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Operating System Basics

✓The Operating System acts as a bridge between the user

applications/tasks and the underlying system resources
through a set of system functionalities and services
✓OS manages the system resources and makes them
available to the user applications/tasks on a need basis
✓The primary functions of an Operating system is
✓Make the system convenient to use
✓Organize and manage the system resources efficiently
and correctly
The Operating System Architecture 1
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User Applications
Application Programming
Interface (API)
Memory Management

Kernel Services
Process Management
Time Management

File System Management

I/O System Management
Device Driver
Interface
Underlying Hardware

The Operating System Architecture 2

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The Kernel

✓The kernel is the core of the operating system

✓It is responsible for managing the system resources and
the communication among the hardware and other
system services
✓Kernel acts as the abstraction layer between system
resources and user applications

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✓Kernel contains a set of system libraries and services.
For a general purpose OS, the kernel contains different
services like
✓Process Management
✓Primary Memory Management
✓File System management
✓I/O System (Device) Management
✓Secondary Storage Management
✓Protection
✓Time management
✓Interrupt Handling 4
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✓ Process Management
✓Deals with managing the processes/tasks.
✓Includes setting up the memory space for the
process, loading the process’s code into
memory space, allocating system resources,
✓ scheduling and managing the execution of the
process,
✓Setting up and managing the Process Control
Block (PCB)
✓Inter Process Communication and
synchronisation, process termination/deletion,
etc.

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✓Primary Memory Management

✓RAM a volatile memory – processes are loaded,
variables and shared data are stored
✓Memory Management Unit (MMU)
✓Keeping track of which part of the memory area is
currently used by which process
✓Allocating and De-allocating memory space on a
need basis (Dynamic Memory Allocation)

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✓ File System management

✓ File could be a program (source code, .exe…), text files, image
files, word docs. audio/video…
✓ The file operation is a useful service provided by the OS.
✓ The file system management service of kernel is responsible for
✓ Creation, deletion and alteration
✓ Saving in secondary storage memory
✓ Providing automatic allocation of file space based on available free
space
✓ Providing a flexible naming convention
✓ OS dependent

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✓ I/O System (Device) Management

✓ Kernel is responsible for routing the I/O requests coming from
different user applications to the appropriate I/O devices
✓ No direct access to IO devices, only through APIs exposed by
kernel
✓ Kernel maintains a list of all the IO devices of the system-
available in advance or dynamically updates
✓ Device Manager- handles device related operations
✓ The kernel talks to the IO device through a set of low-level
systems calls which are implemented in a service, called
device drivers
✓ Device drivers are specific to device or type
✓ Device Manager is responsible for
✓ Loading and unloading of device drivers
✓ Exchanging information and the system specific control
signals to and from device.

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✓Secondary Storage Management

✓Manages secondary storage memory devices if
connected to the system
✓Disk storage allocation
✓Disk scheduling
✓Free disk space management

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✓Protection
✓Through multiple users with different levels of
access permissions
✓Windows XP- ‘Administrator’, ‘Standard’,
Restricted’…

✓Interrupt Handling
✓ Kernel provides handler mechanism for all ext./int
interrupts generated by the system

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Kernel Space and User Space
✓The program code corresponding to the kernel
applications/services are kept in a contiguous area (OS
dependent) of primary (working) memory and is
protected from the un-authorized access by user
programs/applications
✓The memory space at which the kernel code is located is
known as ‘Kernel Space’
✓All user applications are loaded to a specific area of
primary memory and this memory area is referred as
‘User Space’
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Kernel Space and User Space

✓The partitioning of memory into kernel and user
space is purely Operating System dependent
✓An operating system with virtual memory
support, loads the user applications into its
corresponding virtual memory space with
demand paging technique
✓Most of the operating systems keep the kernel
application code in main memory and it is not
swapped out into the secondary memory
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Monolithic Kernel
✓All kernel services run in the kernel space
✓All kernel modules run within the same memory space under a single kernel
thread
✓The tight internal integration of kernel modules in monolithic kernel architecture
allows the effective utilization of the low-level features of the underlying system
✓ The major drawback of monolithic kernel is that any error or failure in any one
of the kernel modules leads to the crashing of the entire kernel application
✓ LINUX, SOLARIS, MS-DOS kernels are examples of monolithic kernel

