Unix processes and threads
Henning Schulzrinne
Dept. of Computer Science
Columbia University
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced Programming
Spring 2002
Unix processes and threads
Process model
creation
properties
owners and groups
Threads
threads vs. processes
synchronization
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
What's a process?
Fundamental to almost all
operating systems
= program in execution
address space, usually separate
program counter, stack pointer,
hardware registers
simple computer: one program,
never stops
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
What's a process?
timesharing system: alternate between
processes, interrupted by OS:
run on CPU
clock interrupt happens
save process state
registers (PC, SP, numeric)
memory map
memory (core image) possibly swapped to disk
process table
continue some other process
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Process relationships
process tree structure: child
processes
inherit properties from parent
processes can
terminate
request more (virtual) memory
wait for a child process to terminate
overlay program with different one
send messages to other processes
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Processes
Reality: each CPU can only run one
program at a time
Fiction to user: many people
getting short (~10-100 ms) time
slices
pseudo-parallelism
multiprogramming
modeled as sequential processes
context switch
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Advanced
Process creation
Processes are created:
system initialization
by another process
user request (from shell)
batch job (timed, Unix at or cron)
Foreground processes interact with
user
Background processes (daemons)
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Advanced
Processes example
bart:~> ps -ef
UID
PID
root
0
root
1
root
2
root
3
root
334
root 24695
root
132
root
178
daemon
99
root
139
root
119
root
142
hgs 2009
daemon
182
root
152
PPID
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2007
1
1
Mar 14, 2015
C
STIME TTY
TIME CMD
0
Mar 31 ?
0:17 sched
0
Mar 31 ?
0:09 /etc/init 0
Mar 31 ?
0:00 pageout
0
Mar 31 ?
54:35 fsflush
0
Mar 31 ?
0:00 /usr/lib/saf/sac -t 300
0 19:38:45 console 0:00 /usr/lib/saf/ttymon
0
Mar 31 ?
1:57 /usr/local/sbin/sshd
0
Mar 31 ?
0:01 /usr/sbin/inetd -s
0
Mar 31 ?
0:00 /sbin/lpd
0
Mar 31 ?
0:37 /usr/sbin/rpcbind
0
Mar 31 ?
0:06 /usr/sbin/in.rdisc -s
0
Mar 31 ?
0:00 /usr/sbin/keyserv
0 12:58:13 pts/16
0:00 -tcsh
0
Mar 31 ?
0:00 /usr/lib/nfs/statd
0
Mar 31 ?
0:00 /yp/ypbind -broadcast
Advanced
Unix processes
0: process scheduler ("swapper")
system process
1: init process, invoked after
bootstrap /sbin/init
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Advanced
Processes example
task manager
in Windows NT,
2000 and XP
cooperative vs.
preemptive
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Advanced
Unix process creation:
forking
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
pid_t fork(void);
int v = 42;
if ((pid = fork()) < 0) {
perror("fork");
exit(1);
} else if (pid == 0) {
printf("child %d of parent %d\n",
getpid(), getppid());
v++;
} else sleep(10);
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Advanced
fork()
called once, returns twice
child: returns 0
parent: process ID of child process
both parent and child continue executing
after fork
child is clone of parent (copy!)
