Introduction to

System Programming

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023

Module Outline
 A Brief History of Computing

 Basic Organization and Operation of a Computer System

 System Software

 System Programming

 Module Summary

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 2

 A (Very) Brief History of Computing

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 3

(Very) Brief History of Computing
 1940’s: special-purpose computers
 Z1, Colossus, ENIAC
“Programmable” by rewiring the system

 early 1950’s: general-purpose computers

 EDVAC, bombe
 programs stored in memory
 CPU fetch-execute cycle
 single program, single user at a time

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 4

(Very) Brief History of Computing
 mid 1950’s: batch programming
 operator combines programs into
batches of programs
 executing a batch meant executing
the programs one by one
 results available after all jobs in
the batch had completed
 “resident monitor”: a first primitive
version of system software
 control card interpreter
 loader
 device drivers

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 5

(Very) Brief History of Computing
 mid 1950’s: batch programming (cont’d)
 no protection:
a faulty job reading too many cards, over-
writing the resident monitor’s memory, or entering an
endless loop would affect the entire system
 lead to:
 operating modes (user/monitor)
 memory protection
 execution timers

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 6

(Very) Brief History of Computing
 early 1960’s: multiprogramming
 more memory  keep several programs
in memory at once
(memory partitioning to separate the
different jobs)
 OS monitor could switch between jobs
when one became idle (i.e., waiting for I/O)
 e.g., IBM OS/360

 mid 1960’s: timesharing

 switch between jobs periodically
 access via remote terminals
 e.g., CTSS, MULTICS, UNIX

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 7

(Very) Brief History of Computing
 late 1970’s: personal computers
 single user, dedicated workstation
 WIMP user interface
 peripherals connected directly
 single processor, time-sharing

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 8

Today AMD Zen2 Core Complex Die
Source: Wikichip

 Parallel processing
 highly parallel and complex CPU
 several physical processors
 several cores per physical processor
 hyper-threading in a single core
 heterogeneous cores
 GPU, CPU, accelerators
 large memory, fast network
 several users, several programs

 System software a must

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 9

The Fastest Computer Today
 Frontier (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
 8,699,904 cores
 AMD CPUs (EPYC 64C) + GPUs (MI250X)
 74 cabinets
 Interconnect
 CPU-GPU: AMD Infinity
 system: Slingshot network

 1.7 EF peak performance

 1.2 EF Linpack

 #1 on the top500.org list since June 2022

 the only computer to reach one exaflop/s

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 10

The Development of Computing Power

System Year Speed

Z1 1938 1.00 IP/s
ENIAC 1946 5.00 kIP/s
Atlas 1962 1.00 MFLOP/s
Cray-2 1985 1.41 GFLOP/s
ASCI Red 1997 1.06 TFLOP/s
Roadrunner 2008 1.02 PFLOP/s
Frontier 2022 1.10 EFLOP/s

 Your smartphone provides about the same performance as the world’s fastest
supercomputer from 1997 – 2000, ASCI Red. Yet, it (reference: Samsung Galaxy S22),
 requires about 25 times fewer processors to do so
 is about 70’000 times cheaper
 consumes about 450’000 times less power

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 11

 Basic Organization and Operation
Modern Computer Systems

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 12

Hardware Organization
 General hardware organization

Memory

I/O I/O … …
PU(*) PU PU
processor processor

disk NIC printer mouse kbd

(*) PU = Processing Unit

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 13

Hardware Organization: Microsoft Surface Pro

 Microsoft ARM processor  Winbond 256 Mb serial flash memory

 2x4GB Samsung LPDDR4X RAM  Qualcom RF module
 NXP EV180 microcontroller  Qorvo Wifi module
 Macronix 16Mb serial NOR flash memory image sources: Microsoft, iFIXIT

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 14

Hardware Organization: Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

 Qualcom Snapdragon 865 processor (8 cores),

overlaid by 12GB Samsung LPDDR5 RAM
 128GB Samsung flash storage
 Qualcomm 5G modem
 Skyworks RF module
 Qorvo Wifi module
 Maxim power management IC
 Qualcom power amplification
image sources: Samsung Electronics, iFIXIT modules

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 15

Hardware Organization: Samsung Galaxy Watch

 Samsung Exynos 9110 (dual core)  Skyworks power amplifiers

 NXP NFC module  STMicroelectronics barometric pressure sensor
 Broadcom Wifi/Bluetooth modules  ST Micro 32-bit ARM SecurCore
image sources: Samsung, iFIXIT

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 16

Program Execution
 Applications execute under the assumption they run exclusively on the hardware
 private memory
 private compute resources (CPU cores, GPUs, accelerators, …)
 uninterrupted access to peripherals (disk, network, …)

 yet, programs may

 run in parallel
 be multi-threaded
 communicate with each other
 access shared physical resources

 This illusion is maintained by the operating system (OS)

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 17

Operating System Basics
 The operating system manages the hardware
 protect H/W from misuse by buggy/malicious programs
 provide simple and uniform mechanisms for manipulating hardware devices

