Operating System

BE Computer
Year/Part: III/I

Based on the syllabus of

Bachelor of Computer Engineering
Pokhara University
 Chapter 1 Types and structure of Operating System

1.1 Introduction and History of Operating System

 An operating system is a program that acts as an interface between the user and the computer
hardware and controls the execution of all kinds of programs.
 An operating system (OS) is a collection of software that manages computer hardware
resources and provides common services for computer programs.
 The operating system is a vital component of the system software in a computer system.
 An operating system falls under the category of system software that performs all the
fundamental tasks like file management, memory handling, process management, handling
the input/output and governing and managing the peripheral devices like disk drives,
networking hardware, printers, etc.

Fig: Operating System

Some examples of OS are Linux, Windows, OS X, Solaris, OS/400, Chrome OS, etc.

Objective/Goals of OS

An Operating System has a special program which controls the execution of application programs.
OS acts as an intermediary among applications and the hardware components. OS can be thought
of as having three objectives. These are:

 Convenience: It makes a computer more suitable to use.

 Efficiency: It provides the computer system resources with efficiency and in easy to use
format.
 Ability to develop: It should be built in such a way that it permits the efficient development,
testing and installation of new system functions without interfering with service.

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 Operating system as an extended machine

 Operating systems perform two basically unrelated functions: providing a clean abstract set of
resources instead of the messy hardware to application programmers and managing these
hardware resources.
 The architecture (instruction set, memory, I/O, and bus structure) of most computers at the
machine level language is primitive and awkward to program, especially for input/output
operations.
 Users do not want to be involved in programming of storage devices.
 Operating System provides a simple, high level abstraction such that these devices contain a
collection of named files.
 Such files consist of useful piece of information like a digital photo, e mail messages, or web
page.
 Operating System provides a set of basic commands or instructions to perform various
operations such as read, write, modify, save or close.
 Dealing with them is easier than directly dealing with hardware.
 Thus, Operating System hides the complexity of hardware and presents a beautiful interface to
the users.
 Just as the operating system shields (protect from an unpleasant experience) the programmer
from the disk hardware and presents a simple file-oriented interface, it also conceals a lot of
unpleasant business concerning interrupts, timers, memory management, and other low level
features.
 In each case, the abstraction offered by the operating system is simpler and easier to use than
that offered by the underlying hardware.
 In this view, the function of the operating system is to present the user with the equivalent of
an extended machine or virtual machine that is easier to work with than the underlying
hardware.

OS as a Resource Manager

 The concept of an operating system as providing abstractions to application programs is a top-down

view. Alternatively, bottom-up view holds that the OS is there to manage all pieces of a complex
system. Also, A computer consists of a set of resources such as processors, memories, timers, disks,
printers and many others. The Operating System manages these resources and allocates them to
specific programs.
 As a resource manager, the Operating system provides the controlled allocation of the processors,
memories, I/O devices among various programs.
 Moreover, multiple user programs are running at the same time. The processor itself is a resource
and the Operating System decides how much processor time should be given for the execution of a
particular user program.
 The operating system also manages memory and I/O devices when multiple users are working.
 The primary task of OS is to keep the track of which programs are using which resources, to grant
resource requests, to account for usage, and to resolve conflicting requests from different programs
and users.
 Also, Resource management includes multiplexing (sharing) resources in two ways: in time and
in space.

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History of Operating Systems

The First Generation (1940's to early 1950's)

When electronic computers where first introduced in the 1940's they were created without any
operating systems. All programming was done in absolute machine language, often by wiring up
plugboards to control the machine's basic functions. During these generation computers were
generally used to solve simple math calculations, operating systems were not necessarily needed.

The Second Generation (1955-1965)

The first operating system was introduced in the early 1950's, it was called GMOS and was created
by General Motors for IBM's machine the 701. Operating systems in the 1950's were called single-
stream batch processing systems because the data was submitted in groups. These new machines
were called mainframes, and they were used by professional operators in large computer rooms.
Since there was such as high price tag on these machines, only government agencies or large
corporations were able to afford them.

The Third Generation (1965-1980)

By the late 1960's operating systems designers were able to develop the system of
multiprogramming in which a computer program will be able to perform multiple jobs at the same
time. The introduction of multiprogramming was a major part in the development of operating
systems because it allowed a CPU to be busy nearly 100 percent of the time that it was in operation.
Another major development during the third generation was the phenomenal growth of
minicomputers, starting with the DEC PDP-1 in 1961. The PDP-1 had only 4K of 18-bit words, but
at $120,000 per machine (less than 5 percent of the price of a 7094), it sold like hotcakes. These
microcomputers help create a whole new industry and the development of more PDP's. These PDP's
helped lead to the creation of personal computers which are created in the fourth generation.

The Fourth Generation (1980-Present Day)

The fourth generation of operating systems saw the creation of personal computing. Although these
computers were very similar to the minicomputers developed in the third generation, personal
computers cost a very small fraction of what minicomputers cost. A personal computer was so
affordable that it made it possible for a single individual could be able to own one for personal use
while minicomputers where still at such a high price that only corporations could afford to have
them. One of the major factors in the creation of personal computing was the birth of Microsoft and
the Windows operating system. The windows Operating System was created in 1975 when Paul
Allen and Bill Gates had a vision to take personal computing to the next level. They introduced the
MS-DOS in 1981 although it was effective it created much difficulty for people who tried to
understand its cryptic commands. Windows went on to become the largest operating system used
in techonology today with releases of Windows 95, Windows 98, WIndows XP (Which is currently
the most used operating system to this day), and their newest operating system Windows 7. Along
with Microsoft, Apple is the other major operating system created in the 1980's. Steve Jobs, co
founder of Apple, created the Apple Macintosh which was a huge success due to the fact that it was

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so user friendly. Windows development throughout the later years were influenced by the
Macintosh and it created a strong competition between the two companies. Today all of our
electronic devices run off of operating systems, from our computers and smartphones, to ATM
machines and motor vehicles. And as technology advances, so do operating systems.

1.2 Operating System Concepts and Functionalities

Operating System Concepts

1.2.1 Process

 A process is an instance of a program in execution.

 A program becomes process when executable file is loaded in the main memory.
 A process is defined as an entity which represents the basic unit of work to be implemented in
the system.

1.2.2 Files

 A file is a named collection of related information that is recorded on secondary storage such
as magnetic disks, magnetic tapes and optical disks.
 In general, a file is a sequence of bits, bytes, lines or records whose meaning is defined by the
files creator and user.

1.2.3 System Calls

 In computing, a system call is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a
service from the kernel of the operating system it is executed on.
 A system call is a way for programs to interact with the operating system. A computer
program makes a system call when it makes a request to the operating system’s kernel. System
call provides the services of the operating system to the user programs via Application Program
Interface(API).
 It provides an interface between a process and operating system to allow user-level processes
to request services of the operating system. System calls are the only entry points into the kernel
system. All programs needing resources must use system calls.

1.2.3 The Shell

 The shell is the outermost layer of the operating system. Shells incorporate a programming
language to control processes and files, as well as to start and control other programs. The shell
manages the interaction between you and the operating system by prompting you for input,
interpreting that input for the operating system, and then handling any resulting output from the
operating system.
 Shells provide a way for you to communicate with the operating system. This communication
is carried out either interactively (input from the keyboard is acted upon immediately) or as a
shell script. A shell script is a sequence of shell and operating system commands that is stored
in a file.

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Function of Operating System

Following are some of important functions of an operating System:

 Processor management which involves putting the tasks into order and pairing them into
manageable size before they go to the CPU.
 Memory management which coordinates data to and from RAM (random-access memory) and
determines the necessity for virtual memory.
 Device management which provides interface between connected devices.
 Storage management which directs permanent data storage.
 Application which allows standard communication between software and your computer.
 User interface which allows you to communicate with your computer.
 It provides file management which refers to the way that the operating system manipulates,
stores, retrieves and saves data.
 Error Handling is done by the operating system. It takes preventive measures whenever
required to avoid errors.
 Security − By means of password and similar other techniques, it prevents unauthorized access
to programs and data.
 Control over system performance − Recording delays between request for a service and
response from the system.
 Coordination between other software and users − Coordination and assignment of
compilers, interpreters, assemblers and other software to the various users of the computer
systems.

1.3 Operating System Structure

An operating system might have many structure. According to the structure of the operating system;
operating systems can be classified into many categories.

Some of the main structures used in operating systems are:

1.3.1 Monolithic architecture of operating system

It is the oldest architecture used for developing operating system. Operating system resides on
kernel for anyone to execute. System call is involved i.e. Switching from user mode to kernel mode
and transfer control to operating system shown as event 1. Many CPU has two modes, kernel mode,
for the operating system in which all instruction is allowed and user mode for user program in which
I/O devices and certain other instruction are not allowed. Two operating system then examines the
parameter of the call to determine which system call is to be carried out shown in event 2. Next, the
operating system indexes into a table that contains procedure that carries out system call. This
operation is shown in events. Finally, it is called when the work has been completed and the system
call is finished, control is given back to the user mode as shown in event 4.

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1.3.2 Layered Architecture of operating system

The layered Architecture of operating system was developed in 60’s in this approach; the operating
system is broken up into number of layers. The bottom layer (layer 0) is the hardware layer and the
highest layer (layer n) is the user interface layer as shown in the figure.

The layered are selected such that each user functions and services of only lower level layer. The
first layer can be debugged wit out any concern for the rest of the system. It user basic hardware to
implement this function once the first layer is debugged., it’s correct functioning can be assumed
while the second layer is debugged & soon. If an error is found during the debugged of particular
layer, the layer must be on that layer, because the layer below it already debugged. Because of this
design of the system is simplified when operating system is broken up into layer.

Os/2 operating system is example of layered architecture of operating system another example is
earlier version of Windows NT.

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The main disadvantage of this architecture is that it requires an appropriate definition of the various
layers & a careful planning of the proper placement of the layer.

1.3.3 Virtual memory architecture of operating system

Virtual machine is an illusion of a real machine. It is created by a real machine operating system,
which make a single real machine appears to be several real machine. The architecture of virtual
machine is shown above.

The best example of virtual machine architecture is IBM 370 computer. In this system each user
can choose a different operating system. Actually, virtual machine can run several operating
systems at once, each of them on its virtual machine.

Its multiprogramming shares the resource of a single machine in different manner.

The concepts of virtual machine are:-

a. Control program (cp):- cp creates the environment in which virtual machine can execute. It
gives to each user facilities of real machine such as processor, storage I/0 devices.
b. conversation monitor system (cons):- cons is a system application having features of
developing program. It contains editor, language translator, and various application
packages.
c. Remote spooling communication system (RSCS):- provide virtual machine with the ability
to transmit and receive file in distributed system.
d. IPCS (interactive problem control system):- it is used to fix the virtual machine software
problems.

1.3.4 Client/Server architecture of operating system

A trend in modern operating system is to move maximum code into the higher level and remove as
much as possible from operating system, minimizing the work of the kernel. The basic approach is
to implement most of the operating system functions in user processes to request a service, such as
request to read a particular file, user send a request to the server process, server checks the parameter
and finds whether it is valid or not, after that server does the work and send back the answer to
client server model works on request- response technique i.e. Client always send request to the side
in order to perform the task, and on the other side, server gates complementing that request send
back response. The figure below shows client server architecture.

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In this model, the main task of the kernel is to handle all the communication between the client and
the server by splitting the operating system into number of ports, each of which only handle some
specific task i.e. file server, process server, terminal server and memory service.

Another advantage of the client-server model is it’s adaptability to user in distributed system. If the
client communicates with the server by sending it the message, the client need not know whether it
was send a ……. Is the network to a server on a remote machine? As in case of client, same thing
happens and occurs in client side that is a request was send and a reply come back.

Kernel mode and User mode

In any modern operating system, the CPU is actually spending time in two very distinct modes to
make sure it works correctly:

Kernel Mode

In Kernel mode, the executing code has complete and unrestricted access to the underlying
hardware. It can execute any CPU instruction and reference any memory address. Kernel mode is
generally reserved for the lowest-level, most trusted functions of the operating system. Crashes in
kernel mode are catastrophic; they will halt the entire PC.

User Mode

In User mode, the executing code has no ability to directly access hardware or reference memory.
Code running in user mode must delegate to system APIs to access hardware or memory. Due to
the protection afforded by this sort of isolation, crashes in user mode are always recoverable. Most
of the code running on your computer will execute in user mode.

