 I/O is from the device to local buffer of controller.
 Device controller informs CPU that it has finished its operation by
causing an interrupt.
 Any event occurrence is usually signaled by an interrupt from the
hardware or the software.
 Hardware may trigger an interrupt at any time by sending a
signal to the CPU throw the system bus.
 Software may trigger interrupt by executing a special operation
called system call (monitor call).

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Common Functions of Interrupts
 Interrupt transfers control to the interrupt service routine generally, through
the interrupt vector, which contains the addresses of all the service routines,
those addresses for all services are loaded by the OS at the OS initialization
phase.
 We have the interrupt vector (imagine it as an array) which contains the
addresses of all the service routines, when the CPU is interrupted it
stops what it is doing and immediately transfer execution to a fixed
location, this location is the starting address where the service routine for
the interrupt is stored.
 Interrupt architecture must save the address of the interrupted instruction.

When the CPU is interrupted it stop what is doing and start to execute
the new interrupt, when it finishes the execution for the current interrupt
it should return to the previous interrupted computation by retrieving its
address (so this address should be saved).
 Incoming interrupts are disabled while another interrupt is being processed
to prevent a lost interrupt.
 A trap (exception) is a software-generated interrupt caused either by an error
(ex: division by zero or invalid memory access) or a user program request.
We need a trap software to issue interrupts to the CPU when needed (ex:
division by zero).
 An operating system is interrupt driven.
Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005
1.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Interrupt Handling

 The operating system preserves the state of the CPU by storing

registers and the program counter, so when the CPU is
interrupted we should save its current information about registers
and the program counter.
 Two important definitions:
 Both spooling/pooling needs a buffer to save jobs.
 Spooling: used for output
 Ex: saving a number of jobs (for a printer as an example) in
a buffer because the printer can not print all the jobs at the
same time).
 Pooling: used for input.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Interrupt Timeline

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
  Each device has a controller which maintains local buffer and special purpose
registers.
 The device controller is responsible for moving data between the peripheral
devices that it controls and its local buffer storage.
 OS have a device driver for each device controller to understand the device
controller and presents a uniform interface to the device to the rest of the
operating system.
 To start an I\O operation:
 the driver loads the appropriate registers within the device controller (ex:
loads instructions that mean: “read a specific data from hard disk”).
 The controller examines the contents for these registers to determine what
action to take (ex: the action is: transfer a data).
 Then the controller starts the transfer of data from the device to its local
buffer. (at this stage we have two options to continue this transfer of data,
we will see them in the next slide)

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 I/O Structure
1) After I/O starts, control returns to user program only upon I/O completion. (suitable for small
amounts of data).
 Wait instruction idles the CPU until the next interrupt
 Wait loop (contention for memory access). the CPU waits until the data transfer
completed and the device controller inform the device driver that it is finished form
transferring data to the device buffer.
 At most one I/O request is outstanding at a time, no simultaneous I/O processing.
2) After I/O starts, control returns to user program without waiting for I/O completion. (suitable
for large amounts of data (bulk data)).
 System call – request to the operating system to allow user to wait for I/O completion
and the CPU execute other tasks until it is interrupted again by the device driver which
have been tolled by the device controller that it have finished its I\O job.
 In this case the device controller use direct memory access (DMA) to perform its job
while the CPU execute other job.
 Device-status table contains entry for each I/O device indicating its type, address, and
state.
 Operating system indexes into I/O device table to determine device status and to
modify table entry to include interrupt.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Device-Status Table

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Direct Memory Access (DMA) Structure

 Used for high-speed I/O devices able to transmit information at

close to memory speeds.
 Device controller transfers blocks of data from buffer storage
directly to main memory without CPU intervention.
 During the transference of data the CPU is free to other jobs.
 Only one interrupt is generated per block to inform the CPU about
the data which have been moved so far, rather than the one
interrupt per byte.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Storage Structure

 Main memory – only large storage media that the CPU can access
directly.
 Secondary storage – extension of main memory that provides large
nonvolatile storage capacity.
 Magnetic disks – rigid metal or glass platters covered with
magnetic recording material
 Disk surface is logically divided into tracks, which are
subdivided into sectors.
 The disk controller determines the logical interaction
between the device and the computer.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Storage Hierarchy

 Storage systems organized in hierarchy according to:

 Speed
 Cost
 Volatility
 Caching – copying information into faster storage system; main
memory can be viewed as a last cache for secondary storage.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Storage-Device Hierarchy

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Caching

 Important principle, performed at many levels in a computer (in

hardware, operating system, software)
 Information in use copied from slower to faster storage temporarily
 Faster storage (cache) checked first to determine if information is
there
 If it is, information used directly from the cache (fast)
 If not, data copied to cache and used there
 Cache smaller than storage being cached so we need:
 Cache management important design problem
 Cache size and replacement policy

