Chapter 4: Threads
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Chapter 4: Threads
Overview
Multithreading Models
Threading Issues
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Objectives
To introduce the notion of a thread—a fundamental unit of CPU
utilization that forms the basis of multithreaded computer
systems
To discuss the APIs for the Pthreads, Windows, and Java
thread libraries
To explore several strategies that provide implicit threading
To examine issues related to multithreaded programming
To cover operating system support for threads in Windows and
Linux
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Overview
A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization.
Thread ID Program Register set stack
counter
It shares with other threads belonging to the same process its code
section, data section, and other operating-system resources.
A traditional (or heavyweight) process has a single thread of control.
If a process has multiple threads of control, it can perform more than
one task at a time.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Single and Multithreaded Processes
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Motivation
Most software applications that run on modern computers are
multithreaded.
Threads run within application
Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by separate threads
A web browser might have one thread
Update display
Fetch data
Spell checking
Answer a network request
Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is light-weight
Can simplify code, increase efficiency
Kernels are generally multithreaded
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Motivation
In certain situations, a single application may be required to perform several
similar tasks.
For example, a web server accepts client requests for web pages, images,
sound, and so forth.
A busy web server may have several (perhaps thousands of) clients
concurrently accessing it.
If the web server ran as a traditional single-threaded process, it would be
able to service only one client at a time.
And a client might have to wait a very long time for its request to be
serviced.
One solution is to have the server run as a single process that accepts
requests.
Process creation is time consuming and resource intensive.
It is generally more efficient to use one process that contains multiple
threads.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Multithreaded Server Architecture
Threads also play a vital role in remote procedure call (RPC) systems
Most operating-system kernels are now multithreaded.
Several threads operate in the kernel, and each thread performs a
specific task, such as
1) managing devices
2) managing memory
3) interrupt handling.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Benefits
Responsiveness – Multithreading an interactive application may
allow a program to continue running even if part of it is blocked or
is performing a lengthy operation.
This quality is especially useful in designing user interfaces.
For instance, consider what happens when a user clicks a button
that results in the performance of a time-consuming operation.
Resource Sharing – Processes can only share resources
through techniques such as shared memory and message
passing.
However, threads share the memory and the resources of the
process to which they belong by default.
The benefit of sharing code and data is that it allows an
application to have several different threads of activity within the
same address space.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Benefits
Economy – Allocating memory and resources for process creation is costly.
It is more economical to create and context-switch threads.
For example, creating a process is about thirty times
Scalability – The benefits of multithreading can be even greater in a
multiprocessor architecture, where threads may be running in parallel on
different processing cores.
A single-threaded process can run on only one processor, regardless how
many are available. We explore this issue further in the following section.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Multithreading Models
A relationship must exist between user threads and kernel threads
Many-to-One model
One-to-One model
Many-to-Many model
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Many-to-One
Many user-level threads mapped to
single kernel thread
One thread blocking causes all to block
Multiple threads may not run in parallel
on muticore system because only one
may be in kernel at a time
Few systems currently use this model
Examples:
Solaris Green Threads
GNU Portable Threads
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
One-to-One
Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
More concurrency than many-to-one
Number of threads per process sometimes
restricted due to overhead
Examples
Windows
Linux
Solaris 9 and later
The only drawback to this model is that creating a user thread
requires creating the corresponding kernel thread.
Because the overhead of creating kernel threads can burden the
performance of an application
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Many-to-Many Model
Allows many user level threads to be mapped to a smaller or equal number
of kernel threads.
Allows the operating system to create a sufficient number of kernel threads
Solaris prior to version 9
Windows with the ThreadFiber package
Whereas the many-to-one model allows
the developer to create as many user
threads as she wishes, it does not
result in true concurrency.
The one-to-one model allows greater concurrency
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Two-level Model
Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be
bound to kernel thread
Examples
IRIX
HP-UX
Tru64 UNIX
Solaris 8 and earlier
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Threading Issues
Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
Signal handling
Synchronous and asynchronous
Thread cancellation of target thread
Asynchronous or deferred
Thread-local storage
Scheduler Activations
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Semantics of fork() and exec()
Does fork()duplicate only the calling thread or all
threads?
Some UNIXes have two versions of fork
exec() usually works as normal – replace the running
process including all threads
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Signal Handling
Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
1. default
2. user-defined
Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
User-defined signal handler can override default
For single-threaded, signal delivered to process
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Signal Handling (Cont.)
Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal
applies
Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the
process
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Thread Cancellation
Terminating a thread before it has finished
Thread to be canceled is target thread
Two general approaches:
Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread
immediately
Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically
check if it should be cancelled
Pthread code to create and cancel a thread:
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Thread Cancellation (Cont.)
Invoking thread cancellation requests cancellation, but actual
cancellation depends on thread state
If thread has cancellation disabled, cancellation remains pending
until thread enables it
Default type is deferred
Cancellation only occurs when thread reaches cancellation
point
I.e. pthread_testcancel()
Then cleanup handler is invoked
On Linux systems, thread cancellation is handled through signals
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Thread-Local Storage
Thread-local storage (TLS) allows each thread to have its
own copy of data
Useful when you do not have control over the thread creation
process (i.e., when using a thread pool)
Different from local variables
Local variables visible only during single function
invocation
TLS visible across function invocations
Similar to static data
TLS is unique to each thread
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Scheduler Activations
Both M:M and Two-level models require communication to maintain the
appropriate number of kernel threads allocated to the application
Typically use an intermediate data structure between user and kernel
threads – lightweight process (LWP)
Appears to be a virtual processor on which process can schedule
user thread to run
Each LWP attached to kernel thread
How many LWPs to create?
Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a communication mechanism
from the kernel to the upcall handler in the thread library
This communication allows an application to maintain the correct number
kernel threads
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Scheduler Activations
A final issue to be considered with multithreaded programs concerns
communication between the kernel and the thread library.
Many systems implementing either the many-to-many or the two-level
model place an intermediate data structure between the user and kernel
threads.
This data structure—typically known as a lightweight process, or LWP
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Scheduler Activations
Both M:M and Two-level models require
communication to maintain the appropriate
number of kernel threads allocated to the
application
Typically use an intermediate data structure
between user and kernel threads – lightweight
process (LWP)
Appears to be a virtual processor on which
process can schedule user thread to run
Each LWP attached to kernel thread
How many LWPs to create?
Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a
communication mechanism from the kernel to
the upcall handler in the thread library
This communication allows an application to
maintain the correct number kernel threads
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
End of Chapter 4
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
