Chapter 2: Operating-System

Services

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

 Outline

 Operating System Services

 User and Operating System-Interface
 System Calls
 System Services
 Linkers and Loaders
 Why Applications are Operating System Specific
 Design and Implementation
 Operating System Structure
 Building and Booting an Operating System
 Operating System Debugging

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Objectives

 Identify services provided by an operating system

 Illustrate how system calls are used to provide
operating system services
 Compare and contrast monolithic, layered,
microkernel, modular, and hybrid strategies for
designing operating systems
 Illustrate the process for booting an operating
system
 Apply tools for monitoring operating system
performance
 Design and implement kernel modules for
interacting with a Linux kernel

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services
 Operating systems provide an environment for execution
of programs and services to programs and users
 One set of operating-system services provides functions
that are helpful to the user:
• User interface - Almost all operating systems have a
user interface (UI).
 Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User
Interface (GUI), touch-screen, Batch
• Program execution - The system must be able to load
a program into memory and to run that program, end
execution, either normally or abnormally (indicating
error)
• I/O operations - A running program may require I/O,
which may involve a file or an I/O device
• File-system manipulation - The file system is of
particular interest. Programs need to read and write
files and directories, create and delete them, search
them, list file Information, permission management.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 One set of operating-system services provides functions
that are helpful to the user (Cont.):
• Communications – Processes may exchange
information, on the same computer or between
computers over a network
 Communications may be via shared memory or
through message passing (packets moved by the
OS)
• Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of
possible errors
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O
devices, in user program
 For each type of error, OS should take the
appropriate action to ensure correct and
consistent computing
 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the
user’s and programmer’s abilities to efficiently use
the system
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the
efficient operation of the system itself via resource
sharing
• Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple
jobs running concurrently, resources must be
allocated to each of them
 Many types of resources - CPU cycles, main
memory, file storage, I/O devices.
• Logging - To keep track of which users use how much
and what kinds of computer resources
• Protection and security - The owners of information
stored in a multiuser or networked computer system
may want to control use of that information,
concurrent processes should not interfere with each
other
 Protection involves ensuring that all access to
system resources is controlled
 Security of the system from outsiders requires user
authentication, extends to defending external I/O
devices from invalid access attempts
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Command Line interpreter

 CLI allows direct command entry

 Sometimes implemented in kernel,
sometimes by systems program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented –
shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and
executes it
 Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes
just names of programs
• If the latter, adding new features doesn’t
require shell modification

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface - GUI
 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface
• Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
• Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
• Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface
cause various actions (provide information, options,
execute function, open directory (known as a folder)
• Invented at Xerox PARC
 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
• Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
• Apple Mac OS X is “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX
kernel underneath and shells available
• Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI interfaces
(CDE, KDE, GNOME)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Touchscreen Interfaces

 Touchscreen devices
require new interfaces
• Mouse not possible or not
desired
• Actions and selection based
on gestures
• Virtual keyboard for text
entry
 Voice commands

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Calls

 Programming interface to the services provided by the

OS
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application
Programming Interface (API) rather than direct system call
use
 Three most common APIs are Win32 API for Windows,
POSIX API for POSIX-based systems (including virtually
all versions
Note of UNIX, Linux,
that the system-call namesandused
Mac throughout
OS X), and Java
this API
forare
text thegeneric
Java virtual machine (JVM)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of System Calls

 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to

another file

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of Standard API

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Implementation

 Typically, a number is associated with each system call

• System-call interface maintains a table indexed
according to these numbers
 The system call interface invokes the intended system
call in OS kernel and returns status of the system call
and any return values
 The caller need know nothing about how the system call
is implemented
• Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will
do as a result call
• Most details of OS interface hidden from
programmer by API
 Managed by run-time support library (set of
functions built into libraries included with
compiler)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Parameter Passing
 Often, more information is required than simply identity
of desired system call
• Exact type and amount of information vary according
to OS and call
 Three general methods used to pass parameters to the
OS
• Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
 In some cases, may be more parameters than
registers
• Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory,
and address of block passed as a parameter in a
register
 This approach taken by Linux and Solaris

• Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the

program and popped off the stack by the operating
system
• Block and stack methods do not limit the number or
length of parameters being passed
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls

 Process control
• create process, terminate process
• end, abort
• load, execute
• get process attributes, set process attributes
• wait for time
• wait event, signal event
• allocate and free memory
• Dump memory if error
• Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
• Locks for managing access to shared data between
processes

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 File management
• create file, delete file
• open, close file
• read, write, reposition
• get and set file attributes
 Device management
• request device, release device
• read, write, reposition
• get device attributes, set device attributes
• logically attach or detach devices

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Information maintenance
• get time or date, set time or date
• get system data, set system data
• get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
• create, delete communication connection
• send, receive messages if message passing model
to host name or process name
 From client to server
• Shared-memory model create and gain access to
memory regions
• transfer status information
• attach and detach remote devices

