Chapter 3: Processes

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018

 Outline
▪ Process Concept
▪ Process Scheduling
▪ Operations on Processes
▪ Interprocess Communication
▪ IPC in Shared-Memory Systems
▪ IPC in Message-Passing Systems
▪ Examples of IPC Systems
▪ Communication in Client-Server Systems

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Objectives
▪ Identify the separate components of a process and illustrate how they
are represented and scheduled in an operating system.
▪ Describe how processes are created and terminated in an operating
system, including developing programs using the appropriate system
calls that perform these operations.
▪ Describe and contrast interprocess communication using shared
memory and message passing.
▪ Design programs that uses pipes and POSIX shared memory to
perform interprocess communication.
▪ Describe client-server communication using sockets and remote
procedure calls.
▪ Design kernel modules that interact with the Linux operating system.

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 Process Concept
▪ An operating system executes a variety of programs that run as a process.
▪ Process – a program in execution; process execution must progress in
sequential fashion. No parallel execution of instructions of a single process
▪ Multiple parts
• The program code, also called text section
• Current activity including program counter, processor registers
• Stack containing temporary data
 Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
• Data section containing global variables
• Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time

Geuss why the Stack data structure is used?

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 Process Concept (Cont.)
▪ Program is passive entity stored on disk (executable file);
process is active
• Program becomes process when an executable file is
loaded into memory
▪ Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks, command
line entry of its name, etc.
▪ One program can be several processes
• Consider multiple users executing the same program

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 Process in Memory

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 Memory Layout of a C Program

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 Process State

▪ As a process executes, it changes state

• New: The process is being created
• Running: Instructions are being executed
• Waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur
• Ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor
• Terminated: The process has finished execution

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 Diagram of Process State

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 Process Control Block (PCB)

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 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process(also called task
control block)
▪ Process state – running, waiting, etc.
▪ Program counter – location of instruction to next
execute
▪ CPU registers – contents of all process-centric
registers
▪ CPU scheduling information- priorities, scheduling
queue pointers
▪ Memory-management information – memory
allocated to the process
▪ Accounting information – CPU used, clock time
elapsed since start, time limits
▪ I/O status information – I/O devices allocated to
process, list of open files

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Threads
▪ So far, process has a single thread of execution
▪ Consider having multiple program counters per process
• Multiple locations can execute at once
 Multiple threads of control -> threads
▪ Must then have storage for thread details, multiple program
counters in PCB
▪ Explore in detail in Chapter 4

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 Process Representation in Linux

Represented by the C structure task_struct

pid t_pid; /* process identifier */

long state; /* state of the process */
unsigned int time_slice /* scheduling information */
struct task_struct *parent;/* this process’s parent */
struct list_head children; /* this process’s children */
struct files_struct *files;/* list of open files */
struct mm_struct *mm; /* address space of this
process */

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Process Scheduling
▪ Process scheduler selects among available processes
for next execution on CPU core
▪ Goal -- Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto
CPU core
▪ Maintains scheduling queues of processes
• Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main
memory, ready and waiting to execute
• Wait queues – set of processes waiting for an event
(i.e., I/O)
• Processes migrate among the various queues

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 Ready and Wait Queues

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 Representation of Process Scheduling

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 CPU Switch From Process to Process
A context switch occurs when the CPU switches from one process to another

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 Context Switch
▪ When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state of the
old process and load the saved state for the new process via a context switch
▪ Context of a process represented in the PCB
▪ Context-switch time is pure overhead; the system does no useful work while
switching
• The more complex the OS and the PCB ➔ the longer the context switch
▪ Time dependent on hardware support
• Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per CPU ➔ multiple
contexts loaded at once

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 Operations on Processes

▪ System must provide mechanisms for:

• Process creation
• Process termination

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 Process Creation

▪ Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create other processes,
forming a tree of processes
▪ Generally, process identified and managed via a process identifier (pid)
▪ Resource sharing options
• Parent and children share all resources
• Children share subset of parent’s resources
• Parent and child share no resources
▪ Execution options
• Parent and children execute concurrently
• Parent waits until children terminate

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 Process Creation (Cont.)
▪ Address space
• Child duplicate of parent
• Child has a program loaded into it
▪ UNIX examples
• fork() system call creates new process
• exec() system call used after a fork() to replace the process’ memory
space with a new program
• Parent process calls wait()waiting for the child to terminate

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 A Tree of Processes in Linux