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Microkernel
✓The microkernel design incorporates only the
essential set of Operating System services into
the kernel
✓Rest of the Operating System services are
implemented in programs known as ‘Servers’
which runs in user space
✓The kernel design is highly modular provides
OS-neutral abstraction
✓Memory management, process management,
timer systems and interrupt handlers are
examples of essential services, which forms
the part of the microkernel
✓QNX, Minix 3 kernels are examples for
microkernel

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Types of Operating Systems
Depending on the type of kernel and kernel services, purpose and type of computing
systems where the OS is deployed and the responsiveness to applications, Operating
Systems are classified into
General Purpose Operating System (GPOS)
✓Operating Systems, which are deployed in general computing systems
✓The kernel is more generalized and contains all the required services to execute
generic applications
✓Need not be deterministic in execution behavior
✓May inject random delays into application software and thus cause slow
responsiveness of an application at unexpected times
✓Usually deployed in computing systems where deterministic behavior is not an
important criterion
✓Personal Computer/Desktop system is a typical example for a system where
GPOSs are deployed.
✓Windows XP/MS-DOS etc are examples of General Purpose Operating System
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Real Time Purpose Operating System (RTOS)

✓Operating Systems, which are deployed in embedded systems demanding real-

time response
✓Deterministic in execution behavior. Consumes only known amount of time for
kernel applications
✓Implements scheduling policies for executing the highest priority
task/application always
✓Implements policies and rules concerning time-critical allocation of a system’s
resources
✓Windows CE, QNX, VxWorks MicroC/OS-II etc are examples of Real Time
Operating Systems (RTOS

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The Real Time Kernel
The kernel of a Real Time Operating System is referred as Real
Time kernel. In complement to the conventional OS kernel, the Real
Time kernel is highly specialized and it contains only the minimal
set of services required for running the user applications/tasks. The
basic functions of a Real Time kernel are
–Task/Process management
–Task/Process scheduling
–Task/Process synchronization
–Error/Exception handling
–Memory Management
–Interrupt handling
–Time management
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Real Time Kernel – Task/Process Management
Deals with setting up the memory space for the tasks,
loading the task’s code into the memory space, allocating
system resources, setting up a Task Control Block (TCB)
for the task and task/process termination/deletion. A Task
Control Block (TCB) is used for holding the information
corresponding to a task. TCB usually contains the
following set of information
•Task ID: Task Identification Number
•Task State: The current state of the task. (E.g. State= ‘Ready’ for a
task which is ready to execute)
•Task Type: Task type. Indicates what is the type for this task. The
task can be a hard real time or soft real time or background task. 18
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Real Time Kernel – Task/Process Management
•Task Priority: Task priority (E.g. Task priority =1 for task with
priority = 1)
•Task Context Pointer: Context pointer. Pointer for context saving
•Task Memory Pointers: Pointers to the code memory, data memory
and stack memory for the task
•Task System Resource Pointers: Pointers to system resources
(semaphores, mutex etc) used by the task
•Task Pointers: Pointers to other TCBs (TCBs for preceding, next
and waiting tasks)
•Other Parameters Other relevant task parameters
The parameters and implementation of the TCB is kernel dependent.
The TCB parameters vary across different kernels, based on the task
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• Task/Process Scheduling: Deals with sharing the CPU
among various tasks/processes. A kernel application
called ‘Scheduler’ handles the task scheduling.
Scheduler is nothing but an algorithm implementation,
which performs the efficient and optimal scheduling of
tasks to provide a deterministic behavior.
• Task/Process Synchronization: Deals with
synchronizing the concurrent access of a resource,
which is shared across multiple tasks and the
communication between various tasks.

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• Error/Exception handling: Deals with registering and
handling the errors occurred/exceptions raised during
the execution of tasks. Insufficient memory, timeouts,
deadlocks, deadline missing, bus error, divide by zero,
unknown instruction execution etc, are examples of
errors/exceptions. Errors/Exceptions can happen at the
kernel level services or at task level. Deadlock is an
example for kernel level exception, whereas timeout is
an example for a task level exception. The OS kernel
gives the information about the error in the form of a
system call (API).

