Interprocess Communication

● Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating

○ Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution of another process
○ Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of another process

● Reasons for cooperating processes:

○ Information sharing
○ Computation speedup
○ Modularity
○ Convenience
● Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
● Two models of IPC
○ Shared memory
○ Message passing
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.
Producer-Consumer Problem
● Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer process produces information that is
consumed by a consumer process
○ unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of the buffer
○ bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size
Bounded-Buffer – Shared-Memory Solution
Message Passing
● Mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize their actions
● Message system – 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
● 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?
● Logical:
○ Direct or indirect
○ Synchronous or asynchronous
○ Automatic or explicit buffering
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
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
● 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.
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
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
 IPC

Need - Info sharing, Computation speedup,

Modularity , Convenience

Diagram - Shared vs Message Passing

Shared Memory Message Passing

Definition Definition

Types of buffers - Unbounded & Direct vs Indirect - Syntax & link

bounded

Eg Producer Consumer - Code & Synch vs Asynch - Blocking vs

explanation Non-blocking

Buffering - Zero, Bounded &

Unbounded
Operations on Processes
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
Tree of Processes
● 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
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
● 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
● If parent terminated without invoking wait , process is an orphan