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 18

Operating System Basics
 Fundamental abstractions
 processes
 virtual memory
 files

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 19

Abstraction 1: Files
 Abstraction of physical storage
 sequence of bytes
 single interface to interact with files
 organized in a hierarchical structure (directories)

$ dirtree lecture/code/02/Unix
lecture/code/02/Unix/
├ dedup/
│ ├ dedup.py
│ └ strings.txt
├ dirsize/
│ ├ dirsize
│ ├ dirsize.bash.txt
│ ├ dirsize.c
│ ├ dirsize.find.sh
│ ├ dirsize.ls.sh
│ └ dirsize.py
└ dirtree/
├ .dirtree.c.swp
├ Makefile
├ dirtree
└ dirtree.c

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 20

Abstraction 2: Virtual Memory
 Abstraction of physical memory

 Provides each running program with the illusion that it has

exclusive use of the main memory

 Managed by the OS with the help of a hardware translation unit:

the memory management unit (MMU)

 Virtual memory also provides the basis for

 paging
 sharing
 mmap

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 21

Abstraction 2: Virtual Memory
 Layout on x86_64 Linux systems

FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF

FFFF.... ........
kernel address
space

FFFF8000 00000000

00007FFF FFFFFFFF

0000.... ........
user address
space
00000000 00000000
program
entry point

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 22

Abstraction 2: Virtual Memory
 Layout on x86_64 Linux systems

#include <stdio.h> $ gcc -Wall -o hello hello.c

#include <stdlib.h> $ ./hello
#include <unistd.h> Hello, world
address of main: 0x559f777b4155
char global[1024*1024]; address of printf: 0x7fd7e0d33cf0
address of global: 0x559f777b7060
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) address of ptr: 0x7ffe605f9fd0
{ address of mem[ptr]: 0x7fd7e0bd8010
char *ptr = malloc(1024*1024); ^C
$ ./hello
printf("Hello, world\n"); Hello, world
address of main: 0x55c051daf155
printf(" address of main: %p\n", main); address of printf: 0x7f522a055cf0
printf(" address of printf: %p\n", printf); address of global: 0x55c051db2060
printf(" address of global: %p\n", global); address of ptr: 0x7ffe8bee2bb0
printf(" address of ptr: %p\n", &ptr); address of mem[ptr]: 0x7f5229efa010
printf(" address of mem[ptr]: %p\n", ptr); ^C
$
while (1) sleep(1);

return EXIT_SUCCESS;
} hello.c

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 23

 $ ./hello
Hello, world
Virtual Memory Hello, world
address of main: 0x55dbeb167155
address of printf: 0x7f1eb5d5bcf0
address of global: 0x55dbeb16a060
address of ptr: 0x7fff566ff4c0
 Layout on x86_64 Linux systems ^Z
address of mem[ptr]: 0x7f1eb5c00010

[1]+ Stopped ./hello

$ bg
[1]+ ./hello &
$ ps
PID TTY TIME CMD
7225 pts/4 00:00:00 bash
7375 pts/4 00:00:00 hello
7398 pts/4 00:00:00 ps
$ pmap 7375
7375: ./hello
000055dbeb166000 4K r---- hello
…
000055dbeb16a000 4K rw--- hello
000055dbeb16b000 1024K rw--- [ anon ]
000055dbecc28000 132K rw--- [ anon ]
00007f1eb5c00000 1040K rw--- [ anon ]
00007f1eb5d04000 160K r---- libc.so.6
00007f1eb5d2c000 1448K r-x-- libc.so.6
…
00007f1eb5f13000 8K rw--- [ anon ]
00007f1eb5f15000 8K r---- ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
00007f1eb5f17000 152K r-x-- ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
program …
00007f1eb5f4b000 8K rw--- ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
entry point
00007fff566df000 136K rw--- [ stack ]
00007fff56715000 16K r---- [ anon ]
00007fff56719000 4K r-x-- [ anon ]
ffffffffff600000 4K r-x-- [ anon ]
total 4620K
$ gdb ./hello

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 24

Abstraction 3: Processes
 Abstraction of a running program

 Provides each running program with the illusion that it has

exclusive access to the CPU

 Multiple processes can run concurrently

 multi-core processors: true parallelism
 single-cores: apparent parallelism through context-switching

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 25

Abstraction 3: Processes
 Processes on a Linux system
$ ps –AfeH
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
root 2 0 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 [kthreadd]
root 3 2 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root 5 2 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 [kworker/0:0H]
root 7 2 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:12 [rcu_sched]
root 8 2 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 [rcu_bh]
root 9 2 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 [migration/0]
…
root 1 0 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 init [3]
root 1574 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 2173 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 supervising syslog-ng
root 2174 2173 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/syslog-ng --persist-file /var/lib/…
root 2202 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/crond
message+ 2230 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
root 2436 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 dhcpcd -m 4 enp5s0
root 2502 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cupsd -C /etc/cups/cupsd.conf -s /etc/cups/…
ntp 2554 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:01 /usr/sbin/ntpd -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g -u ntp:ntp
root 2586 1 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
root 5096 2586 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 sshd: bernhard [priv]
bernhard 5108 5096 0 Sep06 ? 00:00:00 sshd: bernhard@notty
…
bernhard 27826 1 0 01:23 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/urxvt
bernhard 27827 27826 0 01:23 pts/2 00:00:00 bash
bernhard 29815 27827 0 02:09 pts/2 00:00:00 ps -AfeH
$ ps –AfeH | wc –l
689
$

