Operating System - Overview

An Operating System (OS) is an interface between a computer user

and computer hardware. An operating system is a software which
performs all the basic tasks like file management, memory
management, process management, handling input and output, and
controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.

Some popular Operating Systems include Linux Operating System,

Windows Operating System, VMS, OS/400, AIX, z/OS, etc.

Definition
An operating system is a program that acts as an interface between
the user and the computer hardware and controls the execution of
all kinds of programs.

Following are some of important functions of an operating System.

• Memory Management
• Processor Management
• Device Management
 • File Management
• Security
• Control over system performance
• Job accounting
• Error detecting aids
• Coordination between other software and users

Memory Management
Memory management refers to management of Primary Memory or
Main Memory. Main memory is a large array of words or bytes
where each word or byte has its own address.

Main memory provides a fast storage that can be accessed directly

by the CPU. For a program to be executed, it must in the main
memory. An Operating System does the following activities for
memory management −

• Keeps tracks of primary memory, i.e., what part of it are in

use by whom, what part are not in use.
• In multiprogramming, the OS decides which process will get
memory when and how much.
• Allocates the memory when a process requests it to do so.
• De-allocates the memory when a process no longer needs it or
has been terminated.

Processor Management
In multiprogramming environment, the OS decides which process
gets the processor when and for how much time. This function is
called process scheduling. An Operating System does the following
activities for processor management −

• Keeps tracks of processor and status of process. The program

responsible for this task is known as traffic controller.
• Allocates the processor (CPU) to a process.
• De-allocates processor when a process is no longer required.
Device Management
An Operating System manages device communication via their
respective drivers. It does the following activities for device
management −

• Keeps tracks of all devices. Program responsible for this task is

known as the I/O controller.
• Decides which process gets the device when and for how much
time.
• Allocates the device in the efficient way.
• De-allocates devices.

File Management
A file system is normally organized into directories for easy
navigation and usage. These directories may contain files and other
directions.

An Operating System does the following activities for file

management −

• Keeps track of information, location, uses, status etc. The

collective facilities are often known as file system.
• Decides who gets the resources.
• Allocates the resources.
• De-allocates the resources.

Other Important Activities

Following are some of the important activities that an Operating
System performs −

• Security − By means of password and similar other techniques,

it prevents unauthorized access to programs and data.
• Control over system performance − Recording delays between
request for a service and response from the system.
• Job accounting − Keeping track of time and resources used by
various jobs and users.
 • Error detecting aids − Production of dumps, traces, error
messages, and other debugging and error detecting aids.
• Coordination between other softwares and users − Coordination
and assignment of compilers, interpreters, assemblers and
other software to the various users of the computer systems.

Types of Operating System

Operating systems are there from the very first computer
generation and they keep evolving with time. In this chapter, we
will discuss some of the important types of operating systems which
are most commonly used.

Batch operating system

The users of a batch operating system do not interact with the
computer directly. Each user prepares his job on an off-line device
like punch cards and submits it to the computer operator. To speed
up processing, jobs with similar needs are batched together and run
as a group. The programmers leave their programs with the
operator and the operator then sorts the programs with similar
requirements into batches.

The problems with Batch Systems are as follows −

• Lack of interaction between the user and the job.

• CPU is often idle, because the speed of the mechanical I/O
devices is slower than the CPU.
• Difficult to provide the desired priority.

Time-sharing operating systems

Time-sharing is a technique which enables many people, located at
various terminals, to use a particular computer system at the same
time. Time-sharing or multitasking is a logical extension of
multiprogramming. Processor's time which is shared among multiple
users simultaneously is termed as time-sharing.
The main difference between Multiprogrammed Batch Systems and
Time-Sharing Systems is that in case of Multiprogrammed batch
systems, the objective is to maximize processor use, whereas in
Time-Sharing Systems, the objective is to minimize response time.

Multiple jobs are executed by the CPU by switching between them,

but the switches occur so frequently. Thus, the user can receive an
immediate response. For example, in a transaction processing, the
processor executes each user program in a short burst or quantum
of computation. That is, if n users are present, then each user can
get a time quantum. When the user submits the command, the
response time is in few seconds at most.

The operating system uses CPU scheduling and multiprogramming

to provide each user with a small portion of a time. Computer
systems that were designed primarily as batch systems have been
modified to time-sharing systems.

Advantages of Timesharing operating systems are as follows −

• Provides the advantage of quick response.

• Avoids duplication of software.
• Reduces CPU idle time.

Disadvantages of Time-sharing operating systems are as follows −

• Problem of reliability.
• Question of security and integrity of user programs and data.
• Problem of data communication.

Distributed operating System

Distributed systems use multiple central processors to serve
multiple real-time applications and multiple users. Data processing
jobs are distributed among the processors accordingly.

The processors communicate with one another through various

communication lines (such as high-speed buses or telephone lines).
These are referred as loosely coupled systems or distributed systems.
Processors in a distributed system may vary in size and function.
These processors are referred as sites, nodes, computers, and so
on.

The advantages of distributed systems are as follows −

• With resource sharing facility, a user at one site may be able

to use the resources available at another.
• Speedup the exchange of data with one another via electronic
mail.
• If one site fails in a distributed system, the remaining sites can
potentially continue operating.
• Better service to the customers.
• Reduction of the load on the host computer.
• Reduction of delays in data processing.

Network operating System

A Network Operating System runs on a server and provides the
server the capability to manage data, users, groups, security,
applications, and other networking functions. The primary purpose
of the network operating system is to allow shared file and printer
access among multiple computers in a network, typically a local
area network (LAN), a private network or to other networks.

Examples of network operating systems include Microsoft Windows

Server 2003, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, UNIX, Linux, Mac OS
X, Novell NetWare, and BSD.

The advantages of network operating systems are as follows −

• Centralized servers are highly stable.

• Security is server managed.
• Upgrades to new technologies and hardware can be easily
integrated into the system.
• Remote access to servers is possible from different locations
and types of systems.
The disadvantages of network operating systems are as follows −

• High cost of buying and running a server.

• Dependency on a central location for most operations.
• Regular maintenance and updates are required.

Real Time operating System

A real-time system is defined as a data processing system in which
the time interval required to process and respond to inputs is so
small that it controls the environment. The time taken by the
system to respond to an input and display of required updated
information is termed as the response time. So in this method, the
response time is very less as compared to online processing.

Real-time systems are used when there are rigid time requirements
on the operation of a processor or the flow of data and real-time
systems can be used as a control device in a dedicated application.
A real-time operating system must have well-defined, fixed time
constraints, otherwise the system will fail. For example, Scientific
experiments, medical imaging systems, industrial control systems,
weapon systems, robots, air traffic control systems, etc.

There are two types of real-time operating systems.

Hard real-time systems

Hard real-time systems guarantee that critical tasks complete on

time. In hard real-time systems, secondary storage is limited or
missing and the data is stored in ROM. In these systems, virtual
memory is almost never found.

Soft real-time systems

Soft real-time systems are less restrictive. A critical real-time task

gets priority over other tasks and retains the priority until it
completes. Soft real-time systems have limited utility than hard
real-time systems. For example, multimedia, virtual reality,
Advanced Scientific Projects like undersea exploration and planetary
rovers, etc.
 Operating System - Services
An Operating System provides services to both the users and to the
programs.

• It provides programs an environment to execute.

• It provides users the services to execute the programs in a
convenient manner.

Following are a few common services provided by an operating

system −

• Program execution
• I/O operations
• File System manipulation
• Communication
• Error Detection
• Resource Allocation
• Protection

Program execution
Operating systems handle many kinds of activities from user
programs to system programs like printer spooler, name servers,
file server, etc. Each of these activities is encapsulated as a process.

A process includes the complete execution context (code to execute,

data to manipulate, registers, OS resources in use). Following are
the major activities of an operating system with respect to program
management −

• Loads a program into memory.

• Executes the program.
• Handles program's execution.
• Provides a mechanism for process synchronization.
• Provides a mechanism for process communication.
• Provides a mechanism for deadlock handling.
I/O Operation
An I/O subsystem comprises of I/O devices and their corresponding
driver software. Drivers hide the peculiarities of specific hardware
devices from the users.

An Operating System manages the communication between user

and device drivers.