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Memory Management
✓The memory management function of an RTOS kernel
is slightly different compared to the General Purpose
Operating Systems
✓In general, the memory allocation time increases
depending on the size of the block of memory needs to be
allocated and the state of the allocated memory block
(initialized memory block consumes more allocation time
than un-initialized memory block)
✓Since predictable timing and deterministic behavior are
the primary focus for an RTOS, RTOS achieves this by
compromising the effectiveness of memory allocation 22
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Memory Management
✓RTOS generally uses ‘block’ based memory allocation technique,
instead of the usual dynamic memory allocation techniques used by
the GPOS.
✓RTOS kernel uses blocks of fixed size of dynamic memory and
the block is allocated for a task on a need basis. The blocks are
stored in a ‘Free buffer Queue’.
✓Most of the RTOS kernels allow tasks to access any of the
memory blocks without any memory protection to achieve
predictable timing and avoid the timing overheads
✓RTOS kernels assume that the whole design is proven correct and
protection is unnecessary. Some commercial RTOS kernels allow
memory protection as optional and the kernel enters a fail-safe
mode when an illegal memory access occurs 23
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✓Memory Management
✓The memory management function of an RTOS kernel is slightly
different compared to the General Purpose Operating Systems
✓A few RTOS kernels implement Virtual Memory concept for
memory allocation if the system supports secondary memory
storage (like HDD and FLASH memory).
✓In the ‘block’ based memory allocation, a block of fixed memory
is always allocated for tasks on need basis and it is taken as a unit.
Hence, there will not be any memory fragmentation issues.
✓The memory allocation can be implemented as constant functions
and thereby it consumes fixed amount of time for memory
allocation. This leaves the deterministic behavior of the RTOS
kernel untouched
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Interrupt Handling
✓Interrupts inform the processor that an external device or an
associated task requires immediate attention of the CPU.
✓Interrupts can be either Synchronous or Asynchronous.
✓Interrupts which occurs in sync with the currently executing task
is known as Synchronous interrupts. Usually the software interrupts
fall under the Synchronous Interrupt category. Divide by zero,
memory segmentation error etc are examples of Synchronous
interrupts.
✓For synchronous interrupts, the interrupt handler runs in the same
context of the interrupting task.
✓Asynchronous interrupts are interrupts, which occurs at any point
of execution of any task, and are not in sync with the currently
executing task.
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✓The interrupts generated by external devices (by asserting the
Interrupt line of the processor/controller to which the interrupt line
of the device is connected) connected to the processor/controller,
timer overflow interrupts, serial data reception/ transmission
interrupts etc are examples for asynchronous interrupts.
✓For asynchronous interrupts, the interrupt handler is usually
written as separate task (Depends on OS Kernel implementation)
and it runs in a different context. Hence, a context switch happens
while handling the asynchronous interrupts.
✓Priority levels can be assigned to the interrupts and each interrupts
can be enabled or disabled individually.
✓Most of the RTOS kernel implements ‘Nested Interrupts’
architecture. Interrupt nesting allows the pre-emption (interruption)
of an Interrupt Service Routine (ISR), servicing an interrupt, by a
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Time Management
✓Accurate time management is essential for providing precise time
reference for all applications
✓The time reference to kernel is provided by a high-resolution Real
Time Clock (RTC) hardware chip (hardware timer)
✓The hardware timer is programmed to interrupt the
processor/controller at a fixed rate. This timer interrupt is referred
as ‘Timer tick’
✓The ‘Timer tick’ is taken as the timing reference by the kernel.
The ‘Timer tick’ interval may vary depending on the hardware
timer. Usually the ‘Timer tick’ varies in the microseconds range

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Time Management
✓The time parameters for tasks are expressed as the multiples of the
‘Timer tick’
✓The System time is updated based on the ‘Timer tick’
✓If the System time register is 32 bits wide and the ‘Timer tick’
interval is 1 microsecond, the System time register will reset in
232 * 10-6/ (24 * 60 * 60) =~ 0.0497 Days = 1.19 hrs
If the ‘Timer tick’ interval is 1 millisecond, the System time
register will reset in
232 * 10-3 / (24 * 60 * 60) = 497 Days = 49.7 Days =~ 50 Days

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Time Management
The ‘Timer tick’ interrupt is handled by the ‘Timer Interrupt’
handler of kernel. The ‘Timer tick’ interrupt can be utilized for
implementing the following actions.