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 26

Abstraction 3: Processes
 Process Isolation: Memory

#include <stdio.h> $ ./count &

#include <stdlib.h> [1] 21616
#include <unistd.h> $ [21616] counter located at 0x55555555805c
Process 21616: counter = 0
int counter = 0; Process 21616: counter = 1
Process 21616: counter = 2
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) ./count &
{ [2] 21617
pid_t pid = getpid(); $ [21617] counter located at 0x55555555805c
Process 21617: counter = 0
printf("Process %5d: counter is located " Process 21616: counter = 3
"at address %p\n", pid, &counter); Process 21617: counter = 1
Process 21616: counter = 4
while (1) { Process 21617: counter = 2
printf("Process %5d: counter = %3d\n", Process 21616: counter = 5
pid, counter++); Process 21617: counter = 3
sleep(1); Process 21616: counter = 6
} Process 21617: counter = 4
Process 21616: counter = 7
return EXIT_SUCCESS; Process 21617: counter = 5
} count.c

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 27

 Application Software

System Software

Hardware

System Software

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 28

System Software?
 What exactly is system software?
Application Software System Software
Purpose? Software written to perform a
specific task independent of the
actual hardware
Accesses Uses the services provided by
hardware how? system software to perform its
function and interact with hardware
Interacts with? Interacts with hardware through the
API provided by the kernel
Programming Written in many different
language? programming languages
Machine Is (hopefully) machine independent
dependent?
Fault “tolerant”? Errors simply crash the application

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 29

System Software
 Interface between application software and hardware
Application Software System Software
Purpose? Software written to perform a Software enabling users to
specific task independent of the interact with the computer
actual hardware system
Accesses Uses the services provided by Controls and manages the
hardware how? system software to perform its hardware
function and interact with hardware
Interacts with? Interacts with hardware through the Interacts with hardware
API provided by the kernel directly
Programming Written in many different Typically written in a flavor of
language? programming languages C and assembly
Machine Is (hopefully) machine independent Is machine dependent
dependent?
Fault “tolerant”? Errors simply crash the application Errors often lead to
catastrophic failures
M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 30
 Application Software
System Software
System Software

 System software Hardware

Software designed to operate and control the hardware
of a computer and to provide a platform for running application software.

 System software includes

 kernel
 programs that enable interaction with hardware
 assembler
 compiler
 linker
 low-level tools
 inspection tools
 disk checking and defragmenting

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 31

 System Programming

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 32

System Programming
 This course: not about writing system software

 Goal 1: Understanding the general concepts of system software

 abstractions
 interaction hardware / system software

 Goal 2: Know how to use the services provided by system software

 system calls
 how different system software tools work

 Goal 3: Become a better programmer

 Practice creates masters

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 33

Why System Programming?
AI, Machine Theoretical
Graphics Learning CS
Programming

Programming
Data Science Languages
Embedded
Systems Database
Systems Compilers

Networking Operating
Systems Computer
Security

System
Programming

Computer
Data Architecture
Structures
Programming

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 34

Why System Programming?

“I program everything in Python.

I don’t need to know this stuff.”

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 35

Why System Programming?
 Well, I got bad news for you
 The Python interpreter/runtime
https://github.com/python/cpython

 Numpy
https://github.com/numpy/numpy

 Tensorflow
https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow

 Java (VM & compiler)

https://github.com/openjdk/jdk

 Julia
https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia

 R
https://www.r-project.org/ (https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/)

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 36

 Summary
 -------------
 -------------
 -------------
 -------------
 -------------
 -----

Module Summary

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 37

Module Summary
 Over the course of less than 100 years, computer systems have evolved from huge,
slow monsters to the most high-tech ubiquitously available devices

 All computer systems share a common underlying architecture

 from high-performance servers to tiny embedded devices

 Computer systems are all about abstractions

 to simplify the task of programming and using the computer system
 these abstractions are provided by system software:
the operating system, compilers, low-level tools

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 38

Module Summary
 In this course, you will
 come to understand the general concepts of system software,
 learn how to use the services provided by system software,
 learn how different system software tools work, and
 familiarize yourself with Linux, system tools, and C

 Understanding how a computer system works and executes programs is essential for
almost all hot areas in computer science
 cyber security
 data science
 machine learning and artificial intelligence
 general super computing
 quantum computing
 and many more

M1522.000800 System Programming, Fall 2023 39