• I/O operation means read or write operation with any file or

any specific I/O device.
• Operating system provides the access to the required I/O
device when required.

File system manipulation

A file represents a collection of related information. Computers can
store files on the disk (secondary storage), for long-term storage
purpose. Examples of storage media include magnetic tape,
magnetic disk and optical disk drives like CD, DVD. Each of these
media has its own properties like speed, capacity, data transfer rate
and data access methods.

A file system is normally organized into directories for easy

navigation and usage. These directories may contain files and other
directions. Following are the major activities of an operating system
with respect to file management −

• Program needs to read a file or write a file.

• The operating system gives the permission to the program for
operation on file.
• Permission varies from read-only, read-write, denied and so
on.
• Operating System provides an interface to the user to
create/delete files.
• Operating System provides an interface to the user to
create/delete directories.
• Operating System provides an interface to create the backup
of file system.
Communication
In case of distributed systems which are a collection of processors
that do not share memory, peripheral devices, or a clock, the
operating system manages communications between all the
processes. Multiple processes communicate with one another
through communication lines in the network.

The OS handles routing and connection strategies, and the problems

of contention and security. Following are the major activities of an
operating system with respect to communication −

• Two processes often require data to be transferred between

them
• Both the processes can be on one computer or on different
computers, but are connected through a computer network.
• Communication may be implemented by two methods, either
by Shared Memory or by Message Passing.

Error handling
Errors can occur anytime and anywhere. An error may occur in CPU,
in I/O devices or in the memory hardware. Following are the major
activities of an operating system with respect to error handling −

• The OS constantly checks for possible errors.

• The OS takes an appropriate action to ensure correct and
consistent computing.

Resource Management
In case of multi-user or multi-tasking environment, resources such
as main memory, CPU cycles and files storage are to be allocated to
each user or job. Following are the major activities of an operating
system with respect to resource management −

• The OS manages all kinds of resources using schedulers.

• CPU scheduling algorithms are used for better utilization of
CPU.
Protection
Considering a computer system having multiple users and
concurrent execution of multiple processes, the various processes
must be protected from each other's activities.

Protection refers to a mechanism or a way to control the access of

programs, processes, or users to the resources defined by a
computer system. Following are the major activities of an operating
system with respect to protection −

• The OS ensures that all access to system resources is

controlled.
• The OS ensures that external I/O devices are protected from
invalid access attempts.
• The OS provides authentication features for each user by
means of passwords.

Operating System - Properties

Batch processing
Batch processing is a technique in which an Operating System
collects the programs and data together in a batch before
processing starts. An operating system does the following activities
related to batch processing −

• The OS defines a job which has predefined sequence of

commands, programs and data as a single unit.
• The OS keeps a number a jobs in memory and executes them
without any manual information.
• Jobs are processed in the order of submission, i.e., first come
first served fashion.
• When a job completes its execution, its memory is released
and the output for the job gets copied into an output spool for
later printing or processing.
Advantages

• Batch processing takes much of the work of the operator to

the computer.
• Increased performance as a new job get started as soon as the
previous job is finished, without any manual intervention.

Disadvantages

• Difficult to debug program.

• A job could enter an infinite loop.
• Due to lack of protection scheme, one batch job can affect
pending jobs.

Multitasking
Multitasking is when multiple jobs are executed by the CPU
simultaneously by switching between them. Switches occur so
frequently that the users may interact with each program while it is
running. An OS does the following activities related to multitasking
−

• The user gives instructions to the operating system or to a

program directly, and receives an immediate response.
• The OS handles multitasking in the way that it can handle
multiple operations/executes multiple programs at a time.
• Multitasking Operating Systems are also known as Time-
sharing systems.
• These Operating Systems were developed to provide
interactive use of a computer system at a reasonable cost.
• A time-shared operating system uses the concept of CPU
scheduling and multiprogramming to provide each user with a
small portion of a time-shared CPU.
• Each user has at least one separate program in memory.

• A program that is loaded into memory and is executing is

commonly referred to as a process.
• When a process executes, it typically executes for only a very
short time before it either finishes or needs to perform I/O.
• Since interactive I/O typically runs at slower speeds, it may
take a long time to complete. During this time, a CPU can be
utilized by another process.
• The operating system allows the users to share the computer
simultaneously. Since each action or command in a time-
shared system tends to be short, only a little CPU time is
needed for each user.
• As the system switches CPU rapidly from one user/program to
the next, each user is given the impression that he/she has
his/her own CPU, whereas actually one CPU is being shared
among many users.
Multiprogramming
Sharing the processor, when two or more programs reside in
memory at the same time, is referred as multiprogramming.
Multiprogramming assumes a single shared processor.
Multiprogramming increases CPU utilization by organizing jobs so
that the CPU always has one to execute.

The following figure shows the memory layout for a

multiprogramming system.

An OS does the following activities related to multiprogramming.

• The operating system keeps several jobs in memory at a time.

• This set of jobs is a subset of the jobs kept in the job pool.
• The operating system picks and begins to execute one of the
jobs in the memory.
• Multiprogramming operating systems monitor the state of all
active programs and system resources using memory
management programs to ensures that the CPU is never idle,
unless there are no jobs to process.
Advantages

• High and efficient CPU utilization.

• User feels that many programs are allotted CPU almost
simultaneously.

Disadvantages

• CPU scheduling is required.

• To accommodate many jobs in memory, memory management
is required.

Interactivity
Interactivity refers to the ability of users to interact with a computer
system. An Operating system does the following activities related to
interactivity −

• Provides the user an interface to interact with the system.

• Manages input devices to take inputs from the user. For
example, keyboard.
• Manages output devices to show outputs to the user. For
example, Monitor.

The response time of the OS needs to be short, since the user

submits and waits for the result.

Real Time System

Real-time systems are usually dedicated, embedded systems. An
operating system does the following activities related to real-time
system activity.

• In such systems, Operating Systems typically read from and

react to sensor data.
• The Operating system must guarantee response to events
within fixed periods of time to ensure correct performance.
Distributed Environment
A distributed environment refers to multiple independent CPUs or
processors in a computer system. An operating system does the
following activities related to distributed environment −

• The OS distributes computation logics among several physical

processors.
• The processors do not share memory or a clock. Instead, each
processor has its own local memory.
• The OS manages the communications between the processors.
They communicate with each other through various
communication lines.

Spooling
Spooling is an acronym for simultaneous peripheral operations on
line. Spooling refers to putting data of various I/O jobs in a buffer.
This buffer is a special area in memory or hard disk which is
accessible to I/O devices.

An operating system does the following activities related to

distributed environment −

• Handles I/O device data spooling as devices have different

data access rates.
• Maintains the spooling buffer which provides a waiting station
where data can rest while the slower device catches up.
• Maintains parallel computation because of spooling process as
a computer can perform I/O in parallel fashion. It becomes
possible to have the computer read data from a tape, write
data to disk and to write out to a tape printer while it is doing
its computing task.
Advantages

• The spooling operation uses a disk as a very large buffer.

• Spooling is capable of overlapping I/O operation for one job
with processor operations for another job.

Operating System - Processes

Process
A process is basically a program in execution. The execution of a
process must progress in a sequential fashion.

A process is defined as an entity which represents the basic unit of

work to be implemented in the system.

To put it in simple terms, we write our computer programs in a text

file and when we execute this program, it becomes a process which
performs all the tasks mentioned in the program.

When a program is loaded into the memory and it becomes a

process, it can be divided into four sections ─ stack, heap, text and
data. The following image shows a simplified layout of a process
inside main memory −
S.N. Component & Description

Stack
1 The process Stack contains the temporary data such as method/function parameters, return
address and local variables.

Heap
2
This is dynamically allocated memory to a process during its run time.

Text
3 This includes the current activity represented by the value of Program Counter and the
contents of the processor's registers.

Data
4
This section contains the global and static variables.

Program
A program is a piece of code which may be a single line or millions
of lines. A computer program is usually written by a computer
programmer in a programming language. For example, here is a
simple program written in C programming language –
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
printf("Hello, World! \n");
return 0;
}

A computer program is a collection of instructions that performs a

specific task when executed by a computer. When we compare a
program with a process, we can conclude that a process is a
dynamic instance of a computer program.

A part of a computer program that performs a well-defined task is

known as an algorithm. A collection of computer programs, libraries
and related data are referred to as a software.