✓Save the current context (Context of the currently executing task)

✓Increment the System time register by one. Generate timing error
and reset the System time register if the timer tick count is greater
than the maximum range available for System time register
✓Update the timers implemented in kernel (Increment or decrement
the timer registers for each timer depending on the count direction
setting for each register. Increment registers with count direction
setting = ‘count up’ and decrement registers with count direction
setting = ‘count down’)
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Time Management
✓Activate the periodic tasks, which are in the idle state
✓Invoke the scheduler and schedule the tasks again based
on the scheduling algorithm
✓Delete all the terminated tasks and their associated data
structures (TCBs)
✓Load the context for the first task in the ready queue.
Due to the re-scheduling, the ready task might be changed
to a new one from the task, which was pre-empted by the
‘Timer Interrupt’ task

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Hard Real-time System
✓ A Real Time Operating Systems which strictly adheres to the timing constraints for a
task
✓ A Hard Real Time system must meet the deadlines for a task without any slippage
✓ Missing any deadline may produce catastrophic results for Hard Real Time Systems,
including permanent data lose and irrecoverable damages to the system/users
✓ Emphasize on the principle ‘A late answer is a wrong answer’
✓ Air bag control systems and Anti-lock Brake Systems (ABS) of vehicles are typical
examples of Hard Real Time Systems
✓ As a rule of thumb, Hard Real Time Systems does not implement the virtual memory
model for handling the memory. This eliminates the delay in swapping in and out the
code corresponding to the task to and from the primary memory
✓ The presence of Human in the loop (HITL) for tasks introduces un-expected delays in
the task execution. Most of the Hard Real Time Systems are automatic and does not
contain a ‘human in the loop’

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Soft Real-time System
✓ Real Time Operating Systems that does not guarantee meeting deadlines, but,
offer the best effort to meet the deadline
✓ Missing deadlines for tasks are acceptable if the frequency of deadline missing
is within the compliance limit of the Quality of Service (QoS)
✓ A Soft Real Time system emphasizes on the principle ‘A late answer is an
acceptable answer, but it could have done bit faster’
✓ Soft Real Time systems most often have a ‘human in the loop (HITL)’
✓ Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) is a typical example of Soft Real Time
System. If the ATM takes a few seconds more than the ideal operation time,
nothing fatal happens.
✓ An audio video play back system is another example of Soft Real Time system.
No potential damage arises if a sample comes late by fraction of a second, for
play back

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Tasks, Processes & Threads

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Tasks, Processes & Threads
✓In the Operating System context, a task is defined as the
program in execution and the related information
maintained by the Operating system for the program
✓Task is also known as ‘Job’ in the operating system
context
✓A program or part of it in execution is also called a
‘Process’
✓The terms ‘Task’, ‘job’ and ‘Process’ refer to the same
entity in the Operating System context and most often
they are used interchangeably
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Process
✓A process requires various system resources like
CPU for executing the process, memory for storing
the code corresponding to the process and
associated variables, I/O devices for information
exchange etc

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The structure of a Processes
✓The concept of ‘Process’ leads to concurrent execution (pseudo parallelism) of
tasks and thereby the efficient utilization of the CPU and other system resources
✓Concurrent execution is achieved through the sharing of CPU among the
processes
✓A process mimics a processor in properties and holds a set of registers, process
status, a Program Counter (PC) to point to the next executable instruction of the
process, a stack for holding the local variables associated with the process and
the code corresponding to the process

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The structure of a Processes
✓A process, which inherits all the properties of the CPU, can be
considered as a virtual processor, awaiting its turn to have its
properties switched into the physical processor
✓When the process gets its turn, its registers and Program
counter register becomes mapped to the physical registers of the
CPU