copy-on-write: only copy page if child writes
all file descriptors are duplicated in child
including file offset
network servers: often child and parent close
unneeded file descriptors
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
User identities
Who we really are: real user & group ID
taken from /etc/passwd file:
hgs:7C6uo:5815:92:H. Schulzrinne:/home/hgs:/bin/tcsh
Check file access permissions: effective
user & group ID, supplementary group ID
supplementary IDs via group membership:
/etc/group
special bits for file: "when this file is executed,
set the effective IDs to be the owner of the
file" set-user-ID bit, set-group-ID bit
/usr/bin/passwd needs to access password files
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Advanced
Aside: file permissions
S_IRUSR
S_IWUSR
S_IXUSR
S_IRGRP
S_IWGRP
S_IXGRP
S_IROTH
S_IWOTH
S_IXOTH
Mar 14, 2015
user-read
user-write
user-execute
group-read
group-write
group-execute
other-read
other-write
other-execute
Advanced
Process identifiers
pid_t getpid(void)
process identifier
pid_t getpgid(pid_t
pid);
process group
pid_t getppid(void);
parent PID
uid_t getuid(void);
real user ID
uid_t geteuid(void);
effective user ID
gid_t getgid(void);
real group ID
gid_t getegid(void);
effective group ID
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Advanced
Process properties inherited
user and group ids
process group id
controlling terminal
setuid flag
current working
directory
root directory
(chroot)
file creation mask
Mar 14, 2015
signal masks
close-on-exec flag
environment
shared memory
resource limits
Advanced
Differences parent-child
Return value of fork()
process IDs and parent process IDs
accounting information
file locks
pending alarms
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Waiting for a child to
terminate
asynchronous event
SIGCHLD signal
process can block waiting for child
termination
pid = fork();
...
if (wait(&status) != pid) {
something's wrong
}
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Waiting for a child to
terminate
pid_t waitpid(pid_t pid, int
*statloc, int options)
pid=-1
pid>0
pid=0
pid<0
Mar 14, 2015
any child process
specific process
any child with some process group id
any child with PID = abs(pid)
Advanced
Race conditions
race = shared data + outcome
depends on order that processes run
e.g., parent or child runs first?
waiting for parent to terminate
generally, need some signaling
mechanism
signals
stream pipes
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
exec: running another
program
replace current process by new
program
text, data, heap, stack
int execl(const char *path, char *arg, ...);
int execle(const char *path, const char *arg0,
/* (char *) 0, char *const envp[] */);
int execv(const char *path, char *const arg[]);
int execvp(char *file, char *const argv[]);
file: /absolute/path or one of the PATH entries
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Advanced
exec example
char *env_init[] = {"USER=unknown", "PATH=/tmp", NULL};
int main(void) {
pid_t pid;
if ((pid = fork()) < 0) perror("fork error");
else if (pid == 0) {
if (execle("echoall", "echoall", "myarg1",
"MY ARG2", NULL, env_init) < 0)
perror("exec");
}
if (waitpid(pid, NULL, 0) < 0) perror("wait error");
printf("child done\n");
exit(0);
}
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Advanced
system: execute command
#include <stdlib.h>
int system(const char *string);
invokes command string from
program
e.g., system("date > file");
handled by shell (/usr/bin/ksh)
never call from setuid programs
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Threads
process: address space + single thread of control
sometimes want multiple threads of control
(flow) in same address space
quasi-parallel
threads separate resource grouping & execution
thread: program counter, registers, stack
also called lightweight processes
multithreading: avoid blocking when waiting for
resources
multiple services running in parallel
state: running, blocked, ready, terminated
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Advanced
Why threads?
Parallel execution
Shared resources faster
communication without serialization
easier to create and destroy than
processes (100x)
useful if some are I/O-bound
overlap computation and I/O
easy porting to multiple CPUs
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Advanced
Thread variants
POSIX (pthreads)
Sun threads (mostly obsolete)
Java threads
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Creating a thread
int pthread_create(pthread_t *tid, const
pthread_attr_t *, void *(*func)(void
*), void *arg);
start function func with argument arg
in new thread
return 0 if ok, >0 if not
careful with arg argument
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Advanced
Network server example
Lots of little requests (hundreds to
thousands a second)
simple model: new thread for each
request doesn't scale (memory,
creation overhead)
dispatcher reads incoming requests
picks idle worker thread and sends it
message with pointer to request
if thread blocks, another one works on
another request
limit number of threads
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Advanced
Worker thread
while (1) {
wait for work(&buf);
look in cache
if not in cache
read page from disk
return page
}
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Leaving a thread
threads can return value, but
typically NULL
just return from function (return
void *)
main process exits kill all
threads
pthread_exit(void *status)
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
Thread synchronization
mutual exclusion, locks: mutex
protect shared or global data
structures
synchronization: condition
variables
semaphores
Mar 14, 2015
Advanced