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Protection
• Control access to resources
• Get and set permissions
• Allow and deny user access

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls
write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example: Arduino

 Single-tasking
 No operating system
 Programs (sketch)
loaded via USB into
flash memory
 Single memory space
 Boot loader loads
program
 Program exit -> shell
reloaded
At system startup running a
program

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example: FreeBSD
 Unix variant
 Multitasking
 User login -> invoke user’s choice
of shell
 Shell executes fork() system call
to create process
• Executes exec() to load
program into process
• Shell waits for process to
terminate or continues with
user commands
 Process exits with:
• code = 0 – no error
• code > 0 – error code

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Services
 System programs provide a convenient environment for
program development and execution. They can be
divided into:
• File manipulation
• Status information sometimes stored in a file
• Programming language support
• Program loading and execution
• Communications
• Background services
• Application programs
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by
system programs, not the actual system calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Services (Cont.)
 Provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution
• Some of them are simply user interfaces to system
calls; others are considerably more complex

 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print,

dump, list, and generally manipulate files and
directories

 Status information
• Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount
of available memory, disk space, number of users
• Others provide detailed performance, logging, and
debugging information
• Typically, these programs format and print the
output to the terminal or other output devices
• Some systems implement a registry - used to store
and retrieve configuration information

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Services (Cont.)
 File modification
• Text editors to create and modify files
• Special commands to search contents of files or
perform transformations of the text
 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,
debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders,
relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders,
debugging systems for higher-level and machine
language
 Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating
virtual connections among processes, users, and
computer systems
• Allow users to send messages to one another’s
screens, browse web pages, send electronic-mail
messages, log in remotely, transfer files from one
machine to another

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Services (Cont.)
 Background Services
• Launch at boot time
Some for system startup, then terminate

 Some from system boot to shutdown

• Provide facilities like disk checking, process

scheduling, error logging, printing
• Run in user context not kernel context
• Known as services, subsystems, daemons
 Application programs
• Don’t pertain to system
• Run by users
• Not typically considered part of OS
• Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Linkers and Loaders

 Source code compiled into object files designed to be

loaded into any physical memory location – relocatable
object file
 Linker combines these into single binary executable file
• Also brings in libraries
 Program resides on secondary storage as binary
executable
 Must be brought into memory by loader to be executed
• Relocation assigns final addresses to program parts
and adjusts code and data in program to match those
addresses
 Modern general purpose systems don’t link libraries into
executables
• Rather, dynamically linked libraries (in Windows, DLLs)
are loaded as needed, shared by all that use the same
version of that same library (loaded once)
 Object, executable files have standard formats, so
operating system knows 2.32
how to load and start
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition themGalvin and Gagne
Silberschatz,
 The Role of the Linker and Loader

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Why Applications are Operating System Specific

 Apps compiled on one system usually not executable on

other operating systems
 Each operating system provides its own unique system
calls
• Own file formats, etc.
 Apps can be multi-operating system
• Written in interpreted language like Python, Ruby,
and interpreter available on multiple operating
systems
• App written in language that includes a VM
containing the running app (like Java)
• Use standard language (like C), compile separately
on each operating system to run on each
 Application Binary Interface (ABI) is architecture equivalent
of API, defines how different components of binary code
can interface for a given operating system on a given
architecture, CPU, etc.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Design and Implementation

 Design and Implementation of OS is not “solvable”,

but some approaches have proven successful
 Internal structure of different Operating Systems can
vary widely
 Start the design by defining goals and specifications
 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system
 User goals and System goals
• User goals – operating system should be
convenient to use, easy to learn, reliable, safe, and
fast
• System goals – operating system should be easy to
design, implement, and maintain, as well as
flexible, reliable, error-free, and efficient
 Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task
of software engineering

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Policy and Mechanism

 Policy: What needs to be done?

• Example: Interrupt after every 100 seconds
 Mechanism: How to do something?
• Example: timer
 Important principle: separate policy from
mechanism
 The separation of policy from mechanism is a
very important principle, it allows maximum
flexibility if policy decisions are to be changed
later.
• Example: change 100 to 200

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Implementation
 Much variation
• Early OSes in assembly language
• Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
• Now C, C++
 Actually usually a mix of languages
• Lowest levels in assembly
• Main body in C
• Systems programs in C, C++, scripting languages like
PERL, Python, shell scripts
 More high-level language easier to port to other hardware
• But slower
 Emulation can allow an OS to run on non-native hardware

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Structure

 General-purpose OS is very large program

 Various ways to structure ones
• Simple structure – MS-DOS
• More complex – UNIX
• Layered – an abstraction
• Microkernel – Mach