Process Life Cycle

When a process executes, it passes through different states. These
stages may differ in different operating systems, and the names of
these states are also not standardized.

In general, a process can have one of the following five states at a

time.

S.N. State & Description

Start
1
This is the initial state when a process is first started/created.

Ready
The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor. Ready processes are waiting to have
2 the processor allocated to them by the operating system so that they can run. Process may
come into this state after Start state or while running it by but interrupted by the scheduler
to assign CPU to some other process.

Running
Once the process has been assigned to a processor by the OS scheduler, the process state is
3
set to running and the processor executes its instructions.

4 Waiting
 Process moves into the waiting state if it needs to wait for a resource, such as waiting for
user input, or waiting for a file to become available.

Terminated or Exit
5 Once the process finishes its execution, or it is terminated by the operating system, it is
moved to the terminated state where it waits to be removed from main memory.

Process Control Block (PCB)

A Process Control Block is a data structure maintained by the
Operating System for every process. The PCB is identified by an
integer process ID (PID). A PCB keeps all the information needed to
keep track of a process as listed below in the table −

S.N. Information & Description

Process State
1
The current state of the process i.e., whether it is ready, running, waiting, or whatever.

Process privileges
2
This is required to allow/disallow access to system resources.

Process ID
3
Unique identification for each of the process in the operating system.

Pointer
4
A pointer to parent process.

Program Counter
5 Program Counter is a pointer to the address of the next instruction to be executed for this
process.

6 CPU registers
 Various CPU registers where process need to be stored for execution for running state.

CPU Scheduling Information

7
Process priority and other scheduling information which is required to schedule the process.

Memory management information

8 This includes the information of page table, memory limits, Segment table depending on
memory used by the operating system.

Accounting information
9
This includes the amount of CPU used for process execution, time limits, execution ID etc.

IO status information
10
This includes a list of I/O devices allocated to the process.

The architecture of a PCB is completely dependent on Operating

System and may contain different information in different operating
systems. Here is a simplified diagram of a PCB −

The PCB is maintained for a process throughout its lifetime, and is

deleted once the process terminates.
 Operating System - Process Scheduling
Definition
The process scheduling is the activity of the process manager that
handles the removal of the running process from the CPU and the
selection of another process on the basis of a particular strategy.

Process scheduling is an essential part of a Multiprogramming

operating systems. Such operating systems allow more than one
process to be loaded into the executable memory at a time and the
loaded process shares the CPU using time multiplexing.

Process Scheduling Queues

The OS maintains all PCBs in Process Scheduling Queues. The OS
maintains a separate queue for each of the process states and PCBs
of all processes in the same execution state are placed in the same
queue. When the state of a process is changed, its PCB is unlinked
from its current queue and moved to its new state queue.

The Operating System maintains the following important process

scheduling queues −

• Job queue − This queue keeps all the processes in the system.
• Ready queue − This queue keeps a set of all processes residing
in main memory, ready and waiting to execute. A new process
is always put in this queue.
• Device queues − The processes which are blocked due to
unavailability of an I/O device constitute this queue.
The OS can use different policies to manage each queue (FIFO,
Round Robin, Priority, etc.). The OS scheduler determines how to
move processes between the ready and run queues which can only
have one entry per processor core on the system; in the above
diagram, it has been merged with the CPU.

Two-State Process Model

Two-state process model refers to running and non-running states
which are described below −

S.N. State & Description

Running
1
When a new process is created, it enters into the system as in the running state.

Not Running
Processes that are not running are kept in queue, waiting for their turn to execute. Each
entry in the queue is a pointer to a particular process. Queue is implemented by using linked
2
list. Use of dispatcher is as follows. When a process is interrupted, that process is
transferred in the waiting queue. If the process has completed or aborted, the process is
discarded. In either case, the dispatcher then selects a process from the queue to execute.
Schedulers
Schedulers are special system software which handle process
scheduling in various ways. Their main task is to select the jobs to
be submitted into the system and to decide which process to run.
Schedulers are of three types −

• Long-Term Scheduler
• Short-Term Scheduler
• Medium-Term Scheduler

Long Term Scheduler

It is also called a job scheduler. A long-term scheduler determines
which programs are admitted to the system for processing. It
selects processes from the queue and loads them into memory for
execution. Process loads into the memory for CPU scheduling.

The primary objective of the job scheduler is to provide a balanced

mix of jobs, such as I/O bound and processor bound. It also
controls the degree of multiprogramming. If the degree of
multiprogramming is stable, then the average rate of process
creation must be equal to the average departure rate of processes
leaving the system.

On some systems, the long-term scheduler may not be available or

minimal. Time-sharing operating systems have no long term
scheduler. When a process changes the state from new to ready,
then there is use of long-term scheduler.

Short Term Scheduler

It is also called as CPU scheduler. Its main objective is to increase
system performance in accordance with the chosen set of criteria. It
is the change of ready state to running state of the process. CPU
scheduler selects a process among the processes that are ready to
execute and allocates CPU to one of them.
Short-term schedulers, also known as dispatchers, make the
decision of which process to execute next. Short-term schedulers
are faster than long-term schedulers.

Medium Term Scheduler

Medium-term scheduling is a part of swapping. It removes the
processes from the memory. It reduces the degree of
multiprogramming. The medium-term scheduler is in-charge of
handling the swapped out-processes.

A running process may become suspended if it makes an I/O

request. A suspended processes cannot make any progress towards
completion. In this condition, to remove the process from memory
and make space for other processes, the suspended process is
moved to the secondary storage. This process is called swapping,
and the process is said to be swapped out or rolled out. Swapping
may be necessary to improve the process mix.

Comparison among Scheduler

S.N. Long-Term Scheduler Short-Term Scheduler Medium-Term Scheduler

It is a process swapping
1 It is a job scheduler It is a CPU scheduler
scheduler.

Speed is lesser than short Speed is fastest among Speed is in between both short
2
term scheduler other two and long term scheduler.

It provides lesser control

It controls the degree of It reduces the degree of
3 over degree of
multiprogramming multiprogramming.
multiprogramming

It is almost absent or
It is also minimal in time It is a part of Time sharing
4 minimal in time sharing
sharing system systems.
system

It selects processes from pool It can re-introduce the process

It selects those processes
5 and loads them into memory into memory and execution
which are ready to execute
for execution can be continued.
Context Switch
A context switch is the mechanism to store and restore the state or
context of a CPU in Process Control block so that a process
execution can be resumed from the same point at a later time.
Using this technique, a context switcher enables multiple processes
to share a single CPU. Context switching is an essential part of a
multitasking operating system features.

When the scheduler switches the CPU from executing one process to
execute another, the state from the current running process is
stored into the process control block. After this, the state for the
process to run next is loaded from its own PCB and used to set the
PC, registers, etc. At that point, the second process can start
executing.

Context switches are computationally intensive since register and

memory state must be saved and restored. To avoid the amount of
context switching time, some hardware systems employ two or
more sets of processor registers. When the process is switched, the
following information is stored for later use.

• Program Counter
• Scheduling information
• Base and limit register value
• Currently used register
• Changed State
• I/O State information
• Accounting information

Operating System Scheduling algorithms

A Process Scheduler schedules different processes to be assigned to
the CPU based on particular scheduling algorithms. There are six
popular process scheduling algorithms which we are going to
discuss in this chapter −

• First-Come, First-Served (FCFS) Scheduling

• Shortest-Job-Next (SJN) Scheduling
• Priority Scheduling
• Shortest Remaining Time
• Round Robin(RR) Scheduling
• Multiple-Level Queues Scheduling

These algorithms are either non-preemptive or preemptive. Non-

preemptive algorithms are designed so that once a process enters
the running state, it cannot be preempted until it completes its
allotted time, whereas the preemptive scheduling is based on
priority where a scheduler may preempt a low priority running
process anytime when a high priority process enters into a ready
state.

First Come First Serve (FCFS)

• Jobs are executed on first come, first serve basis.
• It is a non-preemptive, pre-emptive scheduling algorithm.
• Easy to understand and implement.
• Its implementation is based on FIFO queue.
 • Poor in performance as average wait time is high.