Necessity of Dual Mode (User Mode and Kernel Mode) in Operating System

The lack of a dual mode i.e user mode and kernel mode in an operating system can cause serious
problems. Some of these are:

 A running user program can accidentally wipe out the operating system by overwriting it
with user data.
 Multiple processes can write in the same system at the same time, with disastrous results.

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1.4 Types and evolution of Operating System

Operating systems are there from the very first computer generation and they keep evolving with
time. Some of the important types of operating systems which are most commonly used are:

i. Batch Operating System

This type of operating system do not interact with the computer directly. There is an operator which
takes similar jobs having same requirement and group them into batches. It is the responsibility of
operator to sort the jobs with similar needs.

Advantages of Batch Operating System:

 It is very difficult to guess or know the time required by any job to complete. Processors of
the batch systems knows how long the job would be when it is in queue
 Multiple users can share the batch systems
 The idle time batch system is very less
 It is easy to manage large work repeatedly in batch systems

Disadvantages of Batch Operating System:

 The computer operators should be well known with batch systems

 Batch systems are hard to debug
 It is sometime costly
 The other jobs will have to wait for an unknown time if any job fails

Examples of Batch based Operating System: Payroll System, Bank Statements etc.

ii. Time-Sharing Operating Systems

Each task has given some time to execute, so that all the tasks work smoothly. Each user gets time
of CPU as they use single system. These systems are also known as Multitasking Systems. The
task can be from single user or from different users also. The time that each task gets to execute is
called quantum. After this time interval is over OS switches over to next task.

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Advantages of Time-Sharing OS:

 Each task gets an equal opportunity

 Less chances of duplication of software
 CPU idle time can be reduced

Disadvantages of Time-Sharing OS:

 Reliability problem
 One must have to take care of security and integrity of user programs and data
 Data communication problem

Examples of Time-Sharing OSs are: Multics, Unix etc.

iii. Distributed Operating System

These types of operating system is a recent advancement in the world of computer technology and
are being widely accepted all-over the world and, that too, with a great pace. Various autonomous
interconnected computers communicate each other using a shared communication network.
Independent systems possess their own memory unit and CPU. These are referred as loosely
coupled systems or distributed systems. These systems processors differ in sizes and functions.
The major benefit of working with these types of operating system is that it is always possible that
one user can access the files or software which are not actually present on his system but on some
other system connected within this network i.e., remote access is enabled within the devices
connected in that network.

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Advantages of Distributed Operating System:

 Failure of one will not affect the other network communication, as all systems are independent
from each other
 Electronic mail increases the data exchange speed
 Since resources are being shared, computation is highly fast and durable
 Load on host computer reduces
 These systems are easily scalable as many systems can be easily added to the network
 Delay in data processing reduces

Disadvantages of Distributed Operating System:

 Failure of the main network will stop the entire communication

 To establish distributed systems the language which are used are not well defined yet
 These types of systems are not readily available as they are very expensive. Not only that the
underlying software is highly complex and not understood well yet.

Examples of Distributed Operating System are- LOCUS,AMOEBA etc.

iv. Network Operating System

These systems runs on a server and provides the capability to manage data, users, groups, security,
applications, and other networking functions. These type of operating systems allows shared access
of files, printers, security, applications, and other networking functions over a small private

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network. One more important aspect of Network Operating Systems is that all the users are well
aware of the underlying configuration, of all other users within the network, their individual
connections etc. and that’s why these computers are popularly known as tightly coupled systems.

Advantages of Network Operating System:

 Highly stable centralized servers
 Security concerns are handled through servers
 New technologies and hardware up-gradation are easily integrated to the system
 Server access are possible remotely from different locations and types of systems

Disadvantages of Network Operating System:

 Servers are costly
 User has to depend on central location for most operations
 Maintenance and updates are required regularly

Examples: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, UNIX, Linux, Mac
OS X, Novell NetWare, and BSD etc.

v. Parallel Operating System

 Parallel operating systems are used to interface multiple networked computers to complete tasks in parallel.
 The architecture of the software is often a UNIX-based platform, which allows it to coordinate distributed
loads between multiple computers in a network.
 Parallel operating systems are able to use software to manage all of the different resources of the computers
running in parallel, such as memory, caches, storage space, and processing power.
 Parallel operating systems also allow a user to directly interface with all of the computers in the network

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  A parallel operating system works by dividing sets of calculations into smaller parts and
distributing them between the machines on a network. To facilitate communication between
the processor cores and memory arrays, routing software has to either share its memory by
assigning the same address space to all of the networked computers, or distribute its memory
by assigning a different address space to each processing core.

vi. Real Time operating System

A real-time system is defined as a data processing system in which the time interval required to
process and respond to inputs is so small that it controls the environment. The time taken by the
system to respond to an input and display of required updated information is termed as
the response time. So in this method, the response time is very less as compared to online
processing.

Real-time systems are used when there are rigid time requirements on the operation of a processor
or the flow of data and real-time systems can be used as a control device in a dedicated application.
A real-time operating system must have well-defined, fixed time constraints, otherwise the system
will fail. For example, Scientific experiments, medical imaging systems, industrial control
systems, weapon systems, robots, air traffic control systems, etc.

Advantages of Real Time Operating System:

 Maximum Consumption
 Task Shifting
 Error Free
 24-7 systems
Disadvantages of Real Time Operating System:
 Limited Tasks
 Use heavy system resource
 Complex Algorithms
 Expensive
There are two types of real-time operating systems.

I. Hard real-time systems

Hard real-time systems guarantee that critical tasks complete on time. In hard real-time systems,
secondary storage is limited or missing and the data is stored in ROM. In these systems, virtual
memory is almost never found.

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 II. Soft real-time systems
Soft real-time systems are less restrictive. A critical real-time task gets priority over other tasks
and retains the priority until it completes. Soft real-time systems have limited utility than hard real-
time systems. For example, multimedia, virtual reality, Advanced Scientific Projects like undersea
exploration and planetary rovers, etc.

Multitasking, multiprogramming and multiprocessing

Multitasking

Both the memory and CPU time is shared among the tasks It performs multiple tasks concurrently.
It gives a illusion that all the processes or tasks are performed simultaneously. For example, in your
desktop you can listen to music, download things simultaneously. The concept is that the CPU time
is shared equally among the processes or tasks. Again take an example that 3 tasks are loaded into
the main memory. Consider that the time allocated for each program is 5 micro seconds. Now the
first task is executed. After 5 microseconds irrespective whether the task gets completed or not it
gets switched to the second task. Similarly, after 5 seconds it goes to the third task. Thus the CPU
time is shared equally among the tasks.

Multiprogramming

The concept of multiprogramming is that more than one program that is to be executed by the
processor is loaded into the memory.

Say we have 2 programs loaded into the memory. The first program that is loaded is getting
executed. At one point of time it requires input from the user or waiting for some data. During the
waiting time, the CPU is idle. Instead of wasting the time, the CPU will now begin to execute the
second program. Meanwhile the first program once it receives the required data, will again get the
CPU time and get executed blocking or pausing the execution of the second program. After the
completion of the first program, the second program is executed from where it was paused. The
concept was introduced to maximize the CPU usage.

Multiprocessing

The term multiprocessing is introduced around the modern times when they started to use more
than one processor in a single computer (Remember the terms like dual core, quad core, octa core
processor). These processors share some things in common like memory, peripherals etc. By
sharing the memory and peripherals they are able execute different task simultaneously.

In general,
Multiprogramming: takes place in a system where it has a single processor.
Multitasking: single processor or sometimes multiprocessor
Multiprocessing: multiprocessor.

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 Chapter 2 Processes and Threads
2.1 Process Concepts

Program
A program is a piece of code which may be a single line or millions of lines. A computer program
is usually written by a computer programmer in a programming language. A computer program is
a collection of instructions that performs a specific task when executed by a computer. When we
compare a program with a process, we can conclude that a process is a dynamic instance of a
computer program.
Process
A process is an instance of a program in execution. A program becomes process when executable
file is loaded in the main memory. A process is defined as an entity which represents the basic unit
of work to be implemented in the system. Each process has its own address space and process
control block (PCB).
Program Process
Basic Program is a set of instruction. When a program is executed, it is known
as process.
Nature It is Passive in nature. It is Active in nature.
Lifespan Its lifespan is Longer. Its lifespan is Limited.
Required Program is stored on disk in some file Process holds resources such as CPU,
resources and does not require any other resources. memory address, disk, I/O etc.

Process states and its transition

When a process executes, it passes through different states. These stages may differ in different
operating systems, and the names of these states are also not standardized. In general, a process
can have one of the following five states at a time.

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  Start: This is the initial state when a process is first started/created.

 Ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor. Ready processes are waiting
to have the processor allocated to them by the operating system so that they can run.
Process may come into this state after Start state or while running it by but interrupted by
the scheduler to assign CPU to some other process.

 Running: Once the process has been assigned to a processor by the OS scheduler, the
process state is set to running and the processor executes its instructions.

 Waiting: Process moves into the waiting state if it needs to wait for a resource, such as
waiting for user input, or waiting for a file to become available.

 Terminated or Exit: Once the process finishes its execution, or it is terminated by the
operating system, it is moved to the terminated state where it waits to be removed from
main memory.

Process Control Block (PCB)

A Process Control Block is a data structure maintained by the Operating System for every process.
The PCB is identified by an integer process ID (PID). The PCB is maintained for a process
throughout its lifetime, and is deleted once the process terminates. A PCB keeps all the information
needed to keep track of a process as listed in the figure:

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  Process ID: Unique identification for each of the process in the operating system.
 Process State: The current state of the process i.e., whether it is ready, running, waiting,
or whatever.
 Pointer: A pointer to parent process.
 Priority: Contains the priority numbers of each process.
 Program Counter: Program Counter is a pointer to the address of the next instruction to
be executed for this process.
 CPU registers: Various CPU registers where process need to be stored for execution for
running state.
 IO status information: This includes a list of I/O devices allocated to the process.
 Accounting information: This includes the amount of CPU used for process execution,
time limits, execution ID etc
 CPU Scheduling Information: Process priority and other scheduling information which
is required to schedule the process.
 Memory management information: This includes the information of page table, memory
limits, Segment table depending on memory used by the operating system.

Operation of process
The operations of process carried out by an operating system are primarily of two types:

i. Process Creation

Process creation is a task of creating new processes. There are different situations in which a new
process is created. There are different ways to create new process. A new process can be created at
the time of initialization of operating system or when system calls such as fork () are initiated by
other processes. The process, which creates a new process using system calls, is called parent
process while the new process that is created is called child process. The child processes can create
new processes using system calls. A new process can also create by an operating system based on
the request received from the user.

The process creation is very common in running computer system because corresponding to every
task that is performed there is a process associated with it. For instance, a new process is created
every time a user logs on to a computer system, an application program such a MS Word is initiated,
or when a document printed.
ii. Process termination
Process termination is an operation in which a process is terminated after the execution of its last
instruction. This operation is used to terminate or end any process. When a process is terminated,
the resources that were being utilized by the process are released by the operating system. When a
child process terminates, it sends the status information back to the parent process before
terminating. The child process can also be terminated by the parent process if the task performed
by the child process is no longer needed. In addition, when a parent process terminates, it has to
terminate the child process as well became a child process cannot run when its parent process has
been terminated.

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The termination of a process when all its instruction has been executed successfully is called normal
termination. However, there are instances when a process terminates due to some error. This
termination is called as abnormal termination of a process.

The above figure shows the hierarchical structure of processes.

Concurrent processing

Concurrent processing is a computing model in which multiple processors execute instructions

simultaneously for better performance. Tasks are broken down into subtasks that are then assigned
to separate processors to perform simultaneously, instead of sequentially as they would have to be
carried out by a single processor. Concurrent processing is sometimes said to be synonymous with
parallel processing.

Parallel Processing

Parallel processing, one form of multiprocessing, is a situation in which two or more processors
operate in unison. Two or more CPUs are executing instructions simultaneously. The Processor
Manager has to coordinate the activity of each processor as well as synchronize cooperative
interaction among the CPUs.
There are two primary benefits to parallel processing systems:
 Increased reliability
 The availability of more than one CPU
 If one processor fails, then the others can continue to operate and absorb the load.
 Faster processing
The increased processing speed is often achieved because sometimes Instructions can be processed
in parallel, two or more at a time in one of several ways:
 Some systems allocate a CPU to each program or job
 Others allocate a CPU to each working set or parts of it

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  Subdivide individual instructions so that each subdivision can be processed simultaneously.
Race Condition
A situation where several processes/threads access and manipulate the same data concurrently and
the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place, is
called a race condition. A race condition occurs when two or more threads can access shared data
and they try to change it at the same time.
Possibilities of race:
• many concurrent process read the same data.
• one process reading and another process writing same data.
• two or more process writing same data.
Example
• P1 and P2 share global variables b and c with initial values b=1 and c=2
• P1 has an assignment operation, b=b+c
• P2 has an assignment operation c=b+c
• If P1 an P2 are running concurrently, value of b and c would be 3 and 5 if P1 executes its
assignment first or it could be 4 and 3 if P2 executes its assignment first.