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Performance of Various Levels of Storage

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Migration of Integer A from Disk to Register
 Multitasking environments must be careful to use most recent value (
because we could have more than one copy for a certain data, ex: variable x
can be changed at cache while it is still not changed at hard disk), no matter
where it is stored in the storage hierarchy

 Multiprocessor environment must provide cache coherency (it is a problem

in multiprocessor and in distributed environment; it can be solved by
updating) in hardware such that all CPUs have the most recent value in their
cache (CPU must sure that an update to the value in one cache reflected in
all other caches)
 Distributed environment situation even more complex
 Several copies of a datum can exist in distributed locations, we must
ensure that all locations have the same value for a given shared data, so
if this shared data modified in one location; the other locations should be
updated as soon as possible (the locations are connected using network
(what if it is disconnected?)).
Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Terminologies

 A program is loaded into memory and executing it is

called process.
 When a process execute , it typically executes for a
short time before it either finishes or needs to perform
I\O.
 Job pool : it is on hard disk, it contains the process
ready and awaiting for allocation to the main memory.
 Job scheduling: we need it to choose which processes
in the pool we should bring to main memory.
 we can not bring all the jobs to the MM because of
the size limitations.
 CPU scheduling: we need it if several jobs in the main
memory are ready to execute at the same time.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Operating System Structure

 Multiprogramming ( it is main idea is efficiency in using CPU,

memory, and peripheral devices) ( see point 5).
1) Single user cannot keep CPU and I/O devices busy at all times
2) Multiprogramming organizes jobs (code and data) so CPU
always has one to execute
3) A subset of total jobs (total jobs are kept in a place called jobs
pool) in system is kept in memory simultaneously ( see slide
28)
4) One job from them is selected (from the pool) and run via job
scheduling
5) When it has to wait (for I/O for example), OS switches to
another job (using CPU scheduling) until the first job finishes
its I/O, then the OS return the control to it.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Memory Layout for Multiprogrammed System

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Operating-System Operations
 Modern OS systems are interrupt driven by hardware.
 Software error or request creates exception or trap (like interrupt but generated by
SW error or request. without this (trap generated SW) the OS will not be able to
serve more than one process (ex: enter an infinite loop without a tool to stop it (i.e.
trap generated SW))).
 Division by zero

request for operating system service
 Other process problems include infinite loop, processes modifying each other or the
operating system
 Dual-mode operation allows OS to protect itself and other system components
 User mode and kernel mode (also called supervisor mode, privileged mode,
and system mode) are used to distinguish between the OS code and the user
code.
 Mode bit ( 0 for kernel, and 1 for user) provided by hardware
 Provides ability to distinguish when system is running user code or kernel
code
 Some instructions designated as privileged, only executable in kernel mode
 System call, trap, and interrupt changes mode to kernel.
 System call is issued when a user application requests a service from the OS.
Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Transition from User to Kernel Mode

 To ensure that OS maintain control over CPU, the OS should have:

 Timer to prevent infinite loop / process hogging resources
 Set interrupt after specific period
 Operating system decrements counter until it reaches zero.
 When counter is zero generate an interrupt
 we set up the (time period) before we schedule the process to
regain control or terminate program that exceeds allocated time

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Process Management Activities

The operating system is responsible for the following activities in

connection with process management:
 Creating and deleting both user and system processes
 Suspending and resuming processes
 Providing mechanisms for process synchronization
 Providing mechanisms for process communication
 Providing mechanisms for deadlock handling

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Protection and Security

 If the computer has multiple users, and allows the concurrent

execution of multiple processes, then access to data must be
regulated. For that purpose, mechanisms ensure that files,
memory, CPU, and other resources can be operated on by only
those processes that have gained proper authorization from the
OS. So protection is :
 Protection – any mechanism for controlling access of
processes or users to resources defined by the OS. (ex: dual
mode protection, 0/1: user/system mode).

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Protection and Security

 A system can have adequate protection but still be prone to failure and allow
inappropriate access (stolen authentication information), so we need security.
 Security – defense of the system against internal and external attacks
 Huge range, including denial-of-service, worms, viruses, identity theft, theft
of service
 Systems generally first distinguish among users, to determine who can do
what, this can be done by:
 User identities (user IDs, security IDs) include name and associated
number, one per user
 User ID then associated with all files, processes of that user to determine
access control
 Group identifier (group ID) allows set of users to be defined and controls
managed, then also associated with each process, file
 Privilege escalation (raising) allows user to change to effective ID with
more rights

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 12, 2005 1.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
End of Chapter 1