Wait time of each process is as follows −

Process Wait Time : Service Time - Arrival Time

P0 0-0=0

P1 5-1=4

P2 8-2=6

P3 16 - 3 = 13

Average Wait Time: (0+4+6+13) / 4 = 5.75

Shortest Job Next (SJN)

• This is also known as shortest job first, or SJF
• This is a non-preemptive, pre-emptive scheduling algorithm.
• Best approach to minimize waiting time.
• Easy to implement in Batch systems where required CPU time
is known in advance.
• Impossible to implement in interactive systems where required
CPU time is not known.
• The processer should know in advance how much time process
will take.
Given: Table of processes, and their Arrival time, Execution time

Process Arrival Time Execution Time Service Time

P0 0 5 0

P1 1 3 5

P2 2 8 14

P3 3 6 8

Waiting time of each process is as follows −

Process Waiting Time

P0 0-0=0

P1 5-1=4

P2 14 - 2 = 12

P3 8-3=5

Average Wait Time: (0 + 4 + 12 + 5)/4 = 21 / 4 = 5.25

Priority Based Scheduling
• Priority scheduling is a non-preemptive algorithm and one of
the most common scheduling algorithms in batch systems.
• Each process is assigned a priority. Process with highest
priority is to be executed first and so on.
• Processes with same priority are executed on first come first
served basis.
• Priority can be decided based on memory requirements, time
requirements or any other resource requirement.

Given: Table of processes, and their Arrival time, Execution time,

and priority. Here we are considering 1 is the lowest priority.

Process Arrival Time Execution Time Priority Service Time

P0 0 5 1 0

P1 1 3 2 11

P2 2 8 1 14

P3 3 6 3 5

Waiting time of each process is as follows −

Process Waiting Time

P0 0-0=0

P1 11 - 1 = 10

P2 14 - 2 = 12

P3 5-3=2

Average Wait Time: (0 + 10 + 12 + 2)/4 = 24 / 4 = 6

Shortest Remaining Time

• Shortest remaining time (SRT) is the preemptive version of the
SJN algorithm.
• The processor is allocated to the job closest to completion but
it can be preempted by a newer ready job with shorter time to
completion.
• Impossible to implement in interactive systems where required
CPU time is not known.
• It is often used in batch environments where short jobs need
to give preference.

Round Robin Scheduling

• Round Robin is the preemptive process scheduling algorithm.
• Each process is provided a fix time to execute, it is called
a quantum.
• Once a process is executed for a given time period, it is
preempted and other process executes for a given time period.
• Context switching is used to save states of preempted
processes.
Wait time of each process is as follows −

Process Wait Time : Service Time - Arrival Time

P0 (0 - 0) + (12 - 3) = 9

P1 (3 - 1) = 2

P2 (6 - 2) + (14 - 9) + (20 - 17) = 12

P3 (9 - 3) + (17 - 12) = 11

Average Wait Time: (9+2+12+11) / 4 = 8.5

Multiple-Level Queues Scheduling

Multiple-level queues are not an independent scheduling algorithm.
They make use of other existing algorithms to group and schedule
jobs with common characteristics.

• Multiple queues are maintained for processes with common

characteristics.
• Each queue can have its own scheduling algorithms.
• Priorities are assigned to each queue.

For example, CPU-bound jobs can be scheduled in one queue and all
I/O-bound jobs in another queue. The Process Scheduler then
alternately selects jobs from each queue and assigns them to the
CPU based on the algorithm assigned to the queue.

Operating System - Multi-Threading

What is Thread?
A thread is a flow of execution through the process code, with its
own program counter that keeps track of which instruction to
execute next, system registers which hold its current working
variables, and a stack which contains the execution history.
A thread shares with its peer threads few information like code
segment, data segment and open files. When one thread alters a
code segment memory item, all other threads see that.

A thread is also called a lightweight process. Threads provide a way

to improve application performance through parallelism. Threads
represent a software approach to improving performance of
operating system by reducing the overhead thread is equivalent to a
classical process.

Each thread belongs to exactly one process and no thread can exist
outside a process. Each thread represents a separate flow of
control. Threads have been successfully used in implementing
network servers and web server. They also provide a suitable
foundation for parallel execution of applications on shared memory
multiprocessors. The following figure shows the working of a single-
threaded and a multithreaded process.
Difference between Process and Thread
S.N. Process Thread

Thread is light weight, taking

1 Process is heavy weight or resource intensive.
lesser resources than a process.

Process switching needs interaction with operating Thread switching does not need to
2
system. interact with operating system.

In multiple processing environments, each process

All threads can share same set of
3 executes the same code but has its own memory
open files, child processes.
and file resources.

While one thread is blocked and

If one process is blocked, then no other process can
4 waiting, a second thread in the
execute until the first process is unblocked.
same task can run.

Multiple processes without using threads use more Multiple threaded processes use
5
resources. fewer resources.

In multiple processes each process operates One thread can read, write or
6
independently of the others. change another thread's data.

Advantages of Thread
• Threads minimize the context switching time.
• Use of threads provides concurrency within a process.
• Efficient communication.
• It is more economical to create and context switch threads.
• Threads allow utilization of multiprocessor architectures to a
greater scale and efficiency.

Types of Thread
Threads are implemented in following two ways −
 • User Level Threads − User managed threads.
• Kernel Level Threads − Operating System managed threads
acting on kernel, an operating system core.

User Level Threads

In this case, the thread management kernel is not aware of the
existence of threads. The thread library contains code for creating
and destroying threads, for passing message and data between
threads, for scheduling thread execution and for saving and
restoring thread contexts. The application starts with a single
thread.

Advantages

• Thread switching does not require Kernel mode privileges.

 • User level thread can run on any operating system.
• Scheduling can be application specific in the user level thread.
• User level threads are fast to create and manage.

Disadvantages

• In a typical operating system, most system calls are blocking.

• Multithreaded application cannot take advantage of
multiprocessing.

Kernel Level Threads

In this case, thread management is done by the Kernel. There is no
thread management code in the application area. Kernel threads are
supported directly by the operating system. Any application can be
programmed to be multithreaded. All of the threads within an
application are supported within a single process.

The Kernel maintains context information for the process as a whole

and for individuals threads within the process. Scheduling by the
Kernel is done on a thread basis. The Kernel performs thread
creation, scheduling and management in Kernel space. Kernel
threads are generally slower to create and manage than the user
threads.

Advantages

• Kernel can simultaneously schedule multiple threads from the

same process on multiple processes.
• If one thread in a process is blocked, the Kernel can schedule
another thread of the same process.
• Kernel routines themselves can be multithreaded.

Disadvantages

• Kernel threads are generally slower to create and manage than

the user threads.
 • Transfer of control from one thread to another within the same
process requires a mode switch to the Kernel.

Multithreading Models
Some operating system provide a combined user level thread and
Kernel level thread facility. Solaris is a good example of this
combined approach. In a combined system, multiple threads within
the same application can run in parallel on multiple processors and
a blocking system call need not block the entire process.
Multithreading models are three types

• Many to many relationship.

• Many to one relationship.
• One to one relationship.

Many to Many Model

The many-to-many model multiplexes any number of user threads
onto an equal or smaller number of kernel threads.

The following diagram shows the many-to-many threading model

where 6 user level threads are multiplexing with 6 kernel level
threads. In this model, developers can create as many user threads
as necessary and the corresponding Kernel threads can run in
parallel on a multiprocessor machine. This model provides the best
accuracy on concurrency and when a thread performs a blocking
system call, the kernel can schedule another thread for execution.
Many to One Model
Many-to-one model maps many user level threads to one Kernel-
level thread. Thread management is done in user space by the
thread library. When thread makes a blocking system call, the
entire process will be blocked. Only one thread can access the
Kernel at a time, so multiple threads are unable to run in parallel on
multiprocessors.

If the user-level thread libraries are implemented in the operating

system in such a way that the system does not support them, then
the Kernel threads use the many-to-one relationship modes.
One to One Model
There is one-to-one relationship of user-level thread to the kernel-
level thread. This model provides more concurrency than the many-
to-one model. It also allows another thread to run when a thread
makes a blocking system call. It supports multiple threads to
execute in parallel on microprocessors.