To guard against the race conditions, we need to synchronize the processes in such a way that only one
process at a time can be manipulating shared variable or file. This is called mutual exclusion (i.e. critical
section is executed as an atomic instruction).
2.2 Inter-process Communication
IPC is the mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize their actions or to allow
processes to exchange information. There are numerous reasons for providing an environment or
situation which allows process co-operation:
 Information sharing: Since some users may be interested in the same piece of information
(for example, a shared file), you must provide a situation for allowing concurrent access to
that information.
 Computation speedup: If you want a particular work to run fast, you must break it into sub-
tasks where each of them will get executed in parallel with the other tasks. Note that such a
speed-up can be attained only when the computer has compound or various processing
elements like CPUs or I/O channels.
 Modularity: You may want to build the system in a modular way by dividing the system
functions into split processes or threads.
 Convenience: Even a single user may work on many tasks at a time. For example, a user may
be editing, formatting, printing, and compiling in parallel.
Working together with multiple processes, require an inter-process communication (IPC) method
which will allow them to exchange data along with various information. There are two primary
models of inter-process communication:

i. shared memory and

ii. message passing.

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In the shared-memory model, a region of memory which is shared by cooperating processes gets
established. Processes can be then able to exchange information by reading and writing all the data
to the shared region. In the message-passing form, communication takes place by way of messages
exchanged among the cooperating processes.

An advantage of shared memory model is that memory communication is faster as compared to the
message passing model on the same machine. However, shared memory model may create
problems such as synchronization and memory protection that need to be addressed.

The two communications models are contrasted in the figure below:

Message passing is mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize their actions
without resorting to a shared variable.

This method of Inter Process Communication (IPC) uses two primitives:

 send (destination, message);
 receive (source, message);

 Send calls sends a message to a given destination.

 Receive receives a message from a given source. If no message is available, receiver can block
until one arrives, or it can return immediately with error code.

If processes P and Q needs to communicate, they need to

1. establish a communication link (physical or logical) between them
2. exchange message via send/receive

Processes must name each other explicitly:

1. send(P, message) : send a message to process P
2. receive(Q, message) : receive a message from process Q

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An advantage of message passing model is that it is easier to build parallel hardware. This is because
message passing model is quite tolerant of higher communication latencies. It is also much easier
to implement than the shared memory model.

However, the message passing model has slower communication than the shared memory model
because the connection setup takes time.

Critical Section/region
• Critical section is the area of the code/instruction that should be executed atomically.
• Critical section is a piece of code that accesses a shared resource (data structure or device)
that must not be concurrently accessed by more than one thread of execution.
• If a process wants to access any kind of common shareable variable, common shareable
table, common shareable files in its then the process is trying to enter a critical section.

Requirements for Critical Section

1. Mutual Exclusion
At a time only one process can enter/ access to the critical section.
2. Progress
If CS is vacant/free and some process is tried to enter CS, no infinite time should be taken for the
selection of process to go into the CS. Processes on the remainder section also get chance to enter
CS.
3. Bounded Waiting
Let a particular process request to enter a CS, by OS allowing other process to enter CS. In such
case there must be upper bound that the process gets denied to enter CS.
Mutual Exclusion
• A mutual exclusion (mutex) is a program object that prevents simultaneous access to a
shared resource.

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 • Mutual exclusion is a property of concurrency control, which is instituted for the purpose
of preventing race conditions.
• It is the requirement that one thread of execution never enter its critical section at the same
time that another concurrent thread of execution enters its own critical section

Mutual Exclusion can be achieved using following techniques:

i. Mutual Exclusion with busy waiting / Strict Alternation

• In this proposed solution, the integer variable ‘turn’ keeps track of whose turn is to enter the
critical section.
• Initially turn = 0. Process 1 inspects turn, finds it to be 0 and enters in its critical section.
Process 2 also finds it to be 0 and therefore sits in a loop continually testing ‘turn’ to see
when it becomes 1.
• Continuously testing a variable waiting for some value to appear is called the busy waiting.
• When process 1 exit from the critical region is set to turn to 1 and now process 2 can find it
to be 1 and enters into the critical region.

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 • Also, in this way both the process get the alternate turn to enter in the critical region.
• Taking turns is not a good idea when one of the processes is much slower than the other.
• Can used only when the waiting period is expected to be short.
ii. Semaphore
• Semaphore is a protected integer value that can facilitate the processes to enter to a critical
section.
• It ensures only one process enters to a CS at a time in a mutually exclusive way.
• Perform atomic operation i.e. no partial execution
Operations
i. wait(s)
while (s <= 0 ); do no operation
s = s -1
ii. signal(s)
s = s+1

Semaphore is a simply a variable. This variable is used to solve critical section problem and to
achieve process synchronization in the multi-processing environment.
The two most common kinds of semaphores are counting semaphores and binary semaphores.
Counting semaphore can take non-negative integer values and Binary semaphore can take the value
0 & 1. only.
Now let us see how it do so. First look at two operations which can be used to access and change
the value of semaphore variable.

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Some point regarding P and V operation
1. P operation is also called wait, sleep or down operation and V operation is also called signal,
wake-up or up operation.
2. Both operations are atomic and semaphore(s) is always initialized to one.
3. A critical section is surrounded by both operations to implement process synchronization. See
below image. Critical section of Process P is in between P and V operation.

Semaphores are of two types:

 Binary Semaphore: This is also known as mutex lock. It can have only two values – 0 and
1. Its value is initialized to 1. It is used to implement solution of critical section problem with
multiple processes.
 Counting Semaphore: Its value can range over an unrestricted domain. It is used to control
access to a resource that has multiple instances.

iii. Monitor
• A monitor is a collection of procedures, variables and data structures that are grouped
together in a special kind of module or package
• Once the process enters in monitor, the process gets locked and remaining process are kept
in queue

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 • Monitor is a type, or abstract data type, encapsulates private data with public methods to
operate on that data
• Processes may call the procedures in a monitor whenever they want to but they cannot
directly access the monitor’s internal data structures from procedures declared outside the
monitor

iv. Dekker’s Algorithm

Dekker’s algorithm will allow only a single process to use a resource if two processes are trying to
use it at the same time. The highlight of the algorithm is how it solves this problem. It succeeds in
preventing the conflict by enforcing mutual exclusion, meaning that only one process may use the
resource at a time and will wait if another process is using it. This is achieved with the use of two
"flags" and a "token". The flags indicate whether a process wants to enter the critical section (CS)
or not; a value of 1 means TRUE that the process wants to enter the CS, while 0, or FALSE, means
the opposite. The token, which can also have a value of 1 or 0, indicates priority when both
processes have their flags set to TRUE.
This algorithm can successfully enforce mutual exclusion but will constantly test whether the
critical section is available and therefore wastes significant processor time. It creates the problem
known as lockstep synchronization, in which each thread may only execute in strict
synchronization. It is also non-expandable as it only supports a maximum of two processes for
mutual exclusion.

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Algorithm
flag[i] = TRUE; /* claim the resource */
while (flag[j]=true) /* wait if the other process is using the resource */
{
if (turn == j) /* if waiting for the resource, also wait our turn */
{
flag [i] = false; /* but release the resource while waiting
wait until(turn=i)
flag [i] = TRUE;
}
}
//critical section
turn= j; /* pass the turn on, and release the resource */
flag [i] = FALSE;
//remainder section
}
v. Peterson’s Algorithm
Peterson's algorithm is used for mutual exclusion and allows two processes to share a single-use
resource without conflict. It uses only shared memory for communication. Peterson's formula
originally worked only with two processes, but has since been generalized for more than two.
In this algorithm turn variables (turn) and status flags (flag) are conditions or variables that are used
in Peterson's algorithm. Because of these two conditions, and because of waiting for a turn only if
other flags are set, the need to clear and reset flags is avoided. After a flag is set, the turn is
immediately given away when using Peterson's algorithm.
Mutual exclusion, no progress and bounded waiting are three essential criteria used to solve the
critical section problem when using the algorithm.
Algorithm
do {
flag [i] = TRUE; /* claim the resource */
turn= j; /* give away the turn */
while (flag[j] && turn== j); /* wait while the other process is using the resource and has the turn
*/
//critical section
flag [i] = FALSE; /* release the resource */
remainder section
} while (TRUE);

Problem
If process 0 finishes its work in non-critical region fast enough after it set, turn to 1 and process 0
needs to enter critical section again before process 1 then it cannot do so. So, process 1 which is
running outside critical region is blocking process 0.

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 vi. Lock Variable
 In this approach, we will have a single shared variable called lock
 If lock=0, it means that no process is in the critical region while lock=1 means that a process is
currently working in the critical region
 When a process wants to enter into its critical section, it first tests the lock
 If the lock is 0, the process sets it to 1 and enters the critical section
 If the lock is already 1, the process just waits until it becomes zero
What is the problem with this approach??
 two process may be in critical region at the same time
 a process sees lock =0 and enters critical region, but before it can set lock to 1, another
process is scheduled, it sees lock=0 and enters critical region. Both process enter critical
section, both assigning 1 to lock

vii. TSL (Test and Set Lock)

 This proposal to solve critical section problem requires a little help from hardware, it uses the
following instruction
TSL Rx, LOCK
 It reads the content of memory word lock into register RX and stores a non-zero value at the
memory address lock
 This is an atomic instruction, that is operation of reading a word and storing into it are
guaranteed to be indivisible
 When lock is 0, any process may set it to 1 through TSL instruction and read or write the shared
memory
 When it is done, the process sets lock back to 0 using an ordinary MOVE instruction.
enter_region:
TSL REGISTER, LOCK
CMP REGISTER, #0
JNE enter_region
RET
Leave_region:
MOVE LOCK,#0
RET

Producer-consumer problem
Producer-consumer problem (also known as the bounded-buffer problem) is a multiprocessing
synchronization problem.
The problem describes two processes, the producer and the consumer, who share a common, fixed
size buffer.
Producer: - The producer's job is to generate a piece of data, put it into the buffer and start again.
Consumer: - The consumer is consuming the data (i.e., removing it from the buffer) one piece at a
time.

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Problem
The problem is to make sure that the producer won't try to add data into the buffer if it's full and
that the consumer won't try to remove data from an empty buffer.
Solution to Producer-consumer problem
Producer either go to sleep or discard data if the buffer is full. The next time the consumer removes
an item from the buffer and it notifies the producer who starts to fill the buffer again consumer can
go to sleep if it finds the buffer to be empty. The next time the producer puts data into the buffer, it
wakes up the sleeping consumer.
Sleep and wakeup
 When a process wants to enter its critical region, it checks to see if entry is allowed, if it is not,
the process just sits in a tight loop waiting, this approach wastes CPU time.
 We could use an IPC primitives that blocks a process instead of wasting CPU time when they
are not allowed to enter into their critical section.
 Such a simple primitive pair is sleep and wakeup
 Essentially, when a process is not permitted to access its critical section, it uses a system call
known as Sleep, which causes that process to block.
 The process will not be scheduled to run again, until another process uses the Wakeup system
call.
 Wakeup is called by a process when it leaves its critical section if any other processes have
blocked.