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 C Program Forking Separate Process
simple0.c

simple1.c

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 Process Termination
▪ Process executes last statement and then asks the operating system to delete it
using the exit() system call.
• Returns status data from child to parent (via wait())
• Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
▪ Parent may terminate the execution of children processes using the abort()
system call. Some reasons for doing so:
• Child has exceeded allocated resources
• Task assigned to child is no longer required
• The parent is exiting, and the operating systems does not allow a child to
continue if its parent terminates

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 Process Termination
▪ Some operating systems do not allow child to exists if its parent has terminated. If
a process terminates, then all its children must also be terminated.
• cascading termination. All children, grandchildren, etc., are terminated.
• The termination is initiated by the operating system.
▪ The parent process may wait for termination of a child process by using the
wait()system call. The call returns status information and the pid of the
terminated process
pid = wait(&status);
▪ If no parent waiting (did not invoke wait()) process is a zombie
• Example: Link
▪ If parent terminated without invoking wait(), process is an orphan
• Example: Link

A zombie process is a process that has completed execution but still has an entry in the
process table because its parent has not read its exit status.

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Multiprocess Architecture – Chrome Browser

▪ Many web browsers ran as single process (some still do)

• If one web site causes trouble, entire browser can hang or crash
▪ Google Chrome Browser is multiprocess with 3 different types of processes:
• Browser process manages user interface, disk and network I/O
• Renderer process renders web pages, deals with HTML, Javascript. A
new renderer created for each website opened
 Runs in sandbox restricting disk and network I/O, minimizing effect of
security exploits
• Plug-in process for each type of plug-in

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 Interprocess Communication

▪ Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating

▪ Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes,
including sharing data
▪ Reasons for cooperating processes:
• Information sharing
• Computation speedup
• Modularity
• Convenience
▪ Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
▪ Two models of IPC
• Shared memory
• Message passing

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 Communications Models
(a) Shared memory. (b) Message passing.

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 Producer-Consumer Problem
▪ Paradigm for cooperating processes:
• producer process produces information that is consumed by a consumer
process
▪ Two variations:
• unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of the buffer:
 Producer never waits
 Consumer waits if there is no buffer to consume
▪ Give a data structure that support this paradigm?
• bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size
 Producer must wait if all buffers are full
 Consumer waits if there is no buffer to consume
▪ Give a data structure that support this paradigm?

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 IPC – Shared Memory

▪ An area of memory shared among the processes that wish to communicate

▪ The communication is under the control of the users processes not the
operating system.
▪ Major issues is to provide mechanism that will allow the user processes to
synchronize their actions when they access shared memory.
▪ Synchronization is discussed in great details in Chapters 6 & 7.

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Bounded-Buffer – Shared-Memory Solution

▪ Shared data
#define BUFFER_SIZE 10
typedef struct {
. . .
} item;

item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0;

▪ Solution is correct, but can only use BUFFER_SIZE-1 elements

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Producer Process – Shared Memory
item next_produced;

while (true) {
/* produce an item in next produced */
while (((in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE) == out)
; /* do nothing */
buffer[in] = next_produced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
}

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Consumer Process – Shared Memory

item next_consumed;

while (true) {
while (in == out)
; /* do nothing */
next_consumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;

/* consume the item in next consumed */

}

What is the drawback of this code,

can we use the full buffer size?

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 What about Filling all the Buffers?
▪ Suppose that we wanted to provide a solution to the consumer-producer problem
that fills all the buffers.
▪ We can do so by having an integer counter that keeps track of the number of
full buffers.
▪ Initially, counter is set to 0.
▪ The integer counter is incremented by the producer after it produces a new
buffer.
▪ The integer counter is and is decremented by the consumer after it consumes a
buffer.

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 Producer

while (true) {
/* produce an item in next produced */

while (counter == BUFFER_SIZE)

; /* do nothing */
buffer[in] = next_produced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
counter++;
}

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 Consumer

while (true) {
while (counter == 0)
; /* do nothing */
next_consumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
counter--;
/* consume the item in next consumed */
}

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 Race Condition
▪ counter++ could be implemented as
register1 = counter
register1 = register1 + 1
counter = register1
▪ counter-- could be implemented as
register2 = counter
register2 = register2 - 1
counter = register2

▪ Consider this execution interleaving with “count = 5” initially:

S0: producer execute register1 = counter {register1 = 5}
S1: producer execute register1 = register1 + 1 {register1 = 6}
S2: consumer execute register2 = counter {register2 = 5}
S3: consumer execute register2 = register2 – 1 {register2 = 4}
S4: producer execute counter = register1 {counter = 6 }
S5: consumer execute counter = register2 {counter = 4}

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Race Condition (Cont.)
▪ Question – why was there no race condition
in the first solution (where at most N – 1)
buffers can be filled?
▪ More in Chapter 6.

