Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures
 Operating System Services
 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), 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. Obviously, programs need to read and write files
and directories, create and delete them, search them, list
file Information, permission management.

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 Operating System Services (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

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 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 - Some (such as CPU cycles,mainmemory,
and file storage) may have special allocation code, others (such as
I/O devices) may have general request and release code.
 Accounting - 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
 If a system is to be protected and secure, precautions must be
instituted throughout it. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

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 User Operating System Interface -
CLI

 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

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 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 as “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX
kernel underneath and shells available
 Solaris is CLI with optional GUI interfaces (Java
Desktop, KDE)

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 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 Program 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 of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X),
and Java API for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

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 Example of Standard API
 Consider the ReadFile() function in the
 Win32 API—a function for reading from a file

 A description of the parameters passed to ReadFile()

 HANDLE file—the file to be read
 LPVOID buffer—a buffer where the data will be read into and written
from
 DWORD bytesToRead—the number of bytes to be read into the buffer
 LPDWORD bytesRead—the number of bytes read during the last read
 LPOVERLAPPED ovl—indicates if overlapped I/O is being used

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 System Call Implementation
 Typically, a number associated with each system call
 System-call interface maintains a table indexed
according to these numbers
 The system call interface invokes 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)

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 API – System Call – OS
Relationship

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 Standard C Library Example

 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls

write() system call

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 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

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 Parameter Passing via Table

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 Types of System Calls
 Process control
 File management
 Device management
 Information maintenance
 Communications

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 System Programs

 System programs provide a convenient environment

for manipulation and execution which can be divided
into:
 File manipulation
 Status information
 File modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Application programs
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined
by system programs, not the actual system calls

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 System Programs
 Provide a convenient environment for manipulation 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 (regedit.exe on
Windows) - used to store and retrieve configuration
information

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 System Programs (cont’d)
 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

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 Operating System Design and
Implementation

 Design and Implementation of OS not “solvable”, but

some approaches have proven successful
 Internal structure of different Operating Systems can
vary widely
 Start 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

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 Operating System Design and Implementation
(Cont.)

 Important principle to separate

Policy: What will be done?
Mechanism: How to do it?
 Mechanisms determine how to do something;
policies decide what will be done
 The separation of policy from mechanism is a very
important principle, it allows maximum flexibility if
policy decisions are to be changed later

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 Simple Structure
 MS-DOS – written to provide the most functionality in
the least space
 Not divided into modules
 Although MS-DOS has some structure, its
interfaces and levels of functionality are not well
separated

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 MS-DOS Layer Structure

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 MS-DOS execution

(a) At system startup (b) running a

program

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 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

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 Layered Operating System

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 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

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 UNIX System Structure

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 Linux Running Multiple Programs

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 Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much from the kernel into “ user” space
 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

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 Mac OS X Structure

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 Modules
 Most modern operating systems implement kernel
modules
 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

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 Solaris Modular Approach

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 Virtual Machines

 A virtual machine takes the layered approach to

its logical conclusion. It treats hardware and the
operating system kernel as though they were all
hardware
 A virtual machine provides an interface identical
to the underlying bare hardware
 The operating system creates the illusion of
multiple processes, each executing on its own
processor with its own (virtual) memory

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 Virtual Machines (Cont.)
 The resources of the physical computer are shared to
create the virtual machines
 CPU scheduling can create the appearance that
users have their own processor
 Spooling and a file system can provide virtual card
readers and virtual line printers
 A normal user time-sharing terminal serves as the
virtual machine operator’s console

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 Virtual Machines (Cont.)

Non-virtual Machine Virtual Machine

(a) Nonvirtual machine (b) virtual

machine

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 Virtual Machines (Cont.)

 The virtual-machine concept provides complete

protection of system resources since each virtual
machine is isolated from all other virtual machines.
This isolation, however, permits no direct sharing of
resources.
 A virtual-machine system is a perfect vehicle for
operating-systems research and development. System
development is done on the virtual machine, instead of
on a physical machine and so does not disrupt normal
system operation.
 The virtual machine concept is difficult to implement
due to the effort required to provide an exact duplicate
to the underlying machine

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 VMware Architecture

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 The Java Virtual Machine

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End of Chapter 2