BufferSize = 3;
count = 0;
Producer()
{
int item;
WHILE (true){
make_new(item); // create a new item to put in the buffer
IF(count==BufferSize) Sleep(); // if the buffer is full, sleep
put_item(item); // put the item in the buffer
count = count + 1; // increment count of items
IF (count==1)

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Wakeup(Consumer); // if the buffer was previously empty, wake the
consumer
}}
Consumer()
{
Int item;
WHILE(true)
{
IF(count==0) Sleep(); // if the buffer is empty, sleep
remove_item(item); // take an item from the buffer
count = count - 1; // decrement count of items
IF(count==N-1)
Wakeup(Producer); // if buffer was previously full, wake the producer
Consume_item(item); // consume the item
}}

Problem with the above Solution

The problem with this solution is that it contains a race condition that can lead into a deadlock.
Consider the following scenario:
 The consumer has just read the variable itemCount, noticed it's zero and is just about to move
inside the if-block.
 Just before calling sleep, the consumer is interrupted and the producer is resumed.
 The producer creates an item, puts it into the buffer, and increases itemCount.
 Because the buffer was empty prior to the last addition, the producer tries to wake up the
consumer.
 Unfortunately, the consumer wasn't yet sleeping, and the wakeup call is lost. When the
consumer resumes, it goes to sleep and will never be awakened again. This is because the
consumer is only awakened by the producer when itemCount is equal to 1.
 The producer will loop until the buffer is full, after which it will also go to sleep.
 Since both processes will sleep forever, we have run into a deadlock. This solution therefore
is unsatisfactory.
Solution of Producer Consumer using Semaphore
To solve this problem, we need two counting semaphores – Full and Empty. “Full” keeps track of
number of items in the buffer at any given time and “Empty” keeps track of number of unoccupied
slots.
Initialization of semaphores –
mutex = 1
Full = 0 // Initially, all slots are empty. Thus full slots are 0
Empty = n // All slots are empty initially

Solution for Producer

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do{
//produce an item
wait(empty);
wait(mutex);
//place in buffer
signal(mutex);
signal(full);
}while(true)

When producer produces an item then the value of “empty” is reduced by 1 because one slot will
be filled now. The value of mutex is also reduced to prevent consumer to access the buffer. Now,
the producer has placed the item and thus the value of “full” is increased by 1. The value of mutex
is also increased by 1 because the task of producer has been completed and consumer can access
the buffer.
Solution for Consumer
do{
wait(full);
wait(mutex);
// remove item from buffer
signal(mutex);
signal(empty);
// consumes item
}while(true)

As the consumer is removing an item from buffer, therefore the value of “full” is reduced by 1 and
the value is mutex is also reduced so that the producer cannot access the buffer at this moment.
Now, the consumer has consumed the item, thus increasing the value of “empty” by 1. The value
of mutex is also increased so that producer can access the buffer now.
Classical IPC problems
i. The Dining Philosophers Problem
The dining philosophers’ problem is a classic synchronization problem which is used to evaluate
situations where there is a need of allocating multiple resources to multiple processes.
Consider there are five philosophers sitting around a circular dining table. The dining table has five
chopsticks and a bowl of noodles in the middle as shown in the below figure. At any instant, a philosopher
is either eating or thinking. When a philosopher wants to eat, he uses two chopsticks - one from
their left and one from their right. When a philosopher wants to think, he keeps down both
chopsticks at their original place.

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From the problem statement, it is clear that a philosopher can think for an indefinite amount of time.
But when a philosopher starts eating, he has to stop at some point of time. The philosopher is in an
endless cycle of thinking and eating.
An array of five semaphores, stick[5], for each of the five chopsticks.
The code for each philosopher looks like:
At first stick[i] = 1, for all values of i i.e. i=0 to 4 is set initially to indicate chopstick is available
while(TRUE)
{
wait(stick[i]);
/*
mod is used because if i=5, next
chopstick is 1 (dining table is circular)
*/
wait(stick[(i+1) % 5]);
/* eat */
signal(stick[i]);
signal(stick[(i+1) % 5]);
/* think */}

When a philosopher wants to eat the noodles, he will wait for the chopstick at his left and picks up
that chopstick. Then he waits for the right chopstick to be available, and then picks it too. After
eating, he puts both the chopsticks down.
But if all five philosophers are hungry simultaneously, and each of them pickup one chopstick, then
a deadlock situation occurs because they will be waiting for another chopstick forever. The possible
solutions for this are:
 A philosopher must be allowed to pick up the chopsticks only if both the left and right
chopsticks are available.

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  Allow only four philosophers to sit at the table. That way, if all the four philosophers pick up
four chopsticks, there will be one chopstick left on the table. So, one philosopher can start
eating and eventually, two chopsticks will be available. In this way, deadlocks can be avoided.
Code for solution to dining philosopher problem
#include <pthread.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define N 5
#define THINKING 2
#define HUNGRY 1
#define EATING 0
#define LEFT (phnum + 4) % N
#define RIGHT (phnum + 1) % N
int state[N];
int phil[N] = { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 };
sem_t mutex;
sem_t S[N];
void test(int phnum)
{
if (state[phnum] == HUNGRY && state[LEFT] != EATING && state[RIGHT] != EATING) {
// state that eating
state[phnum] = EATING;
sleep(2);
printf("Philosopher %d takes fork %d and %d\n", phnum + 1, LEFT + 1, phnum + 1);
printf("Philosopher %d is Eating\n", phnum + 1);
// sem_post(&S[phnum]) has no effect
// during takefork
// used to wake up hungry philosophers
// during putfork
sem_post(&S[phnum]); }}
// take up chopsticks
void take_fork(int phnum)
{
sem_wait(&mutex);
// state that hungry
state[phnum] = HUNGRY;
printf("Philosopher %d is Hungry\n", phnum + 1);
// eat if neighbours are not eating
test(phnum);
sem_post(&mutex);
// if unable to eat wait to be signalled
sem_wait(&S[phnum]);
sleep(1);
}

// put down chopsticks

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void put_fork(int phnum)
{
sem_wait(&mutex);
// state that thinking
state[phnum] = THINKING;
printf("Philosopher %d putting fork %d and %d down\n", phnum + 1, LEFT + 1, phnum + 1);
printf("Philosopher %d is thinking\n", phnum + 1);
test(LEFT);
test(RIGHT);
sem_post(&mutex);
}
void * philospher(void* num)
{
while (1) {
int* i = num;
sleep(1);
take_fork(*i);
sleep(0);
put_fork(*i);
}
}
int main() {
int i;
pthread_t thread_id[N];
// initialize the semaphores
sem_init(&mutex, 0, 1);
for (i = 0; i < N; i++)
sem_init(&S[i], 0, 0);
for (i = 0; i < N; i++) {
// create philosopher processes
pthread_create(&thread_id[i], NULL, philospher, &phil[i]);
printf("Philosopher %d is thinking\n", i + 1);
}
for (i = 0; i < N; i++)
pthread_join(thread_id[i], NULL);
}
ii. Readers and writers problem
Consider a situation where we have a file shared between many people.
 If one of the people tries editing the file, no other person should be reading or writing at
the same time, otherwise changes will not be visible to him/her.
 However, if some person is reading the file, then others may read it at the same time.
Precisely in OS we call this situation as the readers-writers problem.

Problem parameters:

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  One set of data is shared among a number of processes
 Once a writer is ready, it performs its write. Only one writer may write at a time
 If a process is writing, no other process can read it
 If at least one reader is reading, no other process can write
 Readers may not write and only read

Solution when Reader has the Priority over Writer

Here priority means, no reader should wait if the share is currently opened for reading.
hree variables are used: mutex, wrt, readcnt to implement solution
 semaphore mutex, wrt; // semaphore mutex is used to ensure mutual exclusion when
readcnt is updated i.e. when any reader enters or exit from the critical section and semaphore
wrt is used by both readers and writers
 int readcnt; // readcnt tells the number of processes performing read in the critical section,
initially 0
Functions for sempahore :
 wait() : decrements the semaphore value.
 signal() : increments the semaphore value.
Writer process:
1. Writer requests the entry to critical section.
2. If allowed i.e. wait() gives a true value, it enters and performs the write. If not allowed, it
keeps on waiting.
3. It exits the critical section.
do {
// writer requests for critical section
wait(wrt);
// performs the write
// leaves the critical section
signal(wrt);
} while(true);

Reader process:
1. Reader requests the entry to critical section.
2. If allowed:
 it increments the count of number of readers inside the critical section. If this reader is
the first reader entering, it locks the wrt semaphore to restrict the entry of writers if any
reader is inside.
 It then, signals mutex as any other reader is allowed to enter while others are already
reading.
 After performing reading, it exits the critical section. When exiting, it checks if no more
reader is inside, it signals the semaphore “wrt” as now, writer can enter the critical
section.
3. If not allowed, it keeps on waiting.

do {

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 // Reader wants to enter the critical section
wait(mutex);
// The number of readers has now increased by 1
readcnt++;
// there is atleast one reader in the critical section
// this ensure no writer can enter if there is even one reader
// thus we give preference to readers here
if (readcnt==1)
wait(wrt);
// other readers can enter while this current reader is inside
// the critical section
signal(mutex);
// current reader performs reading here
wait(mutex); // a reader wants to leave
readcnt--;
// that is, no reader is left in the critical section,
if (readcnt == 0)
signal(wrt); // writers can enter
signal(mutex); // reader leaves
} while(true);

Thus, the semaphore ‘wrt‘ is queued on both readers and writers in a manner such that preference
is given to readers if writers are also there. Thus, no reader is waiting simply because a writer has
requested to enter the critical section.

iii. Sleeping Barber problem

Problem: The analogy is based upon a hypothetical barber shop with one barber. There is a barber
shop which has one barber, one barber chair, and n chairs for waiting for customers if there are any
to sit on the chair.
 If there is no customer, then the barber sleeps in his own chair.
 When a customer arrives, he has to wake up the barber.
 If there are many customers and the barber is cutting a customer’s hair, then the remaining
customers either wait if there are empty chairs in the waiting room or they leave if no chairs
are empty.

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Solution: The solution to this problem includes three semaphores. First is for the customer which
counts the number of customers present in the waiting room (customer in the barber chair is not
included because he is not waiting). Second, the barber 0 or 1 is used to tell whether the barber is
idle or is working, And the third mutex is used to provide the mutual exclusion which is required
for the process to execute. In the solution, the customer has the record of the number of customers
waiting in the waiting room if the number of customers is equal to the number of chairs in the
waiting room then the upcoming customer leaves the barbershop.
When the barber shows up in the morning, he executes the procedure barber, causing him to block
on the semaphore customers because it is initially 0. Then the barber goes to sleep until the first
customer comes up.
When a customer arrives, he executes customer procedure the customer acquires the mutex for
entering the critical region, if another customer enters thereafter, the second one will not be able to
anything until the first one has released the mutex. The customer then checks the chairs in the
waiting room if waiting customers are less then the number of chairs then he sits otherwise he leaves
and releases the mutex.

If the chair is available then customer sits in the waiting room and increments the variable waiting
value and also increases the customer’s semaphore this wakes up the barber if he is sleeping.

At this point, customer and barber are both awake and the barber is ready to give that person a
haircut. When the haircut is over, the customer exits the procedure and if there are no customers in
waiting room barber sleeps.

Algorithm for Sleeping Barber problem:

Semaphore Customers = 0;
Semaphore Barber = 0;
Mutex Seats = 1;
int FreeSeats = N;
Barber {
while(true) {
/* waits for a customer (sleeps). */
down(Customers);
/* mutex to protect the number of available seats.*/
down(Seats);
/* a chair gets free.*/
FreeSeats++;
/* bring customer for haircut.*/
up(Barber);
/* release the mutex on the chair.*/
up(Seats);
/* barber is cutting hair.*/
}
}

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Customer {
while(true) {
/* protects seats so only 1 customer tries to sit
in a chair if that's the case.*/
down(Seats);
if(FreeSeats > 0) {
/* sitting down.*/
FreeSeats--;
/* notify the barber. */
up(Customers);
/* release the lock */
up(Seats);
/* wait in the waiting room if barber is busy. */
down(Barber);
// customer is having hair cut
} else {
/* release the lock */
up(Seats);
// customer leaves
}}}

2.3 Deadlock and indefinite postponement

Definition
Deadlock is a situation where the several processes in CPU compete for the finite number of
resources available within the CPU. Each process holds a resource and wait to acquire a resource
that is held by some other process. All the processes wait for resources in a circular fashion.
In the figure below, you can see that Process P1 has acquired resource R2 that is requested by
process P2 and Process P1 is requesting for resource R1 which is again held by R2.

So process P1 and P2 form a deadlock.

Deadlock is a common problem in multiprocessing operating systems, distributed systems, and also
in parallel computing systems.
Formal definition:
“A set of processes is deadlocked if each process in the set is waiting for an event that only
another process in the set can cause.”

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Because all the processes are waiting, none of them will ever cause any of the events that could
wake up any of the other member in the set, and all the processes continue to wait forever.
That is, none of the processes can-
• run
• release resources
• be awakened
Types of resource
1. Preemptable resources
 these resources can be taken away from the processes owning it with no ill effects
 For example: memory
2. Non-Preemptable resources
 Resources that cannot be taken away from its current owner without causing the
computation to fail.
 For example: scanner, printer etc.
In general, deadlocks involve non-preemptable resource
Conditions of deadlock
A deadlock situation can arise if and only if the following four conditions hold simultaneously in a
system-
• Mutual Exclusion: At least one resource is held in a non-sharable mode that is only one process
at a time can use the resource. If another process requests that resource, the requesting process
must be delayed until the resource has been released.
• Hold and Wait: There must exist a process that is holding at least one resource and is waiting
to acquire additional resources that are currently being held by other processes.
• No Preemption: Resources cannot be preempted; that is, a resource can only be released
voluntarily by the process holding it, after the process has completed its task.
• Circular Wait: There must exist a set {p0, p1,.....pn} of waiting processes such that p0 is waiting
for a resource which is held by p1, p1 is waiting for a resource which is held by p2,..., pn-1 is
waiting for a resource which is held by p n and pn is waiting for a resource which is held by p0.
NOTE: All four of these conditions must be present for a deadlock to occur. If one of them is
absent, no deadlock is possible.

