Chapter 3: Processes
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Chapter 3: Processes
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 – 10th Edition 3.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Process in Memory
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Diagram of Process State
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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 – 10th Edition 3.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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 – 10th Edition 3.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Multitasking in Mobile Systems
Some mobile systems (e.g., early version of iOS)
allow only one process to run, others suspended
Due to screen real estate, user interface limits iOS
provides for a
• Single foreground process- controlled via user
interface
• Multiple background processes– in memory,
running, but not on the display, and with limits
• Limits include single, short task, receiving
notification of events, specific long-running tasks
like audio playback
Android runs foreground and background, with fewer
limits
• Background process uses a service to perform
tasks
• Service can keep running even if background
process is suspended
• Service has no user interface,
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition3.17
small memory use
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Operations on Processes
System must provide mechanisms for:
• Process creation
• Process termination
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
A Tree of Processes in Linux
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
C Program Forking Separate Process
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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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
If parent terminated without invoking wait(),
process is an orphan
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Android Process Importance Hierarchy
Mobile operating systems often have to terminate
processes to reclaim system resources such as memory.
From most to least important:
• Foreground process
• Visible process
• Service process
• Background process
• Empty process
Android will begin terminating processes that are least
important.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Communications Models
(a) Shared memory. (b) Message passing.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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 – 10th Edition 3.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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 – 10th Edition 3.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Implementation of Communication Link
Physical:
• Shared memory
• Hardware bus
• Network
Logical:
• Direct or indirect
• Synchronous or asynchronous
• Automatic or explicit buffering
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
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.
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
Cooperating Processes
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
Advantages of process cooperation
• Information sharing
• Computation speed-up
• Modularity
• Convenience
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 3.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
End of Chapter 3
Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