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Memory organization of a Processes
✓ The memory occupied by the process is
segregated into three regions namely; Stack
memory, Data memory and Code memory Stack Memory

✓ The ‘Stack’ memory holds all temporary data Stack memory grows
such as variables local to the process downwards

✓ Data memory holds all global data for the process Data memory grows
upwards
✓ The code memory contains the program code
(instructions) corresponding to the process
Data Memory
✓ On loading a process into the main memory, a
specific area of memory is allocated for the
process Code Memory

✓ The stack memory usually starts at the highest

memory address from the memory area allocated
for the process (Depending on the OS kernel
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Process States & State Transition
✓The creation of a process to its termination is not a
single step operation
✓The process traverses through a series of states during
its transition from the newly created state to the
terminated state

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Process States & State
Created
Transition
✓The cycle through which a Incepted into memory

process changes its state from

n Ready
‘newly created’ to ‘execution I/O Com
pletio quired
e so u
Ac
r ce
ed R
completed’ is known as ‘Process Shar

Scheduled for
Interrupted or

Execution
Preempted
Blocked
Life Cycle’. The various states
through which a process Wait
Wait
ing ing
for s for I/
h a re d O
traverses through during a R e so
u r ce Running

Process Life Cycle indicates the

Execution Completion
current status of the process with
respect to time and also provides Completed

information on what it is allowed

to do next
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Process States & State Transition

• Created State: The state at which a process is being created is

referred as ‘Created State’. The Operating System recognizes a
process in the ‘Created State’ but no resources are allocated to
the process
• Ready State: The state, where a process is incepted into the
memory and awaiting the processor time for execution, is known
as ‘Ready State’. At this stage, the process is placed in the
‘Ready list’ queue maintained by the OS
• Running State: The state where in the source code instructions
corresponding to the process is being executed is called ‘Running
State’. Running state is the state at which the process execution
happens.

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Process States & State Transition
• Blocked State/Wait State: Refers to a state where a running
process is temporarily suspended from execution and does not
have immediate access to resources. The blocked state might
have invoked by various conditions like- the process enters a
wait state for an event to occur (E.g. Waiting for user inputs such
as keyboard input) or waiting for getting access to a shared
resource like semaphore, mutex etc
• Completed State: A state where the process completes its
execution
✓ The transition of a process from one state to another is known as
‘State transition’
✓ When a process changes its state from Ready to running or from
running to blocked or terminated or from blocked to running, the
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Threads
✓A thread is the primitive that can execute code
✓A thread is a single sequential flow of control within a process
✓‘Thread’ is also known as lightweight process
✓A process can have many threads of execution
✓ Different threads, which are part of a process, share the same address space;
meaning they share the data memory, code memory and heap memory area
✓ Threads maintain their own thread status (CPU register values), Program
Counter (PC) and stack

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The Concept of multithreading
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The Concept of multithreading

Use of multiple threads to execute a process brings the following

advantage.
✓Better memory utilization. Multiple threads of the same process share
the address space for data memory. This also reduces the complexity of
inter thread communication since variables can be shared across the
threads.
✓Since the process is split into different threads, when one thread enters a
wait state, the CPU can be utilized by other threads of the process that
do not require the event, which the other thread is waiting, for
processing. This speeds up the execution of the process.
✓Efficient CPU utilization. The CPU is engaged all time.

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Thread Standards

Thread standards deal with the different standards

available for thread creation and management.
These standards are utilized by the Operating
Systems for thread creation and thread
management. It is a set of thread class libraries.
The commonly available thread class libraries are

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POSIX Threads: POSIX stands for Portable Operating

System Interface. The POSIX.4 standard deals with the
Real Time extensions and POSIX.4a standard deals with
thread extensions. The POSIX standard library for thread
creation and management is ‘Pthreads’. ‘Pthreads’ library
defines the set of POSIX thread creation and management
functions in ‘C’ language.