Deadlock modeling
• The four Coffman conditions can be modeled using directed graphs
• The graph has two kind of nodes: circles for processes and squares for resources
• A directed arc from a resource node (square) to a process node (circle) means that the
resource is being held by the process

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 • A directed arc from a process to a resource means that the process is currently requesting
that resource

Handling Deadlock
• Deadlock detection
• Recovery from deadlock
• Deadlock prevention
• Deadlock avoidance
• Deadlock ignorance
Deadlock detection and Recovery
Deadlock detection
Deadlock detection with one resource of each type
 For a system with one instance of each resource, we can detect deadlock by constructing a
resource allocation graph.
 If the graph contains one or more cycles, a deadlock exists. Any process that is part of the
cycle is deadlocked.
 If no cycle exists, the system is not deadlocked
Example:
 Consider a complex system with 7 processes, A through G, and 6 resources, R through W.
 The state of which resources are currently owned and which ones are currently being
requested is as follows:

1. Process A holds R and wants S.

2. Process B holds nothing but wants T.
3. Process C holds nothing but wants S.
4. Process D holds U and wants S and T.
5. Process E holds T and wants V.
6. Process F holds W and wants S.
7. Process G holds V and wants U.

From this, we can construct resource graph as follows:

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 Figure: (a) A resource graph. (b) A cycle extracted from (a).

Processes D, E and G are all deadlocked.

Processes A,C and F are not deadlocked because S can be allocated to any one of them, which then
finishes and take by other two processes in turn.

Deadlock Detection with multiple resource of each type

In this case, we use a matrix based algorithm for detecting deadlocks among n processes (P1,…Pn)
E: Existing resource vector (E1,E2….Em) ; we have m different resource
For example: if class 1 is printer then E1=2 means we have 2 printers
A: Available resource vectors
For example: if A1=0, no printers are available, both printers have been assigned
C: Current Allocation matrix
Cij is the number of instances of resource j that are held by process i
R: Request matrix
Rij is the number of instance of resource j that process i wants.

Deadlock detection algorithm

1. Look for an unmarked process, Pi , for which the i-th row of R is less than or equal to A.
2. If such process is found, add the i-th row of C to A, mark the process, and go back to step 1.
3. If no such process exists, the algorithm terminates.

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Here, requests represented by 1st and 2nd rows of matrix R cant not be satisfied (Compare A with
each Rs) . But 3rd one can be satisfied.
• So process 3 runs and eventually returns A=(2 2 2 0).
• At this point process 2 can run and return A=(4 2 2 1).
• Now process 1 can run and there is no deadlock.
• What happen if process 2 needs 1 CD-ROM drive, 2 Tape drives and 1 Plotter (i.e. 2nd row of
R becomes (2 1 1 1))?
• Entire system gets deadlock or not???

Deadlock Recovery
Traditional operating system such as Windows doesn’t deal with deadlock recovery as it is time
and space consuming process. Real time operating systems use Deadlock recovery.
i. Recovery through preemption
To eliminate deadlocks using resource preemption, we successively preempt some resources from
processes and give these resources to other processes until the deadlock cycle is broken.
Issues to be addresses:
a. Selecting a victim
b. Rollback
c. Starvation
ii. Recovery through rollback
 Processes are checkpoint periodically
 Checkpoint refers to save the state of a process by writing the state to a file
 Checkpoint contains not only the memory image but also the resource state (i.e. the
resource allocated to the process)

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  To be more effective, new checkpoints must not replace the old checkpoints but should be
written to a different file
 When a deadlock is detected, we first determine the resource causing the deadlock and
then rollback the process which currently holds that resource to a point in time before it
acquired the resource by starting one of its earlier checkpoints

iii. Recovery through killing process

The simplest way to recover from deadlock is to kill one or more processes.
Which process to kill?
a. Kill all the deadlocked processes
Sure to break deadlock but can be expensive as some of the processes may have computed for a
long time and killing the process makes the process to do all those computations once again after
it has been started again
b. Abort one process at a time until the deadlock cycle is eliminated.
This method incurs considerable overhead, since, after each process is aborted, a deadlock-
detection algorithm must be invoked to determine whether any processes are still deadlocked.
Deadlock Prevention
Deadlock prevention simply involves techniques to attack the four conditions that may cause
deadlock (Coffman conditions).
i. Prevention from Mutual exclusion
 The resource should not be assigned to a single process until absolutely necessary.
 For example : instead of assigning a printer to a process, we can create a spool (send (data that
is intended for printing or processing on a peripheral device) to an intermediate store.), so that
several processes can generate output at the same time
ii. Preventing the Wait and Hold condition
 The process should request all of its required resources at the beginning.
 If every resource is available, the process runs or else it waits but does not hold any of the
resource.
 This way hold and wait condition is eliminated but it will lead to low device utilization.
 For example, if a process requires printer at a later time and we have allocated printer before
the start of its execution printer will remained blocked till it has completed its execution.
iii. Preventing the non-preemption condition
 Preempt resources from process when resources required by other high priority process.
iv. Preventing Circular Wait
 Each resource will be assigned with a numerical number. A process can request for the
resources only in increasing order of numbering.
 For Example, if P1 process is allocated R5 resources, now next time if P1 ask for R4, R3 lesser
than R5 such request will not be granted, only request for resources more than R5 will be
granted.

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Deadlock Avoidance
 We cannot always assume that a process will ask for all its required resource at once as we did
in earlier topic: deadlock detection
 The system must decide whether granting a resource is safe or not and make the allocation if
it is safe
 So, we need an algorithm to avoid deadlock by making right choices all the time given that
some information is available in advance

Safe and unsafe states

 A state is said to be safe if there is some scheduling order in which every process can run up
to completion even if all of them suddenly request their maximum number of resources
immediately
 A state is safe if the system can allocate resources to each process (up to its maximum) in
some order and still avoid a deadlock.
 More formally, a system is in a safe state only if there exists a safe sequence.
 A sequence of processes <P1, P2, ..., Pn> is a safe sequence for the current allocation state if,
for each Pi, the resource requests that Pi can still make can be satisfied by the currently available
resources plus the resources held by all P
 A safe state is a non-deadlock state.
 Conversely, a deadlocked state is an unsafe state.
 Not all unsafe states are deadlocks; however an unsafe state may lead to a deadlock.
 As long as the state is safe, the operating system can avoid unsafe (and deadlocked) states
Note: Safe and unsafe states can be determined by using Bankers algorithm.

The Banker's algorithm

The Banker’s algorithm is a resource allocation and deadlock avoidance algorithm developed by
Edsger Dijkstra. Resource allocation state is defined by the number of available and allocated
resources and the maximum demand of the processes. When a process requests an available
resource, system must decide if immediate allocation leaves the system in a safe state.

Algorithm
1) Find a row in the Need matrix which is less than the Available vector. If such a row exists,
then the process represented by that row may complete with those additional resources. If no
such row exists, eventual deadlock is possible.
2) Double check that granting these resources to the process for the chosen row will result in a
safe state. Looking ahead, pretend that that process has acquired all its needed resources,
executed, terminated, and returned resources to the Available vector. Now the value of the
Available vector should be greater than or equal to the value it was previously.
3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until
a) all the processes have successfully reached pretended termination (this implies that the
initial state was safe); or
b) deadlock is reached (this implies the initial state was unsafe).

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Basic Facts:
 If a system is in safe state ⇒ no deadlocks.
 If a system is in unsafe state ⇒ possibility of deadlock.
 Avoidance ⇒ ensure that a system will never enter an unsafe state.

Some terminologies
a) Available
It represents the number of available resources of each type.
b) Max
It represents the maximum number of instances of each resource that a process can request.
c) Allocation
It represents the number of resources of each type currently allocated to each process.
d) Need
It indicates the remaining resource needs of each process.

Bankers Algorithms for single resource

Example 1: State whether the given processes are in deadlock or not. Given that resource instance
is 10.
process Allocated Maximum
A 3 9
B 2 4
C 2 7
Solution,
Calculating need resources, using
Need = Maximum - Allocated we get,
process Allocated Maximum Need
A 3 9 6
B 2 4 2
C 2 7 5
Here currently total allocation = 3+2+2 = 7
So free = total available – current allocation = 10 – 7 = 3

 Step 1
With current free resources process B can be executed, since need of B ≤ Free i.e 2 ≤ 3 So B
executes. After execution of B it release the resources allocated by it.
Total free resource becomes, free = current free + Allocation by B = (1+2+2) = 5
 Step 2
Now, with current free resources process C can be executed, since need of C ≤ Free i.e 5 ≤ 5 So
C executes. After execution of C it release the resources allocated by it.
Total free resource becomes, free = current free + Allocation by C = (5+2) = 7

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  Step 3
With current free resources process A can be executed, since need of A ≤ Free i.e 6 ≤ 7 So A
executes. After execution of A it releases the resources allocated by it.
Total free resource becomes, free = current free + Allocation by A = (1+6+3) = 10

Here all the process runs successfully hence they are is safe state and occurs no deadlock.
Safe sequence is: B→C→A

Example 2: State whether the given processes are in deadlock or not. Given that resource instance
is 10.
process Allocated Maximum
A 4 9
B 2 4
C 2 7
Solution,
Calculating need resources, using
Need = Maximum - Allocated we get,
process Allocated Maximum Need
A 4 9 5
B 2 4 2
C 2 7 5
Here currently total allocation = 4+2+2 = 8
So free = total available – current allocation = 10 – 8 = 2
 Step 1
With current free resources process B can be executed, since need of B ≤ Free i.e 2 ≤ 2 So B
executes. After execution of B it release the resources allocated by it.
Total free resource becomes, free = current free + Allocation by B = (2+2) = 4

With current free resources none of the processes can be further be executed hence process are
unsafe and occurs deadlock.

Bankers Algorithm for multiple resources

Example 1: A system has four process P1, P2, P3 and P4 and three resources R1, R2 and R3 with
existing resources E = (15, 9, 5). After allocating resources to all the processes available resources
becomes A = ( 3, 2, 0). State whether the process is safe or not using banker’s algorithm. If safe,
write the safe sequence.

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 Process Allocation Maximum Need
R1 R2 R3 R1 R2 R3 R1 R2 R3
P1 3 0 1 3 2 2 0 2 1
P2 5 4 1 6 8 2 1 4 1
P3 2 2 0 3 2 4 1 0 4
P4 2 1 3 4 2 3 2 1 0
Note: If Need is not given, it can be calculated using Need = Maximum – Allocation
Solution:
We have A = ( 3, 2, 0)
Step 1: With current available resources A = ( 3, 2, 0) P4 can be executed.
Since need of P4 ≤ A i.e. (2,1,0) ≤ (3,2,0) so P4 executes
After complete execution of P4 it releases the resources which is allocated by it. Now total current
available resources A becomes, A = previous free + Allocation by P4
A = (3,2,0) + (2,1,3) = (5,3,3)
Step 2: With current available resources A = ( 5, 3, 3) P1 can be executed.
Since need of P1 ≤ A i.e. (0,2,1) ≤ (5,3,3) so P1 executes
After complete execution of P1 it releases the resources which is allocated by it. Now total current
available resources A becomes, A = previous free + Allocation by P1
A = (5,3,3) + (3,0,1) = (8,3,4)
Step 3: With current available resources A = ( 8, 3, 4) P3 can be executed.
Since need of P3 ≤ A i.e. (1,0,4) ≤ (8,3,4) so P3 executes
After complete execution of P3 it releases the resources which is allocated by it. Now total current
available resources A becomes, A = previous free + Allocation by P3
A = (8,3,4) + (2,2,0) = (10,5,4)
Step 4: With current available resources A = ( 10, 5, 4) P2 can be executed.
Since need of P2 ≤ A i.e. (1,4,1) ≤ (10,5,4) so P2 executes
After complete execution of P2 it releases the resources which is allocated by it. Now total current
available resources A becomes, A = previous free + Allocation by P2
A = (10,5,4) + (5,4,1) = (15,9,5)
Here all the process runs hence they are in safe state and occurs no deadlock.
Safe sequence is: P4→P1→P3→P2