Disadvantage of this model is that creating user thread requires the

corresponding Kernel thread. OS/2, windows NT and windows 2000
use one to one relationship model.
Difference between User-Level & Kernel-Level Thread
S.N. User-Level Threads Kernel-Level Thread

Kernel-level threads are slower to

1 User-level threads are faster to create and manage.
create and manage.

Implementation is by a thread library at the user Operating system supports creation of

2
level. Kernel threads.

User-level thread is generic and can run on any Kernel-level thread is specific to the
3
operating system. operating system.

Multi-threaded applications cannot take advantage Kernel routines themselves can be

4
of multiprocessing. multithreaded.
 Operating System - Memory Management
Memory management is the functionality of an operating system
which handles or manages primary memory and moves processes
back and forth between main memory and disk during execution.
Memory management keeps track of each and every memory
location, regardless of either it is allocated to some process or it is
free. It checks how much memory is to be allocated to processes. It
decides which process will get memory at what time. It tracks
whenever some memory gets freed or unallocated and
correspondingly it updates the status.

Process Address Space

The process address space is the set of logical addresses that a
process references in its code. For example, when 32-bit addressing
is in use, addresses can range from 0 to 0x7fffffff; that is, 2^31
possible numbers, for a total theoretical size of 2 gigabytes.

The operating system takes care of mapping the logical addresses

to physical addresses at the time of memory allocation to the
program. There are three types of addresses used in a program
before and after memory is allocated −

S.N. Memory Addresses & Description

Symbolic addresses
1 The addresses used in a source code. The variable names, constants, and instruction labels are
the basic elements of the symbolic address space.

Relative addresses
2
At the time of compilation, a compiler converts symbolic addresses into relative addresses.

Physical addresses
3 The loader generates these addresses at the time when a program is loaded into main
memory.

Virtual and physical addresses are the same in compile-time and

load-time address-binding schemes. Virtual and physical addresses
differ in execution-time address-binding scheme.
The set of all logical addresses generated by a program is referred
to as a logical address space. The set of all physical addresses
corresponding to these logical addresses is referred to as a physical
address space.

The runtime mapping from virtual to physical address is done by the

memory management unit (MMU) which is a hardware device. MMU
uses following mechanism to convert virtual address to physical
address.

• The value in the base register is added to every address

generated by a user process, which is treated as offset at the
time it is sent to memory. For example, if the base register
value is 10000, then an attempt by the user to use address
location 100 will be dynamically reallocated to location 10100.
• The user program deals with virtual addresses; it never sees
the real physical addresses.

Static vs Dynamic Loading

The choice between Static or Dynamic Loading is to be made at the
time of computer program being developed. If you have to load
your program statically, then at the time of compilation, the
complete programs will be compiled and linked without leaving any
external program or module dependency. The linker combines the
object program with other necessary object modules into an
absolute program, which also includes logical addresses.

If you are writing a Dynamically loaded program, then your

compiler will compile the program and for all the modules which you
want to include dynamically, only references will be provided and
rest of the work will be done at the time of execution.

At the time of loading, with static loading, the absolute program (and
data) is loaded into memory in order for execution to start.
If you are using dynamic loading, dynamic routines of the library are
stored on a disk in relocatable form and are loaded into memory
only when they are needed by the program.

Static vs Dynamic Linking

As explained above, when static linking is used, the linker combines
all other modules needed by a program into a single executable
program to avoid any runtime dependency.

When dynamic linking is used, it is not required to link the actual

module or library with the program, rather a reference to the
dynamic module is provided at the time of compilation and linking.
Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) in Windows and Shared Objects in
Unix are good examples of dynamic libraries.

Swapping
Swapping is a mechanism in which a process can be swapped
temporarily out of main memory (or move) to secondary storage
(disk) and make that memory available to other processes. At some
later time, the system swaps back the process from the secondary
storage to main memory.

Though performance is usually affected by swapping process but it

helps in running multiple and big processes in parallel and that's the
reason Swapping is also known as a technique for memory compaction.
The total time taken by swapping process includes the time it takes
to move the entire process to a secondary disk and then to copy the
process back to memory, as well as the time the process takes to
regain main memory.

Let us assume that the user process is of size 2048KB and on a

standard hard disk where swapping will take place has a data
transfer rate around 1 MB per second. The actual transfer of the
1000K process to or from memory will take
2048KB / 1024KB per second
= 2 seconds
= 2000 milliseconds

Now considering in and out time, it will take complete 4000

milliseconds plus other overhead where the process competes to
regain main memory.

Memory Allocation
Main memory usually has two partitions −

• Low Memory − Operating system resides in this memory.

• High Memory − User processes are held in high memory.

Operating system uses the following memory allocation mechanism.

S.N. Memory Allocation & Description

Single-partition allocation
In this type of allocation, relocation-register scheme is used to protect user processes from
1 each other, and from changing operating-system code and data. Relocation register contains
value of smallest physical address whereas limit register contains range of logical addresses.
Each logical address must be less than the limit register.

Multiple-partition allocation
In this type of allocation, main memory is divided into a number of fixed-sized partitions
2 where each partition should contain only one process. When a partition is free, a process is
selected from the input queue and is loaded into the free partition. When the process
terminates, the partition becomes available for another process.

Fragmentation
As processes are loaded and removed from memory, the free
memory space is broken into little pieces. It happens after
sometimes that processes cannot be allocated to memory blocks
considering their small size and memory blocks remains unused.
This problem is known as Fragmentation.
Fragmentation is of two types −

S.N. Fragmentation & Description

External fragmentation
1 Total memory space is enough to satisfy a request or to reside a process in it, but it is not
contiguous, so it cannot be used.

Internal fragmentation
2 Memory block assigned to process is bigger. Some portion of memory is left unused, as it
cannot be used by another process.

The following diagram shows how fragmentation can cause waste of

memory and a compaction technique can be used to create more
free memory out of fragmented memory −

External fragmentation can be reduced by compaction or shuffle

memory contents to place all free memory together in one large
block. To make compaction feasible, relocation should be dynamic.

The internal fragmentation can be reduced by effectively assigning

the smallest partition but large enough for the process.
Paging
A computer can address more memory than the amount physically
installed on the system. This extra memory is actually called virtual
memory and it is a section of a hard that's set up to emulate the
computer's RAM. Paging technique plays an important role in
implementing virtual memory.

Paging is a memory management technique in which process

address space is broken into blocks of the same size
called pages (size is power of 2, between 512 bytes and 8192
bytes). The size of the process is measured in the number of pages.

Similarly, main memory is divided into small fixed-sized blocks of

(physical) memory called frames and the size of a frame is kept the
same as that of a page to have optimum utilization of the main
memory and to avoid external fragmentation.

Address Translation

Page address is called logical address and represented by page

number and the offset.

Logical Address = Page number + page offset

Frame address is called physical address and represented by a frame
number and the offset.

Physical Address = Frame number + page offset

A data structure called page map table is used to keep track of the
relation between a page of a process to a frame in physical
memory.

When the system allocates a frame to any page, it translates this

logical address into a physical address and create entry into the
page table to be used throughout execution of the program.

When a process is to be executed, its corresponding pages are

loaded into any available memory frames. Suppose you have a
program of 8Kb but your memory can accommodate only 5Kb at a
given point in time, then the paging concept will come into picture.
When a computer runs out of RAM, the operating system (OS) will
move idle or unwanted pages of memory to secondary memory to
free up RAM for other processes and brings them back when needed
by the program.
This process continues during the whole execution of the program
where the OS keeps removing idle pages from the main memory
and write them onto the secondary memory and bring them back
when required by the program.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Paging

Here is a list of advantages and disadvantages of paging −

• Paging reduces external fragmentation, but still suffer from

internal fragmentation.
• Paging is simple to implement and assumed as an efficient
memory management technique.
• Due to equal size of the pages and frames, swapping becomes
very easy.
• Page table requires extra memory space, so may not be good
for a system having small RAM.

Segmentation
Segmentation is a memory management technique in which each
job is divided into several segments of different sizes, one for each
module that contains pieces that perform related functions. Each
segment is actually a different logical address space of the program.

When a process is to be executed, its corresponding segmentation

are loaded into non-contiguous memory though every segment is
loaded into a contiguous block of available memory.

Segmentation memory management works very similar to paging

but here segments are of variable-length where as in paging pages
are of fixed size.