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Monolithic Structure – Original UNIX
 UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the original
UNIX operating system had limited structuring.
 The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts
• Systems programs
• The kernel
 Consists of everything below the system-call
interface and above the physical hardware
 Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other operating-system
functions; a large number of functions for one level

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Linux System Structure
Monolithic plus modular design

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Layered Approach

 The operating system is

divided into a number of
layers (levels), each built
on top of lower layers.
The bottom layer (layer
0), is the hardware; the
highest (layer N) is the
user interface.
 With modularity, layers
are selected such that
each uses functions
(operations) and services
of only lower-level layers

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernels
 Moves as much from the kernel into user space
 Mach is an example of microkernel
• Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) partly based on Mach
 Communication takes place between user modules
using message passing
 Benefits:
• Easier to extend a microkernel
• Easier to port the operating system to new
architectures
• More reliable (less code is running in kernel
mode)
• More secure
 Detriments:
• Performance overhead of user space to kernel
space communication

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement loadable
kernel modules (LKMs)
• Uses object-oriented approach
• Each core component is separate
• Each talks to the others over known interfaces
• Each is loadable as needed within the kernel
 Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible
• Linux, Solaris, etc.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Hybrid Systems

 Most modern operating systems are not one pure model

• Hybrid combines multiple approaches to address
performance, security, usability needs
• Linux and Solaris kernels in kernel address space, so
monolithic, plus modular for dynamic loading of
functionality
• Windows mostly monolithic, plus microkernel for
different subsystem personalities
 Apple Mac OS X hybrid, layered, Aqua UI plus Cocoa
programming environment
• Below is kernel consisting of Mach microkernel and
BSD Unix parts, plus I/O kit and dynamically loadable
modules (called kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 macOS and iOS Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Darwin

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Android
 Developed by Open Handset Alliance (mostly
Google)
• Open Source
 Similar stack to IOS
 Based on Linux kernel but modified
• Provides process, memory, device-driver
management
• Adds power management
 Runtime environment includes core set of libraries
and Dalvik virtual machine
• Apps developed in Java plus Android API
 Java class files compiled to Java bytecode
then translated to executable than runs in
Dalvik VM
 Libraries include frameworks for web browser
(webkit), database (SQLite), multimedia, smaller libc

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Android Architecture

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Building and Booting an Operating System

 Operating systems generally designed to run on a class

of systems with variety of perpherals
 Commonly, operating system already installed on
purchased computer
• But can build and install some other operating
systems
• If generating an operating system from scratch
 Write the operating system source code
 Configure the operating system for the system on
which it will run
 Compile the operating system
 Install the operating system
 Boot the computer and its new operating system

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Building and Booting Linux

 Download Linux source code (http://www.kernel.org)

 Configure kernel via “make menuconfig”
 Compile the kernel using “make”
• Produces vmlinuz, the kernel image
• Compile kernel modules via “make modules”
• Install kernel modules into vmlinuz via “make
modules_install”
• Install new kernel on the system via “make install”

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Boot
 When power initialized on system, execution starts at a
fixed memory location
 Operating system must be made available to hardware
so hardware can start it
• Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, BIOS, stored in
ROM or EEPROM locates the kernel, loads it into
memory, and starts it
• Sometimes two-step process where boot block at
fixed location loaded by ROM code, which loads
bootstrap loader from disk
• Modern systems replace BIOS with Unified Extensible
Firmware Interface (UEFI)
 Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of
kernel from multiple disks, versions, kernel options
 Kernel loads and system is then running
 Boot loaders frequently allow various boot states, such
as single user mode

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating-System Debugging

 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs

 Also performance tuning
 OS generate log files containing error information
 Failure of an application can generate core dump file
capturing memory of the process
 Operating system failure can generate crash dump file
containing kernel memory
 Beyond crashes, performance tuning can optimize
system performance
• Sometimes using trace listings of activities, recorded
for analysis
• Profiling is periodic sampling of instruction pointer to
look for statistical trends
Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the
code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as
cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart
enough to debug it.”
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.55 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Performance Tuning

 Improve performance by removing bottlenecks

 OS must provide means of computing and displaying
measures of system behavior
 For example, “top” program or Windows Task Manager

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.56 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Tracing
 Collects data for a specific event, such as
steps involved in a system call invocation
 Tools include
• strace – trace system calls invoked by a
process
• gdb – source-level debugger
• perf – collection of Linux performance
tools
• tcpdump – collects network packets

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.57 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 BCC

 Debugging interactions between user-level and kernel

code nearly impossible without toolset that understands
both and an instrument their actions
 BCC (BPF Compiler Collection) is a rich toolkit providing
tracing features for Linux
• See also the original DTrace
 For example, disksnoop.py traces disk I/O activity

 Many other tools (next slide)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.58 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Linux bcc/BPF Tracing Tools

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.59 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 2

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