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Example 2:
Assume we have the following resources:
 5 tape drives
 2 graphic displays
 4 printers
 3 disks
We can create a vector representing our total resources: Total = (5, 2, 4, 3).
Consider we have already allocated these resources among four processes as demonstrated by the
following matrix named Allocation.
Process Name Tape Drives Graphics Printers Disk Drives
Process A 2 0 1 1
Process B 0 1 0 0
Process C 1 0 1 1
Process D 1 1 0 1
The vector representing the allocated resources is the sum of these columns:
Allocated = (4, 2, 2, 3).
We also need a matrix to show the number of each resource still needed for each process; we call
this matrix Need.
Process Name Tape Drives Graphics Printers Disk Drives
Process A 1 1 0 0
Process B 0 1 1 2
Process C 3 1 0 0
Process D 0 0 1 0
The vector representing the available resources will be the sum of these columns subtracted from
the Allocated vector: Available = (1, 0, 2, 0).
Following the algorithm sketched above,
Iteration 1:
Examine the Need matrix. The only row that is less than the Available vector is the one for Process
D.
Need(Process D) = (0, 0, 1, 0) < (1, 0, 2, 0) = Available
If we assume that Process D completes, it will turn over its currently allocated resources,
incrementing the Available vector.
(1, 0, 2, 0) Current value of Available
+ (1, 1, 0, 1) Allocation (Process D)
````````````````
(2, 1, 2, 1) Updated value of Available
Iteration 2:

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Examine the Need matrix, ignoring the row for Process D. The only row that is less than the
Available vector is the one for Process A.
Need(Process A) = (1, 1, 0, 0) < (2, 1, 2, 1) = Available
If we assume that Process A completes, it will turn over its currently allocated resources,
incrementing the Available vector.
(2, 1, 2, 1) Current value of Available
+ (2, 0, 1, 1) Allocation (Process A)
````````````````
(4, 1, 3, 2) Updated value of Available
Iteration 3:
Examine the Need matrix without the row for Process D and Process A. The only row that is less
than the Available vector is the one for Process B.
Need(Process B) = (0, 1, 1, 2) < (4, 1, 3, 2) = Available
If we assume that Process B completes, it will turn over its currently allocated resources,
incrementing the Available vector.
(4, 1, 3, 2) Current value of Available
+ (0, 1, 0, 0) Allocation (Process B)
````````````````
(4, 2, 3, 2) Updated value of Available
Iteration 4:
Examine the Need matrix without the rows for Process A, Process B, and Process D. The only row
left is the one for Process C, and it is less than the Available vector.
Need(Process C) = (3, 1, 0, 0) < (4, 2, 3, 2) = Available
If we assume that Process C completes, it will turn over its currently allocated resources,
incrementing the Available vector.
(4, 2, 3, 3) Current value of Available
+ (1, 0, 1, 1) Allocation (Process C)
````````````````
(5, 2, 4, 3) Updated value of Available
Notice that the final value of the Available vector is the same as the original Total vector, showing
the total number of all resources:
Total = (5, 2, 4, 2) < (5, 2, 4, 2) = Available
This means that the initial state represented by the Allocation and Need matrices is a safe state.
The safe sequence that assures this safe state is <D, A, B, C>.
Note: The Banker's algorithm can also be used in the detection of deadlock.

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Disadvantages of the Banker's Algorithm
 It requires the number of processes to be fixed; no additional processes can start while it is
executing.
 It requires that the number of resources remain fixed; no resource may go down for any reason
without the possibility of deadlock occurring.
 It allows all requests to be granted in finite time, but one year is a finite amount of time.
 Similarly, all of the processes guarantee that the resources loaned to them will be repaid in a
finite amount of time. While this prevents absolute starvation, some pretty hungry processes
might develop.
 All processes must know and state their maximum resource need in advance.

Deadlock Ignorance

THE OSTRICH ALGORITHM

 The simplest approach is the ostrich algorithm: stick your head in the sand and pretend there
is no problem at all.
 Different people react to this strategy in different ways. Mathematicians find it totally
unacceptable and say that deadlocks must be prevented at all costs.
 Engineers ask how often the problem is expected, how often the system crashes for other
reasons, and how serious a deadlock is.
 If deadlocks occur on the average once every five years, but system crashes due to hardware
failures, compiler errors, and operating system bugs occur once a week, most engineers would
not be willing to pay a large penalty in performance or convenience to eliminate deadlocks.
 Most operating systems, including UNIX and Windows, just ignore the problem on the
assumption that most users would prefer an occasional deadlock to a rule restricting all users
to one process, one open file, and one of everything.
 If deadlocks could be eliminated for free, there would not be much discussion. The problem is
that the price is high, mostly in terms of putting inconvenient restrictions on processes, as we
will see shortly. Thus we are faced with an unpleasant trade-off between convenience and
correctness, and a great deal of discussion about which is more important, and to whom. Under
these conditions, general solutions are hard to find.

Issues related to deadlock

 Two-phase locking
In databases and transaction processing, two-phase locking (2PL) is a concurrency control method
that guarantees serializability. It is also the name of the resulting set of database transaction
schedules (histories). The protocol utilizes locks, applied by a transaction to data, which may block
(interpreted as signals to stop) other transactions from accessing the same data during the
transaction's life. By the 2PL protocol, locks are applied and removed in two phases:
 Expanding phase: locks are acquired and no locks are released.
 Shrinking phase: locks are released and no locks are acquired.
Two types of locks are utilized by the basic protocol: Shared and Exclusive locks. Refinements of
the basic protocol may utilize more lock types. Using locks that block processes, 2PL may be
subject to deadlocks that result from the mutual blocking of two or more transactions.

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 Non-resource deadlock
In non-resource deadlock, deadlock occurs without the involvement of any resources.
Say you have two nodes in a network that communicate and have a 3 steps handshake:

 node1 sends a message to node2 and waits for a response

 node2 receives the message and sends back the response to node1 and waits
 but the response is lost on the network due to a temporary disruption
Both nodes are waiting for each other => deadlock

 Starvation
Starvation is the phenomena in which a process is not able to acquire the desired resources (like
processor, I/O device etc) for a very long time to progress with its execution.

This can happen due to drawbacks of scheduling algorithms. Scheduling algorithms are used to
decide to which process the resource(s) needs to be given next.
Example:

 In Shortest Job First Algorithm, if there is a process with a rather large CPU burst waiting for
its execution and a stream of processes with smaller CPU burst keep entering the ready queue
(a queue consisting of those processes which are ready to execute), then the CPU will always
be allocated to the process with the shorter CPU burst and there is a probability that the process
with the large CPU burst might never get the CPU to complete its execution and starve.
 In Priority Scheduling, a constant stream of high priority processes might starve one or more
lower priority process(es) as the CPU will always be allocated to the process with highest
priority.

Deadlock vs Starvation

Deadlock Starvation
Deadlock occurs when none of the processes in Starvation occurs when a process waits for an
the set is able to move ahead due to occupancy indefinite period of time to get the resource it
of the required resources by some other process requires.
It is also known as Circular waiting It is also known lived lock.
In deadlocked, requested resources are blocked by In starvation, the requested resources are
the other processes. continuously used by high priority processes.
These four conditions that lead to deadlock: Uncontrolled management of resources,
mutual exclusion, hold and wait, no-preemption Process priorities , Use of random selection
and circular wit leads to starvation.
No process can make progress once it occurs. Apart from the victim process other processes
can progress or proceed
Requires external intervention to solve May or may not require external intervention
deadlock. to solve starvation.

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2.4 Threads
Threads
A thread is the smallest unit of programmed instructions that can be managed independently and
processing that can be performed by an operating system. A thread is also called a lightweight
process. Multiple threads can be exists within a same process that share common resources such as
memory. If a process has multiple threads of control, it can perform more than one task at a time.
Threads within a process share the same virtual memory space but each has a separate stack, and
possibly "thread-local storage" if implemented. They are lightweight because a context switch is
simply a case of switching the stack pointer and program counter and restoring other registers,
whereas a process context switch involves switching the MMU context as well.

For example: a web browser can have a thread to display images or text while another thread
retrieves data from the network.
Also in a word processor, a background thread may check spelling and grammar while a
foreground thread processes user input (keystrokes), while yet a third thread loads images from
the hard drive, and a fourth does periodic automatic backups of the file being edited.

Advantages of using Threads

 Threads are easy and inexpensive to create. Threads are 10 times as faster to create than process
(studies done by Mach developers)
 It takes less time to terminate the thread than process.
 Use of thread provides concurrency within process.
 Thread minimizes context switching time (i.e. switching between two threads within the same
process is faster)
 Threads enhance efficiency in communication between different executing programs. (Threads
within the same process share data and code memory which allows them to communicate
without involving the kernel)
 Utilization of multiprocessor architectures to a greater scale and efficiency
Types/ model of Threads
1. User Level Threads
• Thread management is done in user space of main memory by a user-level thread library.
• The user-level or programmer takes the information from thread library which contains the code
about creation, destroy, schedule, execution and restoring of threads.
• Kernel don't know about these threads
• User Level Threads are faster to create and manage

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Advantages:
1. The most obvious advantage of this technique is that a user-level threads package can be
implemented on an Operating System that does not support threads.
2. User-level threads do not require modification to operating systems.
3. Simple Representation: Each thread is represented simply by a PC, registers, stack and a
small control block, all stored in the user process address space.
4. Simple Management: This simply means that creating a thread, switching between threads
and synchronization between threads can all be done without intervention of the kernel.
5. Fast and Efficient: Thread switching is not much more expensive than a procedure call.

Disadvantages:
1. User-Level threads are not a perfect solution as with everything else, they are a tradeoff.
Since, User-Level threads are invisible to the OS they are not well integrated with the OS. As
a result, Os can make poor decisions like scheduling a process with idle threads, blocking a
process whose thread initiated an I/O even though the process has other threads that can run
and unscheduling a process with a thread holding a lock. Solving this requires communication
between between kernel and user-level thread manager.
2. There is a lack of coordination between threads and operating system kernel. Therefore,
process as whole gets one time slice irrespect of whether process has one thread or 1000 threads
within. It is up to each thread to relinquish control to other threads.
3. User-level threads require non-blocking systems call i.e., a multithreaded kernel. Otherwise,
entire process will block in the kernel, even if there are runnable threads left in the processes.
For example, if one thread causes a page fault, the process blocks.

2. Kernel Level Threads

• Thread that are defined and managed by directly kernel of Operating system is kernel level
threads
• Kernel perform thread creation, scheduling and management
• Kernel threads are used in internal working of operating system
• Kernel threads are slower to create and manage

Advantages:
1. Because kernel has full knowledge of all threads, Scheduler may decide to give more time
to a process having large number of threads than process having small number of threads.
2. Kernel-level threads are especially good for applications that frequently block.

Disadvantages:
1. The kernel-level threads are slow and inefficient. For instance, threads operations are
hundreds of times slower than that of user-level threads.
2. Since kernel must manage and schedule threads as well as processes. It requires a full thread
control block (TCB) for each thread to maintain information about threads. As a result, there
is significant overhead and increased in kernel complexity.

User implementation of threads

Implement the entire threads package in user space without the kernel knowing about them. When
one thread gets blocked by a system call, all user level threads get blocked. As far as the kernel is

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concerned, it is managing ordinary, single-threaded processes. A user-level threads package can be
implemented on an operating system that does not support threads.
The threads run on top of a run-time system, which is a collection of procedures that manage
threads. When threads are managed in user space, each process needs its own private thread table
to keep track of the threads in that process. This table is analogous to the kernel’s process table,
except that it keeps tracks only of the per-thread properties, such as each thread’s program counter,
stack pointer, registers, state, and so forth. The thread table is managed by the run-time system.
When a thread is moved to ready state or blocked state, the information needed to restart it is stored
in the thread table, exactly the same way as the kernel stores information about processes in the
process table.

Figure: A thread package managed by user space

Kernel implementation of threads

The kernel’s thread table holds each thread registration, state and other information. The
information is the same as with the use-level threads, but now kept in the kernel instead of the
user space (inside the run-time system). This information is the subset of information that
traditional kernels maintain about their single-threaded process, that is, the process state. In
addition, the kernel also maintains the traditional process table to keep track of processes.