A program segment contains the program's main function, utility

functions, data structures, and so on. The operating system
maintains a segment map table for every process and a list of free
memory blocks along with segment numbers, their size and
corresponding memory locations in main memory. For each
segment, the table stores the starting address of the segment and
the length of the segment. A reference to a memory location
includes a value that identifies a segment and an offset.

Operating System - Virtual Memory

A computer can address more memory than the amount physically
installed on the system. This extra memory is actually called virtual
memory and it is a section of a hard disk that's set up to emulate
the computer's RAM.

The main visible advantage of this scheme is that programs can be

larger than physical memory. Virtual memory serves two purposes.
First, it allows us to extend the use of physical memory by using
disk. Second, it allows us to have memory protection, because each
virtual address is translated to a physical address.

Following are the situations, when entire program is not required to

be loaded fully in main memory.

• User written error handling routines are used only when an

error occurred in the data or computation.
• Certain options and features of a program may be used rarely.
• Many tables are assigned a fixed amount of address space
even though only a small amount of the table is actually used.
• The ability to execute a program that is only partially in
memory would counter many benefits.
• Less number of I/O would be needed to load or swap each user
program into memory.
• A program would no longer be constrained by the amount of
physical memory that is available.
• Each user program could take less physical memory, more
programs could be run the same time, with a corresponding
increase in CPU utilization and throughput.

Modern microprocessors intended for general-purpose use, a

memory management unit, or MMU, is built into the hardware. The
MMU's job is to translate virtual addresses into physical addresses.
A basic example is given below −
Virtual memory is commonly implemented by demand paging. It
can also be implemented in a segmentation system. Demand
segmentation can also be used to provide virtual memory.

Demand Paging
A demand paging system is quite similar to a paging system with
swapping where processes reside in secondary memory and pages
are loaded only on demand, not in advance. When a context switch
occurs, the operating system does not copy any of the old
program’s pages out to the disk or any of the new program’s pages
into the main memory Instead, it just begins executing the new
program after loading the first page and fetches that program’s
pages as they are referenced.
While executing a program, if the program references a page which
is not available in the main memory because it was swapped out a
little ago, the processor treats this invalid memory reference as
a page fault and transfers control from the program to the operating
system to demand the page back into the memory.

Advantages

Following are the advantages of Demand Paging −

• Large virtual memory.

• More efficient use of memory.
• There is no limit on degree of multiprogramming.
Disadvantages

• Number of tables and the amount of processor overhead for

handling page interrupts are greater than in the case of the
simple paged management techniques.

Page Replacement Algorithm

Page replacement algorithms are the techniques using which an
Operating System decides which memory pages to swap out, write
to disk when a page of memory needs to be allocated. Paging
happens whenever a page fault occurs and a free page cannot be
used for allocation purpose accounting to reason that pages are not
available or the number of free pages is lower than required pages.

When the page that was selected for replacement and was paged
out, is referenced again, it has to read in from disk, and this
requires for I/O completion. This process determines the quality of
the page replacement algorithm: the lesser the time waiting for
page-ins, the better is the algorithm.

A page replacement algorithm looks at the limited information about

accessing the pages provided by hardware, and tries to select which
pages should be replaced to minimize the total number of page
misses, while balancing it with the costs of primary storage and
processor time of the algorithm itself. There are many different
page replacement algorithms. We evaluate an algorithm by running
it on a particular string of memory reference and computing the
number of page faults,

Reference String
The string of memory references is called reference string.
Reference strings are generated artificially or by tracing a given
system and recording the address of each memory reference. The
latter choice produces a large number of data, where we note two
things.
 • For a given page size, we need to consider only the page
number, not the entire address.
• If we have a reference to a page p, then any immediately
following references to page p will never cause a page fault.
Page p will be in memory after the first reference; the
immediately following references will not fault.
• For example, consider the following sequence of addresses −
123,215,600,1234,76,96
• If page size is 100, then the reference string is 1,2,6,12,0,0

First In First Out (FIFO) algorithm

• Oldest page in main memory is the one which will be selected
for replacement.
• Easy to implement, keep a list, replace pages from the tail and
add new pages at the head.

Optimal Page algorithm

• An optimal page-replacement algorithm has the lowest page-
fault rate of all algorithms. An optimal page-replacement
algorithm exists, and has been called OPT or MIN.
• Replace the page that will not be used for the longest period of
time. Use the time when a page is to be used.
Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm
• Page which has not been used for the longest time in main
memory is the one which will be selected for replacement.
• Easy to implement, keep a list, replace pages by looking back
into time.
Page Buffering algorithm
• To get a process start quickly, keep a pool of free frames.
• On page fault, select a page to be replaced.
• Write the new page in the frame of free pool, mark the page
table and restart the process.
• Now write the dirty page out of disk and place the frame
holding replaced page in free pool.

Least frequently Used(LFU) algorithm

• The page with the smallest count is the one which will be
selected for replacement.
• This algorithm suffers from the situation in which a page is
used heavily during the initial phase of a process, but then is
never used again.

Most frequently Used(MFU) algorithm

• This algorithm is based on the argument that the page with
the smallest count was probably just brought in and has yet to
be used.

Operating System - I/O Hardware

One of the important jobs of an Operating System is to manage
various I/O devices including mouse, keyboards, touch pad, disk
drives, display adapters, USB devices, Bit-mapped screen, LED,
Analog-to-digital converter, On/off switch, network connections,
audio I/O, printers etc.

An I/O system is required to take an application I/O request and

send it to the physical device, then take whatever response comes
back from the device and send it to the application. I/O devices can
be divided into two categories −

• Block devices − A block device is one with which the driver

communicates by sending entire blocks of data. For example,
Hard disks, USB cameras, Disk-On-Key etc.
 • Character devices − A character device is one with which the
driver communicates by sending and receiving single
characters (bytes, octets). For example, serial ports, parallel
ports, sounds cards etc

Device Controllers
Device drivers are software modules that can be plugged into an OS
to handle a particular device. Operating System takes help from
device drivers to handle all I/O devices.

The Device Controller works like an interface between a device and

a device driver. I/O units (Keyboard, mouse, printer, etc.) typically
consist of a mechanical component and an electronic component
where electronic component is called the device controller.

There is always a device controller and a device driver for each

device to communicate with the Operating Systems. A device
controller may be able to handle multiple devices. As an interface its
main task is to convert serial bit stream to block of bytes, perform
error correction as necessary.

Any device connected to the computer is connected by a plug and

socket, and the socket is connected to a device controller. Following
is a model for connecting the CPU, memory, controllers, and I/O
devices where CPU and device controllers all use a common bus for
communication.
Synchronous vs asynchronous I/O
• Synchronous I/O − In this scheme CPU execution waits while
I/O proceeds
• Asynchronous I/O − I/O proceeds concurrently with CPU
execution

Communication to I/O Devices

The CPU must have a way to pass information to and from an I/O
device. There are three approaches available to communicate with
the CPU and Device.

• Special Instruction I/O

• Memory-mapped I/O
• Direct memory access (DMA)

Special Instruction I/O

This uses CPU instructions that are specifically made for controlling
I/O devices. These instructions typically allow data to be sent to an
I/O device or read from an I/O device.

Memory-mapped I/O

When using memory-mapped I/O, the same address space is shared

by memory and I/O devices. The device is connected directly to
certain main memory locations so that I/O device can transfer block
of data to/from memory without going through CPU.
While using memory mapped IO, OS allocates buffer in memory and
informs I/O device to use that buffer to send data to the CPU. I/O
device operates asynchronously with CPU, interrupts CPU when
finished.

The advantage to this method is that every instruction which can

access memory can be used to manipulate an I/O device. Memory
mapped IO is used for most high-speed I/O devices like disks,
communication interfaces.

Direct Memory Access (DMA)

Slow devices like keyboards will generate an interrupt to the main
CPU after each byte is transferred. If a fast device such as a disk
generated an interrupt for each byte, the operating system would
spend most of its time handling these interrupts. So a typical
computer uses direct memory access (DMA) hardware to reduce this
overhead.

Direct Memory Access (DMA) means CPU grants I/O module

authority to read from or write to memory without involvement.
DMA module itself controls exchange of data between main memory
and the I/O device. CPU is only involved at the beginning and end of
the transfer and interrupted only after entire block has been
transferred.

