Chapter 4: Threads

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 4: Threads
Overview
Multicore Programming
Multithreading Models
Thread Libraries
Implicit Threading
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
 Motivation

Most modern applications are multithreaded

Threads run within application
Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by
separate threads
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 4.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Single and Multithreaded Processes

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 Multithreading Models

Many-to-One

One-to-One

Many-to-Many

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.6 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 4.7 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Many-to-Many Model
Allows many user level threads to be
mapped to many kernel threads
Allows the operating system to create
a sufficient number of kernel threads
Solaris prior to version 9
Windows with the ThreadFiber
package

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.9 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 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread Libraries

Thread library provides programmer with API for creating

and managing threads
Two primary ways of implementing
Library entirely in user space
Kernel-level library supported by the OS

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Pthreads

May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
Specification, not implementation
API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is
up to development of the library
Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Pthreads Example

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Pthreads Example (Cont.)

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 Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads

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 Windows Multithreaded C Program

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Windows Multithreaded C Program (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Java Threads

Java threads are managed by the JVM

Typically implemented using the threads model provided by
underlying OS
Java threads may be created by:

Extending Thread class

Implementing the Runnable interface

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Java Multithreaded Program

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 Java Multithreaded Program (Cont.)

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 Implicit Threading

Growing in popularity as numbers of threads increase,

program correctness more difficult with explicit threads
Creation and management of threads done by compilers and
run-time libraries rather than programmers
Three methods explored
Thread Pools
OpenMP
Grand Central Dispatch
Other methods include Microsoft Threading Building Blocks
(TBB), java.util.concurrent package

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Thread Pools
Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
Advantages:
Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing
thread than create a new thread
Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be
bound to the size of the pool
Separating task to be performed from mechanics of
creating task allows different strategies for running task
 i.e.Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
Windows API supports thread pools:

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.22 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 4.23 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 4.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Signal Handling
n Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a
particular event has occurred.
n 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
n Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
l User-defined signal handler can override default
l For single-threaded, signal delivered to process

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Signal Handling (Cont.)
n Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
l Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal
applies
l Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
l Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
l Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the
process

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 4.26 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 4.27 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 4.28 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 4.29 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 4.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 4

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013