Figure: A thread package managed by kernel

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Multithreading Models
Some operating system provide a combined user level thread and Kernel level thread facility.
Solaris is a good example of this combined approach. In a combined system, multiple threads
within the same application can run in parallel on multiple processors and a blocking system call
need not block the entire process. Multithreading models are three types
 Many to many relationship.
 Many to one relationship.
 One to one relationship.
Many to Many Model
The many-to-many model multiplexes any number of user threads onto an equal or smaller number
of kernel threads.
The following diagram shows the many-to-many threading model where 6 user level threads are
multiplexing with 6 kernel level threads. In this model, developers can create as many user threads
as necessary and the corresponding Kernel threads can run in parallel on a multiprocessor machine.
This model provides the best accuracy on concurrency and when a thread performs a blocking
system call, the kernel can schedule another thread for execution.

Many to One Model

Many-to-one model maps many user level threads to one Kernel-level thread. Thread management
is done in user space by the thread library. When thread makes a blocking system call, the entire
process will be blocked. Only one thread can access the Kernel at a time, so multiple threads are
unable to run in parallel on multiprocessors.
If the user-level thread libraries are implemented in the operating system in such a way that the
system does not support them, then the Kernel threads use the many-to-one relationship modes.

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One to One Model
There is one-to-one relationship of user-level thread to the kernel-level thread. This model
provides more concurrency than the many-to-one model. It also allows another thread to run when
a thread makes a blocking system call. It supports multiple threads to execute in parallel on
microprocessors.
Disadvantage of this model is that creating user thread requires the corresponding Kernel thread.
OS/2, windows NT and windows 2000 use one to one relationship model.

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Thread usage

Threads provide a convenient way of allowing an application to maximize its usage of CPU
resources in a system, especially in a multiple processor configuration. In a Remote Desktop
Services environment, however, multiple users can be running multithreaded applications, and all
of the threads for all of the users compete for the central CPU resources of that system. With this
in mind, you should tune and balance application thread usage for a multiuser, multiprocessor
Remote Desktop Services environment. While a poorly designed multithreaded application with
idle or wasted threads might perform adequately on a client computer, the same application might
not perform well on a multiuser Remote Desktop Services server.

2.5 process vs Threads

Process Thread
An executing instance of a program
Definition A thread is a subset of the process.
is called a process.
It has its own copy of the data It has direct access to the data segment
Process
segment of the parent process. of its process.
Processes must use inter-process
Threads can directly communicate
Communication communication to communicate
with other threads of its process.
with sibling processes.
Processes have considerable
Overheads Threads have almost no overhead.
overhead.
New processes require duplication
Creation New threads are easily created.
of the parent process.
Any change in the main thread may
Any change in the parent process
Changes affect the behavior of the other threads
does not affect child processes.
of the process.
Memory Run in separate memory spaces. Run in shared memory spaces.
Dependence Processes are independent. Threads are dependent.

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 Chapter 3 Kernel
3.1 Introduction and Architecture of Kernel
A kernel is the core component of an operating system. Using inter-process communication and
system calls, it acts as a bridge between applications and the data processing performed at the
hardware level.
When an operating system is loaded into memory, the kernel loads first and remains in memory
until the operating system is shut down again. The kernel is responsible for low-level tasks such as
disk management, task management and memory management. A computer kernel interfaces
between the three major computer hardware components, providing services between the
application/user interface and the CPU, memory and other hardware I/O devices.
The kernel provides and manages computer resources, allowing other programs to run and use these
resources. The kernel also sets up memory address space for applications, loads files with
application code into memory, sets up the execution stack for programs and branches out to
particular locations inside programs for execution.
The kernel is responsible for:
 Process management for application execution
 Memory management, allocation and I/O
 Device management through the use of device drivers
 System call control, which is essential for the execution of kernel services

Fig: Architecture of Kernel

3.2 Types of kernel
Kernels can be broadly classified mainly in two categories:
 Monolithic Kernel
 Micro Kernel.

1. Monolithic Kernels
Earlier in this type of kernel architecture, all the basic system services like a process and memory
management, interrupt handling etc were packaged into a single module in kernel space. This type
of architecture led to some serious drawbacks like:

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  The Size of the kernel, which was huge.
 Poor maintainability, which means bug fixing or addition of new features resulted in
recompilation of the whole kernel which could consume hours.
In a modern day approach to monolithic architecture, the kernel consists of different modules which
can be dynamically loaded and unloaded. This modular approach allows easy extension of OS's
capabilities. With this approach, maintainability of kernel became very easy as only the concerned
module needs to be loaded and unloaded every time there is a change or bug fix in a particular
module. So, there is no need to bring down and recompile the whole kernel for the smallest bit of
change. Also, stripping of a kernel for various platforms (say for embedded devices etc) became
very easy as we can easily unload the module that we do not want. Linux follows the monolithic
modular approach.
2. Microkernels
This architecture majorly caters to the problem of ever growing size of kernel code which we could
not control in the monolithic approach. This architecture allows some basic services like device
driver management, protocol stack, file system etc to run in user space. This reduces the kernel
code size and also increases the security and stability of OS as we have the bare minimum code
running in kernel. So, if suppose a basic service like network service crashes due to buffer overflow,
then only the networking service's memory would be corrupted, leaving the rest of the system still
functional.
In this architecture, all the basic OS services which are made part of user space are made to run as
servers which are used by other programs in the system through inter process communication (IPC).
eg: we have servers for device drivers, network protocol stacks, file systems, graphics, etc.
Microkernel servers are essentially daemon programs like any others, except that the kernel grants
some of them privileges to interact with parts of physical memory that are otherwise off limits to
most programs. This allows some servers, particularly device drivers, to interact directly with
hardware. These servers are started at the system start-up.
Other types of kernel include:
 Hybrid Kernel: This is a mix between the 2 above. The kernel is larger than micro kernel
but smaller than monolithic. What you normally get is a stripped down monolithic kernel
that has the majority of device drivers removed but still all of the system services within the
kernel space. The device drivers will be attached to the kernel as required when starting up
or running. These kernels are typically found on desktops, your Windows, Mac and Linux
OS flavors.
 Nano kernel. This kernel type only offers hardware abstraction, there are no services and
the kernel space is at a minimum. A Nano kernel forms the basis of a hypervisor upon which
you may emulate multiple systems via virtualization. Nano kernels are also very good for
embedded projects.
 Exo-Kernel. This kernel is the smallest kernel. It offers process protection and resource
handling and nothing else. The programmer using this kernel is responsible for correctly
accessing the device they wish to use.

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 BASIS MONOLITHIC KERNEL MICROKERNEL
Basic In monolithic kernel, both user In microkernel user services and
services and kernel services are kept in kernel, services are kept in separate
the same address space. address space.
Size Monolithic kernel is larger in size. Microkernel are smaller in size.
Execution It is Faster execution. It is sower in execution.
Extendible Monolithic kernel is hard to extend. The microkernel is easily extendible.
Security If a service crashes, the whole system If a service crashes, it does effect on
crashes in monolithic kernel. working of microkernel.

3.3 Context Switching

A context switch is a procedure that a computer's CPU (central processing unit) follows to change
from one task (or process) to another while ensuring that the tasks do not conflict. Context
Switching involves storing the context or state of a process so that it can be reloaded when required
and execution can be resumed from the same point as earlier. This is a feature of a multitasking
operating system and allows a single CPU to be shared by multiple processes.
A diagram that demonstrates context switching is as follows:

In the above diagram, initially Process 1 is running. Process 1 is switched out and Process 2 is
switched in because of an interrupt or a system call. Context switching involves saving the state of
Process 1 into PCB1 and loading the state of process 2 from PCB2. After some time again a context
switch occurs and Process 2 is switched out and Process 1 is switched in again. This involves saving
the state of Process 2 into PCB2 and loading the state of process 1 from PCB1.

When does context switching take place?

 Multitasking: In a multitasking environment, a process is switched out of the CPU so another
process can be run. The state of the old process is saved and the state of the new process is
loaded. On a pre-emptive system, processes may be switched out by the scheduler.

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 Interrupt Handling: The hardware switches a part of the context when an interrupt occurs.
This happens automatically. Only some of the context is changed to minimize the time required
to handle the interrupt.
 User and Kernel Mode Switching: A context switch may take place when a transition
between the user mode and kernel mode is required in the operating system.

Context Switching Steps:

The steps involved in context switching are as follows:
 Save the context of the process that is currently running on the CPU. Update the process control
block and other important fields.
 Move the process control block of the above process into the relevant queue such as the ready
queue, I/O queue etc.
 Select a new process for execution.
 Update the process control block of the selected process. This includes updating the process
state to running.
 Update the memory management data structures as required.
 Restore the context of the process that was previously running when it is loaded again on the
processor. This is done by loading the previous values of the process control block and registers.

Kernel Mode and User Mode

There are two modes of operation in the operating system to make sure it works correctly. These
are user mode and kernel mode. The system is in user mode when the operating system is running
a user application such as handling a text editor. The transition from user mode to kernel mode
occurs when the application requests the help of operating system or an interrupt or a system call
occurs. The system starts in kernel mode when it boots and after the operating system is loaded, it
executes applications in user mode. There are some privileged instructions that can only be executed
in kernel mode. These are interrupt instructions, input output management etc. If the privileged
instructions are executed in user mode, it is illegal and a trap is generated.

Kernel Mode User Mode

It is high privileged i.e. highly protected. It is less privileged i.e. low protection.
In Kernel mode, the executing code has In User mode, the executing code has no ability
complete and unrestricted access to the to directly access hardware or reference
underlying hardware. memory.
The system starts in kernel mode when it boots The system is in user mode when the operating
and after the operating system is loaded, it system is running a user application such as
executes applications in user mode handling a text editor.
It can execute any CPU instruction and Code running in user mode must delegate to
reference any memory address. system APIs to access hardware or memory
The mode bit is set to 0 in the kernel mode. It The mode bit is set to 1 in the user mode. It is
is changed from 0 to 1 when switching from changed from 1 to 0 when switching from user
kernel mode to user mode. mode to kernel mode.
Crashes in kernel mode are catastrophic; they Crashes in user mode are always recoverable.
will halt the entire PC.

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3.4 First Level Interrupt Handling
The operating system includes routine called FLIH to process each different class of interrupt.
When an interrupt occurs, the operating system saves the status of the interrupted process and routes
control to the appropriate First level interrupt handler, this is done by context switching. There are
six first level interrupt handler.
i. SVC (Supervisor Call) FLIH: These are initiated by the running process executing the SVC
instruction. SVC is a user generated request for a particular system service such as performing
I/O request, obtaining more storage. SVC mechanism help to keep the Operating System secure
from user process. A user must request a service through a SVC. The OS is thus aware of all
user attempts to cross its boarder and it may refuse certain request if the user does not have
appropriate privileges.
ii. I/O interrupts: These are initiated by the input/output hardware. They signal the CPU if the
current status of the device is changed. I/O interrupt are caused when an I/O operation
completes, when an I/O error occurs or when a device is ready.
iii. External interrupts: These are caused on the receipt of a signal from another processor on a
multiprocessor system.
iv. Restart FLIH: These occur when the operator presses the restart button or when a restart
instruction arrives from another processor on a multiprocessor system.
v. Program Check FLIH: These are caused by the wide range of problem that may occur as a
program machine language is executed. These problems include division by zero, arithmetic
overflow, data in incorrect format, attempts to execute and invalid operation code, attempt to
reference a memory location beyond the limit of real memory. Many systems give user the
option to specify their own routine to be executed when a program check interrupt occurs.
vi. Machine Check FLIH: These are caused by malfunctioning of hardware.

3.5 Kernel Implementation of processes

Most of the operating system executes within the environment of a user process. We need two
modes: User mode and Kernel mode. Some portion of the operating system operate as a separate
process known as kernel process. Process creation in Unix is made by means of kernel system call
fork ().
When a process issues a fork request, the operating system perform the following function:
i. It allocates a slot in process table for a new process.
ii. It assigns a unique process ID to a child process.
iii. It assigns the child process to a ready to run state.
iv. It returns the ID number of the child process to parent process and zero value to a child
process.
All this work is accomplished in kernel mode in the parent process. When a kernel has completed
these functions, it can do one of the following routine

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 i. Stay in parent process: Control return to the user mode at the point of the fork call of
the parent.
ii. Transfer control to the child process: The child process begins executing at the same
point in the code as the parent, at the return from fork call.
iii. Transfer control to another process: Both the child and the parent process are left in
ready to run state.
Example:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main()
{
// make two process which run same
// program after this instruction
fork();
printf("I am Nabraj!");
return 0;
}

Output:
I am Nabraj!
I am Nabraj!

Number of times I am Nabraj! printed is equal to number of process created.