Direct Memory Access needs a special hardware called DMA

controller (DMAC) that manages the data transfers and arbitrates
access to the system bus. The controllers are programmed with
source and destination pointers (where to read/write the data),
counters to track the number of transferred bytes, and settings,
which includes I/O and memory types, interrupts and states for the
CPU cycles.
The operating system uses the DMA hardware as follows −

Step Description

1 Device driver is instructed to transfer disk data to a buffer address X.

2 Device driver then instruct disk controller to transfer data to buffer.

3 Disk controller starts DMA transfer.

4 Disk controller sends each byte to DMA controller.

DMA controller transfers bytes to buffer, increases the memory address, decreases the
5
counter C until C becomes zero.

6 When C becomes zero, DMA interrupts CPU to signal transfer completion.

Polling vs Interrupts I/O

A computer must have a way of detecting the arrival of any type of
input. There are two ways that this can happen, known
as polling and interrupts. Both of these techniques allow the
processor to deal with events that can happen at any time and that
are not related to the process it is currently running.
Polling I/O

Polling is the simplest way for an I/O device to communicate with

the processor. The process of periodically checking status of the
device to see if it is time for the next I/O operation, is called polling.
The I/O device simply puts the information in a Status register, and
the processor must come and get the information.

Most of the time, devices will not require attention and when one
does it will have to wait until it is next interrogated by the polling
program. This is an inefficient method and much of the processors
time is wasted on unnecessary polls.

Compare this method to a teacher continually asking every student

in a class, one after another, if they need help. Obviously the more
efficient method would be for a student to inform the teacher
whenever they require assistance.

Interrupts I/O

An alternative scheme for dealing with I/O is the interrupt-driven

method. An interrupt is a signal to the microprocessor from a device
that requires attention.

A device controller puts an interrupt signal on the bus when it needs

CPU’s attention when CPU receives an interrupt, It saves its current
state and invokes the appropriate interrupt handler using the
interrupt vector (addresses of OS routines to handle various
events). When the interrupting device has been dealt with, the CPU
continues with its original task as if it had never been interrupted.

Operating System - I/O Softwares

I/O software is often organized in the following layers −

• User Level Libraries − This provides simple interface to the user

program to perform input and output. For example, stdio is a
library provided by C and C++ programming languages.
 • Kernel Level Modules − This provides device driver to interact
with the device controller and device independent I/O modules
used by the device drivers.
• Hardware − This layer includes actual hardware and hardware
controller which interact with the device drivers and makes
hardware alive.

A key concept in the design of I/O software is that it should be

device independent where it should be possible to write programs
that can access any I/O device without having to specify the device
in advance. For example, a program that reads a file as input should
be able to read a file on a floppy disk, on a hard disk, or on a CD-
ROM, without having to modify the program for each different
device.

Device Drivers
Device drivers are software modules that can be plugged into an OS
to handle a particular device. Operating System takes help from
device drivers to handle all I/O devices. Device drivers encapsulate
device-dependent code and implement a standard interface in such
a way that code contains device-specific register reads/writes.
Device driver, is generally written by the device's manufacturer and
delivered along with the device on a CD-ROM.

A device driver performs the following jobs −

• To accept request from the device independent software above

to it.
• Interact with the device controller to take and give I/O and
perform required error handling
• Making sure that the request is executed successfully

How a device driver handles a request is as follows: Suppose a

request comes to read a block N. If the driver is idle at the time a
request arrives, it starts carrying out the request immediately.
Otherwise, if the driver is already busy with some other request, it
places the new request in the queue of pending requests.

Interrupt handlers
An interrupt handler, also known as an interrupt service routine or
ISR, is a piece of software or more specifically a callback function in
an operating system or more specifically in a device driver, whose
execution is triggered by the reception of an interrupt.

When the interrupt happens, the interrupt procedure does whatever

it has to in order to handle the interrupt, updates data structures
and wakes up process that was waiting for an interrupt to happen.

The interrupt mechanism accepts an address ─ a number that

selects a specific interrupt handling routine/function from a small
set. In most architectures, this address is an offset stored in a table
called the interrupt vector table. This vector contains the memory
addresses of specialized interrupt handlers.

Device-Independent I/O Software

The basic function of the device-independent software is to perform
the I/O functions that are common to all devices and to provide a
uniform interface to the user-level software. Though it is difficult to
write completely device independent software but we can write
some modules which are common among all the devices. Following
is a list of functions of device-independent I/O Software −

• Uniform interfacing for device drivers

• Device naming - Mnemonic names mapped to Major and Minor
device numbers
• Device protection
• Providing a device-independent block size
• Buffering because data coming off a device cannot be stored in
final destination.
• Storage allocation on block devices
• Allocation and releasing dedicated devices
• Error Reporting

User-Space I/O Software

These are the libraries which provide richer and simplified interface
to access the functionality of the kernel or ultimately interactive
with the device drivers. Most of the user-level I/O software consists
of library procedures with some exception like spooling system
which is a way of dealing with dedicated I/O devices in a
multiprogramming system.

I/O Libraries (e.g., stdio) are in user-space to provide an interface

to the OS resident device-independent I/O SW. For example
putchar(), getchar(), printf() and scanf() are example of user level
I/O library stdio available in C programming.

Kernel I/O Subsystem

Kernel I/O Subsystem is responsible to provide many services
related to I/O. Following are some of the services provided.

• Scheduling − Kernel schedules a set of I/O requests to

determine a good order in which to execute them. When an
 application issues a blocking I/O system call, the request is
placed on the queue for that device. The Kernel I/O scheduler
rearranges the order of the queue to improve the overall
system efficiency and the average response time experienced
by the applications.
• Buffering − Kernel I/O Subsystem maintains a memory area
known as buffer that stores data while they are transferred
between two devices or between a device with an application
operation. Buffering is done to cope with a speed mismatch
between the producer and consumer of a data stream or to
adapt between devices that have different data transfer sizes.
• Caching − Kernel maintains cache memory which is region of
fast memory that holds copies of data. Access to the cached
copy is more efficient than access to the original.
• Spooling and Device Reservation − A spool is a buffer that holds
output for a device, such as a printer, that cannot accept
interleaved data streams. The spooling system copies the
queued spool files to the printer one at a time. In some
operating systems, spooling is managed by a system daemon
process. In other operating systems, it is handled by an in
kernel thread.
• Error Handling − An operating system that uses protected
memory can guard against many kinds of hardware and
application errors.

Operating System - File System

File
A file is a named collection of related information that is recorded on
secondary storage such as magnetic disks, magnetic tapes and
optical disks. In general, a file is a sequence of bits, bytes, lines or
records whose meaning is defined by the files creator and user.

File Structure
A File Structure should be according to a required format that the
operating system can understand.
 • A file has a certain defined structure according to its type.
• A text file is a sequence of characters organized into lines.
• A source file is a sequence of procedures and functions.
• An object file is a sequence of bytes organized into blocks that
are understandable by the machine.
• When operating system defines different file structures, it also
contains the code to support these file structure. Unix, MS-
DOS support minimum number of file structure.

File Type
File type refers to the ability of the operating system to distinguish
different types of file such as text files source files and binary files
etc. Many operating systems support many types of files. Operating
system like MS-DOS and UNIX have the following types of files −

Ordinary files

• These are the files that contain user information.

• These may have text, databases or executable program.
• The user can apply various operations on such files like add,
modify, delete or even remove the entire file.

Directory files

• These files contain list of file names and other information

related to these files.

Special files

• These files are also known as device files.

• These files represent physical device like disks, terminals,
printers, networks, tape drive etc.

These files are of two types −

• Character special files − data is handled character by character

as in case of terminals or printers.
• Block special files − data is handled in blocks as in the case of
disks and tapes.
File Access Mechanisms
File access mechanism refers to the manner in which the records of
a file may be accessed. There are several ways to access files −

• Sequential access
• Direct/Random access
• Indexed sequential access

Sequential access

A sequential access is that in which the records are accessed in

some sequence, i.e., the information in the file is processed in
order, one record after the other. This access method is the most
primitive one. Example: Compilers usually access files in this
fashion.

Direct/Random access

• Random access file organization provides, accessing the

records directly.
• Each record has its own address on the file with by the help of
which it can be directly accessed for reading or writing.
• The records need not be in any sequence within the file and
they need not be in adjacent locations on the storage medium.