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 IPC – Message Passing

▪ Processes communicate with each other without resorting to shared variables

▪ IPC facility provides two operations:

• send(message)
• receive(message)

▪ The message size is either fixed or variable

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Message Passing (Cont.)
▪ If processes P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:
• Establish a communication link between them
• Exchange messages via send/receive
▪ Implementation issues:
• How are links established?
• Can a link be associated with more than two processes?
• How many links can there be between every pair of communicating
processes?
• What is the capacity of a link?
• Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or variable?
• Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Implementation of Communication Link

▪ Physical:
• Shared memory
• Hardware bus
• Network
▪ Logical:
• Direct or indirect
• Synchronous or asynchronous
• Automatic or explicit buffering

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 Direct Communication

▪ Processes must name each other explicitly:

• send (P, message) – send a message to process P
• receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q
▪ Properties of communication link
• Links are established automatically
• A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating processes
• Between each pair there exists exactly one link
• The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional

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 Indirect Communication

▪ Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred to as ports)
• Each mailbox has a unique id
• Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox
▪ Properties of communication link
• Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
• A link may be associated with many processes
• Each pair of processes may share several communication links
• Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional

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 Indirect Communication (Cont.)

▪ Operations
• Create a new mailbox (port)
• Send and receive messages through mailbox
• Delete a mailbox
▪ Primitives are defined as:
• send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
• receive(A, message) – receive a message from mailbox A

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 Indirect Communication (Cont.)

▪ Mailbox sharing
• P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A
• P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive
• Who gets the message?
▪ Solutions
• Allow a link to be associated with at most two processes
• Allow only one process at a time to execute a receive
operation
• Allow the system to select arbitrarily the receiver.
Sender is notified who the receiver was.

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 Synchronization
Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking

▪ Blocking is considered synchronous

• Blocking send -- the sender is blocked until the message is received
• Blocking receive -- the receiver is blocked until a message is available
▪ Non-blocking is considered asynchronous
• Non-blocking send -- the sender sends the message and continue
• Non-blocking receive -- the receiver receives:
 A valid message, or
 Null message
▪ Different combinations possible
• If both send and receive are blocking, we have a rendezvous

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 Producer-Consumer: Message Passing

▪ Producer
message next_produced;
while (true) {
/* produce an item in next_produced */

send(next_produced);
}

▪ Consumer
message next_consumed;
while (true) {
receive(next_consumed)

/* consume the item in next_consumed */

}

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 Buffering

▪ Queue of messages attached to the link.

▪ Implemented in one of three ways
1. Zero capacity – no messages are queued on a link.
Sender must wait for receiver (rendezvous)
2. Bounded capacity – finite length of n messages
Sender must wait if link full
3. Unbounded capacity – infinite length
Sender never waits

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 Examples of IPC Systems - POSIX

▪ POSIX Shared Memory

• Process first creates shared memory segment
shm_fd = shm_open(name, O CREAT | O RDWR, 0666);
• Also used to open an existing segment
• Set the size of the object
ftruncate(shm_fd, 4096);
• Use mmap() to memory-map a file pointer to the shared memory
object
• Reading and writing to shared memory is done by using the
pointer returned by mmap().

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 IPC POSIX Producer

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 IPC POSIX Consumer

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 Pipes
▪ Acts as a conduit allowing two processes to communicate
▪ Issues:
• Is communication unidirectional or bidirectional?
• In the case of two-way communication, is it half or full-duplex?
• Must there exist a relationship (i.e., parent-child) between the
communicating processes?
• Can the pipes be used over a network?
▪ Ordinary pipes – cannot be accessed from outside the process that
created it. Typically, a parent process creates a pipe and uses it to
communicate with a child process that it created.
▪ Named pipes – can be accessed without a parent-child relationship.

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Ordinary Pipes
▪ Ordinary Pipes allow communication in standard producer-consumer
style
▪ Producer writes to one end (the write-end of the pipe)
▪ Consumer reads from the other end (the read-end of the pipe)
▪ Ordinary pipes are therefore unidirectional
▪ Require parent-child relationship between communicating processes

▪ Windows calls these anonymous pipes

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Named Pipes

▪ Named Pipes are more powerful than ordinary pipes

▪ Communication is bidirectional
▪ No parent-child relationship is necessary between the communicating
processes
▪ Several processes can use the named pipe for communication
▪ Provided on both UNIX and Windows systems

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition 3.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 3

Operating System Concepts – 10 th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018