POSIX Thread Creation

int pthread_create(pthread_t *new_thread_ID, const pthread_attr_t

*attribute, void * (*start_function)(void *), void *arguments);

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Thread Standards
Win32 Threads: Win32 threads are the threads supported by
various flavors of Windows Operating Systems. The Win32
Application Programming Interface (Win32 API) libraries provide
the standard set of Win32 thread creation and management
functions. Win32 threads are created with the API
WIN32 Thread Creation

HANDLE CreateThread (LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES

lpThreadAttributes,DWORD dwStackSize, LPTHREAD_START_ROUTINE
lpStartAddress, LPVOID lpParameter, DWORD dwCreationFlags, LPDWORD
lpThreadId );

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•Java Threads: Java threads are the threads supported by Java programming
Language. The java thread class ‘Thread’ is defined in the package ‘java.lang’.
This package needs to be imported for using the thread creation functions
supported by the Java thread class. There are two ways of creating threads in
Java: Either by extending the base ‘Thread’ class or by implementing an interface.
Extending the thread class allows inheriting the methods and variables of the
parent class (Thread class) only whereas interface allows a way to achieve the
requirements for a set of classes
import java.lang.*; Java Thread Creation
public class MyThread extends Thread
{ public void run()
{
System.out.println("Hello from MyThread!");
}
public static void main(String args[])
{
(new MyThread()).start();
}
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User & Kernel level threads

• User Level Thread: : User level threads do not have

kernel/Operating System support and they exist solely
in the running process. Even if a process contains
multiple user level threads, the OS treats it as single
thread and will not switch the execution among the
different threads of it. It is the responsibility of the
process to schedule each thread as and when required.
In summary, user level threads of a process are non-
preemptive at thread level from OS perspective.

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User & Kernel level threads

• Kernel Level/System Level Thread: Kernel level threads are

individual units of execution, which the OS treats as separate
threads. The OS interrupts the execution of the currently running
kernel thread and switches the execution to another kernel thread
based on the scheduling policies implemented by the OS.
✓ The execution switching (thread context switching) of user
level threads happen only when the currently executing user
level thread is voluntarily blocked. Hence, no OS intervention
and system calls are involved in the context switching of user
level threads. This makes context switching of user level
threads very fast.
✓ Kernel level threads involve lots of kernel overhead and involve
system calls for context switching. However, kernel threads
maintain a clear layer of abstraction and allow threads to use51
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S. User-Level Threads Kernel-Level Thread

N.

Difference between User-Level & Kernel-Level Thread

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

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

the user level. Kernel threads.

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

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

advantage of multiprocessing. multithreaded.

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Thread binding Models
• Many-to-One Model: Many user level threads are mapped to a
single kernel thread. The kernel treats all user level threads as
single thread and the execution switching among the user level
threads happens when a currently executing user level thread
voluntarily blocks itself or relinquishes the CPU. Solaris Green
threads and GNU Portable Threads are examples for this.
• One-to-One Model: Each user level thread is bonded to a
kernel/system level thread. Windows XP/NT/2000 and Linux
threads are examples of One-to-One thread models.
• Many-to-Many Model: In this model many user level threads
are allowed to be mapped to many kernel threads. Windows
NT/2000 with ThreadFiber package is an example for this.

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Thread V/s Process

Thread Process

Thread is a single unit of Process is a program in execution

execution and is part of process. and contains one or more threads.

A thread does not have its own Process has its own code memory,
data memory and heap memory. data memory and stack memory.
It shares the data memory and
heap memory with other threads
of the same process.

A thread cannot live A process contains at least one

independently; it lives within thread.
the process.

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Thread V/s Process
Thread Process
There can be multiple threads in Threads within a process share the
a process. The first thread code, data and heap memory. Each
(main thread) calls the main thread holds separate memory area
function and occupies the start for stack (shares the total stack
of the stack memory of the memory of the process).
process.

Threads are very inexpensive to Processes are very expensive to

create create. Involves many OS
overhead.
Context switching is Context switching is complex and
inexpensive and fast involves lot of OS overhead and is
comparatively slower.
If a thread expires, its stack is If a process dies, the resources
reclaimed by the process. allocated to it are reclaimed by the
OS and all the associated threads of
the process also dies. 55