Indexed sequential access

• This mechanism is built up on base of sequential access.

• An index is created for each file which contains pointers to
various blocks.
• Index is searched sequentially and its pointer is used to access
the file directly.
 Space Allocation
Files are allocated disk spaces by operating system. Operating
systems deploy following three main ways to allocate disk space to
files.

• Contiguous Allocation
• Linked Allocation
• Indexed Allocation

Contiguous Allocation

• Each file occupies a contiguous address space on disk.

• Assigned disk address is in linear order.
• Easy to implement.
• External fragmentation is a major issue with this type of
allocation technique.

Linked Allocation

• Each file carries a list of links to disk blocks.

• Directory contains link / pointer to first block of a file.
• No external fragmentation
• Effectively used in sequential access file.
• Inefficient in case of direct access file.

Indexed Allocation

• Provides solutions to problems of contiguous and linked

allocation.
• A index block is created having all pointers to files.
• Each file has its own index block which stores the addresses of
disk space occupied by the file.
• Directory contains the addresses of index blocks of files.
 Operating System - Security
Security refers to providing a protection system to computer system
resources such as CPU, memory, disk, software programs and most
importantly data/information stored in the computer system. If a
computer program is run by an unauthorized user, then he/she may
cause severe damage to computer or data stored in it. So a
computer system must be protected against unauthorized access,
malicious access to system memory, viruses, worms etc. We're
going to discuss following topics in this chapter.

• Authentication
• One Time passwords
• Program Threats
• System Threats
• Computer Security Classifications

Authentication
Authentication refers to identifying each user of the system and
associating the executing programs with those users. It is the
responsibility of the Operating System to create a protection system
which ensures that a user who is running a particular program is
authentic. Operating Systems generally identifies/authenticates
users using following three ways −

• Username / Password − User need to enter a registered

username and password with Operating system to login into
the system.
• User card/key − User need to punch card in card slot, or enter
key generated by key generator in option provided by
operating system to login into the system.
• User attribute - fingerprint/ eye retina pattern/ signature − User
need to pass his/her attribute via designated input device used
by operating system to login into the system.
One Time passwords
One-time passwords provide additional security along with normal
authentication. In One-Time Password system, a unique password is
required every time user tries to login into the system. Once a one-
time password is used, then it cannot be used again. One-time
password are implemented in various ways.

• Random numbers − Users are provided cards having numbers

printed along with corresponding alphabets. System asks for
numbers corresponding to few alphabets randomly chosen.
• Secret key − User are provided a hardware device which can
create a secret id mapped with user id. System asks for such
secret id which is to be generated every time prior to login.
• Network password − Some commercial applications send one-
time passwords to user on registered mobile/ email which is
required to be entered prior to login.

Program Threats
Operating system's processes and kernel do the designated task as
instructed. If a user program made these process do malicious
tasks, then it is known as Program Threats. One of the common
example of program threat is a program installed in a computer
which can store and send user credentials via network to some
hacker. Following is the list of some well-known program threats.

• Trojan Horse − Such program traps user login credentials and

stores them to send to malicious user who can later on login to
computer and can access system resources.
• Trap Door − If a program which is designed to work as
required, have a security hole in its code and perform illegal
action without knowledge of user then it is called to have a
trap door.
• Logic Bomb − Logic bomb is a situation when a program
misbehaves only when certain conditions met otherwise it
works as a genuine program. It is harder to detect.
• Virus − Virus as name suggest can replicate themselves on
computer system. They are highly dangerous and can
 modify/delete user files, crash systems. A virus is generatlly a
small code embedded in a program. As user accesses the
program, the virus starts getting embedded in other files/
programs and can make system unusable for user

System Threats
System threats refers to misuse of system services and network
connections to put user in trouble. System threats can be used to
launch program threats on a complete network called as program
attack. System threats creates such an environment that operating
system resources/ user files are misused. Following is the list of
some well-known system threats.

• Worm − Worm is a process which can choked down a system

performance by using system resources to extreme levels. A
Worm process generates its multiple copies where each copy
uses system resources, prevents all other processes to get
required resources. Worms processes can even shut down an
entire network.
• Port Scanning − Port scanning is a mechanism or means by
which a hacker can detects system vulnerabilities to make an
attack on the system.
• Denial of Service − Denial of service attacks normally prevents
user to make legitimate use of the system. For example, a
user may not be able to use internet if denial of service attacks
browser's content settings.

Computer Security Classifications

As per the U.S. Department of Defense Trusted Computer System's
Evaluation Criteria there are four security classifications in computer
systems: A, B, C, and D. This is widely used specifications to
determine and model the security of systems and of security
solutions. Following is the brief description of each classification.

S.N. Classification Type & Description

1 Type A
 Highest Level. Uses formal design specifications and verification techniques. Grants a high
degree of assurance of process security.

Type B
Provides mandatory protection system. Have all the properties of a class C2 system.
Attaches a sensitivity label to each object. It is of three types.
• B1 − Maintains the security label of each object in the system. Label is used for
2 making decisions to access control.
• B2 − Extends the sensitivity labels to each system resource, such as storage objects,
supports covert channels and auditing of events.
• B3 − Allows creating lists or user groups for access-control to grant access or
revoke access to a given named object.

Type C
Provides protection and user accountability using audit capabilities. It is of two types.
• C1 − Incorporates controls so that users can protect their private information and
3
keep other users from accidentally reading / deleting their data. UNIX versions are
mostly Cl class.
• C2 − Adds an individual-level access control to the capabilities of a Cl level system.

Type D
4
Lowest level. Minimum protection. MS-DOS, Window 3.1 fall in this category.

Operating System - Linux

Linux is one of popular version of UNIX operating System. It is open
source as its source code is freely available. It is free to use. Linux
was designed considering UNIX compatibility. Its functionality list is
quite similar to that of UNIX.

Components of Linux System

Linux Operating System has primarily three components

• Kernel − Kernel is the core part of Linux. It is responsible for

all major activities of this operating system. It consists of
various modules and it interacts directly with the underlying
hardware. Kernel provides the required abstraction to hide low
level hardware details to system or application programs.
• System Library − System libraries are special functions or
programs using which application programs or system utilities
accesses Kernel's features. These libraries implement most of
 the functionalities of the operating system and do not requires
kernel module's code access rights.
• System Utility − System Utility programs are responsible to do
specialized, individual level tasks.

Kernel Mode vs User Mode

Kernel component code executes in a special privileged mode
called kernel mode with full access to all resources of the computer.
This code represents a single process, executes in single address
space and do not require any context switch and hence is very
efficient and fast. Kernel runs each processes and provides system
services to processes, provides protected access to hardware to
processes.

Support code which is not required to run in kernel mode is in

System Library. User programs and other system programs works
in User Mode which has no access to system hardware and kernel
code. User programs/ utilities use System libraries to access Kernel
functions to get system's low level tasks.

Basic Features
Following are some of the important features of Linux Operating
System.
 • Portable − Portability means software can works on different
types of hardware in same way. Linux kernel and application
programs supports their installation on any kind of hardware
platform.
• Open Source − Linux source code is freely available and it is
community based development project. Multiple teams work in
collaboration to enhance the capability of Linux operating
system and it is continuously evolving.
• Multi-User − Linux is a multiuser system means multiple users
can access system resources like memory/ ram/ application
programs at same time.
• Multiprogramming − Linux is a multiprogramming system
means multiple applications can run at same time.
• Hierarchical File System − Linux provides a standard file
structure in which system files/ user files are arranged.
• Shell − Linux provides a special interpreter program which can
be used to execute commands of the operating system. It can
be used to do various types of operations, call application
programs. etc.
• Security − Linux provides user security using authentication
features like password protection/ controlled access to specific
files/ encryption of data.

Architecture
The following illustration shows the architecture of a Linux system −
The architecture of a Linux System consists of the following layers −

• Hardware layer − Hardware consists of all peripheral devices

(RAM/ HDD/ CPU etc).
• Kernel − It is the core component of Operating System,
interacts directly with hardware, provides low level services to
upper layer components.
• Shell − An interface to kernel, hiding complexity of kernel's
functions from users. The shell takes commands from the user
and executes kernel's functions.
• Utilities − Utility programs that provide the user most of the
functionalities of an operating systems.