Total Number of Processes = 2^n where n is number of fork system calls.
So here n = 1, 2^1 = 2

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 Chapter 4 Scheduling
4.1 Introduction
Scheduling is the method by which task specified by some means is assigned to resources that
complete the task. The process scheduling is the activity of the process manager that handles the
removal of the running process from the CPU and the selection of another process on the basis of a
particular strategy. Process scheduling is an essential part of a Multiprogramming operating
systems. Such operating systems allow more than one process to be loaded into the executable
memory at a time and the loaded process shares the CPU using time multiplexing.

Objective and criteria of process scheduling

 Max CPU utilization [Keep CPU as busy as possible]
 Fair allocation of CPU.
 Max throughput [Number of processes that complete their execution per time unit]
 Min turnaround time [Time taken by a process to finish execution]
 Min waiting time [Time a process waits in ready queue]
 Min response time [Time when a process produces first response]
4.2 Scheduling Level

Schedulers are special system software which handle process scheduling in various ways. Their
main task is to select the jobs to be submitted into the system and to decide which process to run.
Schedulers are of three levels:
 Long-Term Scheduler
 Short-Term Scheduler
 Medium-Term Scheduler
Long Term Scheduler
It is also called a job scheduler. A long-term scheduler determines which programs are admitted to
the system for processing. It selects processes from the queue and loads them into memory for
execution. Process loads into the memory for CPU scheduling.

The primary objective of the job scheduler is to provide a balanced mix of jobs, such as I/O bound
and processor bound. It also controls the degree of multiprogramming. If the degree of
multiprogramming is stable, then the average rate of process creation must be equal to the average
departure rate of processes leaving the system.

Short Term Scheduler

It is also called as CPU scheduler. Its main objective is to increase system performance in
accordance with the chosen set of criteria. It is the change of ready state to running state of the
process. CPU scheduler selects a process among the processes that are ready to execute and
allocates CPU to one of them.

Short-term schedulers, also known as dispatchers, make the decision of which process to execute
next. Short-term schedulers are faster than long-term schedulers.

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Medium Term Scheduler
Medium-term scheduling is a part of swapping. It removes the processes from the memory. It
reduces the degree of multiprogramming. The medium-term scheduler is in-charge of handling the
swapped out-processes.

A running process may become suspended if it makes an I/O request. A suspended process cannot
make any progress towards completion. In this condition, to remove the process from memory and
make space for other processes, the suspended process is moved to the secondary storage. This
process is called swapping, and the process is said to be swapped out or rolled out. Swapping may
be necessary to improve the process mix.

Comparison among Scheduler

Long-Term Scheduler Short-Term Scheduler Medium-Term Scheduler
1 It is a job scheduler It is a CPU scheduler It is a process swapping
scheduler.
2 Speed is lesser than short term Speed is fastest among Speed is in between both
scheduler other two short and long term
scheduler.
3 It controls the degree of It provides lesser control It reduces the degree of
multiprogramming over degree of multiprogramming
multiprogramming
4 It is almost absent or minimal in It is also minimal in time It is a part of Time sharing
time sharing system sharing system systems
5 It selects processes from pool It selects those processes It can re-introduce the
and loads them into memory for which are ready to execute process into memory and
execution execution can be continued

4.3 Preemptive vs Non-Preemptive Scheduling

1. Preemptive Scheduling:
Preemptive scheduling is used when a process switches from running state to ready state or from
waiting state to ready state. The resources (mainly CPU cycles) are allocated to the process for the
limited amount of time and then is taken away, and the process is again placed back in the ready
queue if that process still has CPU burst time remaining. That process stays in ready queue till it
gets next chance to execute.

Algorithms based on preemptive scheduling are: Round Robin (RR), Shortest Job First (SJF
basically non preemptive) and Priority (non-preemptive version), etc.
2. Non-Preemptive Scheduling:
Non-preemptive Scheduling is used when a process terminates, or a process switches from running
to waiting state. In this scheduling, once the resources (CPU cycles) is allocated to a process, the
process holds the CPU till it gets terminated or it reaches a waiting state. In case of non-preemptive
scheduling does not interrupt a process running CPU in middle of the execution. Instead, it waits
till the process complete its CPU burst time and then it can allocate the CPU to another process.

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Algorithms based on preemptive scheduling are: Shortest Remaining Time First (SRTF), Priority
(preemptive version), etc.

Comparison of preemptive and Non preemptive scheduling

BASIS PREEMPTIVE SCHEDULING NON PREEMPTIVE SCHEDULING

Basic The resources are allocated to a Once resources are allocated to a process, the
process for a limited time. process holds it till it completes its burst time
or switches to waiting state.
Interrupt Process can be interrupted in Process cannot be interrupted till it terminates
between. or switches to waiting state.
Starvation If a high priority process If a process with long burst time is running
frequently arrives in the ready CPU, then another process with less CPU
queue, low priority process may burst time may starve.
starve.
Overhead Preemptive scheduling has Non-preemptive scheduling does not have
overheads of scheduling the overheads.
processes.
Flexibility Preemptive scheduling is flexible. Non-preemptive scheduling is rigid.
Cost Preemptive scheduling is cost Non-preemptive scheduling is not cost
associated. associative.

4.4 Scheduling Techniques

Different time with respect to a process

 Arrival Time(AT): Time at which the process arrives in the ready queue.
 Burst Time(BT): Time required by a process for CPU execution.
 Completion Time(CT): Time at which process completes its execution.
 Turn Around Time(TAT): The time interval from the time of submission of a process to
the time of the completion of the process.
OR,
Time Difference between completion time and arrival time. i.e. TAT= CT - AT
 Waiting Time(WT): The total time waiting in a ready queue.
OR,
Time Difference between turnaround time and burst time. i.e.WT = TAT - BT
 Response time(RT): Amount of time from when a request was submitted until the first
response is produced.
 Quantum size: It is the specific time interval used to prevent any one process monopolizing
the system i.e. can be run exclusively.
A Process Scheduler schedules different processes to be assigned to the CPU based on particular
scheduling algorithms. The rule or set of rules that is followed to schedule the process is known as
process scheduling algorithm. The algorithms are either non-preemptive or preemptive.

Some of the algorithm are:

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 i. First Come First Serve (FCFS) Scheduling
 It is a non-preemptive scheduling algorithm.
 The process which arrives first, gets executed first or the process which requests the CPU
first, gets the CPU allocated first.
 First Come First Serve, is just like FIFO(First in First out) Queue data structure, where the
data element which is added to the queue first, is the one who leaves the queue first.
 A perfect real life example of FCFS scheduling is buying tickets at ticket counter.
Advantages
 FCFS algorithm doesn't include any complex logic, it just puts the process requests in a
queue and executes it one by one. Hence, FCFS is pretty simple and easy to implement.
 Eventually, every process will get a chance to run, so starvation doesn't occur.
Disadvantages
 There is no option for pre-emption of a process. If a process is started, then CPU executes
the process until it ends.
 Because there is no pre-emption, if a process executes for a long time, the processes in the
back of the queue will have to wait for a long time before they get a chance to be executed.
Example 1: Consider the following set of processes having their arrival time and CPU-burst time.
Find the average waiting time and turnaround time using FCFS.
Process Arrival Time (ms) Burst Time (ms)
P1 0 4
P2 1 3
P3 2 1
P4 3 2
P5 4 5
Solution:
Preparing Gantt chart using FCFS we get,
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
0 4 7 8 10 15
We know,
TAT (Turnaround Time) = CT (Completion Time) – AT (Arrival Time) and
WT (Waiting Time) = TAT (Turnaround Time) – BT (Burst Time)
Now finding TAT and WT,

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 Process AT BT CT TAT WT
P1 0 4 4 4 0
P2 1 3 7 6 3
P3 2 1 8 6 5
P4 3 2 10 7 5
P5 4 5 15 11 6
∑TAT= 34 ∑WT= 18

∑𝐓𝐀𝐓 34
Average Turnaround time(ATAT) = = = 6.8 ms
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 5
∑𝐖𝐓 18
Average Waiting Time (AWT) = = = 3.6 ms
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 5
Note: We can also find throughput and CPU utilization of the system using formula,
Throughput = (Number of process executed / Total time required) = 5/15 = 0.33
CPU Utilization = (Total working time / Total time required) = 15/15 = 1 (100 %)
Example 2: Consider the given processes with arrival and burst time given below. Schedule the
given processes using FCFS and find average waiting time and average turn-around time.

PROCESSES ARRIVAL TIME BRUST TIME

A 0 3
B 2 6
C 4 4
D 6 5
E 8 2
F 3 4
SOLUTION:
Applying FCFS Gantt chart for the given processes becomes:
A B F C D E
0 3 9 13 17 22 24
Now, from Gantt chart,
Process Arrival time Burst time Completion time Turnaround time Waiting time
(AT) (BT) (CT) TAT = CT – AT WT=TAT-BT
A 0 3 3 3 0
B 2 6 9 7 1
C 4 4 17 13 9
D 6 5 22 16 11
E 8 2 24 16 14
F 3 4 13 10 6
∑ TAT=65 ∑ WT=41

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Average turn-around time = ∑(TAT) / n = 65/6 = 10.83
Average waiting time = ∑(WT) / n =41/6 = 6.83
Example 3: Consider the processes P1, P2, P3, P4 given in the below table, arrives for execution
in the same order, with Arrival Time 0, and given Burst Time, find the average waiting time using
the FCFS scheduling algorithm.
Process Burst Time (ms)
P1 21
P2 3
P3 6
P4 2
Solution:
P1 P2 P3 P4
0 21 24 30 32
Now from Gantt chart,
Process Arrival Time Burst Completion Turnaround Time Waiting Time
(ms) Time Time TAT=CT-AT WT = TAT - BT
P1 0 21 21 21 0
P2 0 3 24 24 21
P3 0 6 30 30 24
P4 0 2 32 32 30
Average WT = (0+21+24+30)/4 = 18.75
ii. Shortest Job First (SJF) Scheduling
 It is a non-preemptive scheduling algorithm.
 It is also known as shortest job next (SJN)
 It is a scheduling policy that selects the waiting process with the smallest execution time
to execute next.
Advantages.
 The throughput is increased because more processes can be executed in less amount of
time.
 Having minimum average waiting time among all scheduling algorithms.
Disadvantages:
 It is practically infeasible as Operating System may not know burst time and therefore may
not sort them.
 Longer processes will have more waiting time, eventually they'll suffer starvation.
Example 1: Consider the given processes with arrival and burst time given below. Schedule the
given processes using SJF and find average waiting time (AWT) and average turnaround
time(ATAT).

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 PROCESSES ARRIVAL BRUST
TIME TIME
A 0 7
B 2 5
C 3 1
D 4 2
E 5 3
Solution:
According to the given question the Gantt chart for SJF given processes becomes:
A C D E B
0 7 8 10 13 18
Now,
Calculating of TAT and WT using: TAT= CT – AT and WT = TAT - BT
Process Arrival time Burst time Completion Turn-around Waiting time
time time
A 0 7 7 7 0
B 2 5 18 16 11
C 3 1 8 5 4
D 4 2 10 6 4
E 5 3 13 8 5
∑TAT=42 ∑WT=24
Average turn-around time = ∑(TAT) / n = 42/5 = 10.83
Average waiting time = ∑(WT) / n =24/5 = 4.8
Example 2: Five processes P1,P2,P3,P4 and P5 having burst time 5,3,4,3,1 arrives at CPU . Find
the Average TAT and Average WT using Shortest job first scheduling algorithm.
PROCESSES BRUST TIME (ms)
P1 5
P2 3
P3 4
P4 3
P5 1
Solution
Since there is no any arrival time so it is assumed all the processes arrive initially. i.e. AT=0
The Gantt chart for the above processes becomes:
P5 P4 P2 P3 P1
0 1 4 7 11 16
Now, using Gantt chart above and formula,

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TAT = (CT-AT) and WT = (TAT-BT)
Process Arrival time Burst time CT TAT WT
P1 0 5 16 16 11
P2 0 3 7 7 4
P3 0 4 11 11 7
P4 0 3 4 4 1
P5 0 1 1 1 0
∑TAT=39 ∑WT=23
Average turn-around time = ∑(TAT) / n = 39/5 = 7.8 ms
Average waiting time = ∑(WT) / n =23/5 = 4.6 ms
Example 3: Consider the given processes with arrival and burst time given below. Schedule the
given processes using SJF and find waiting time and turn-around time.

PROCESSES ARRIVAL TIME BRUST TIME

A 1 7
B 2 5
C 3 1
D 4 2
E 5 8
Solution
The Gantt chart for the above processes becomes:
Here no process arrives at time= 0, so CPU stay in idle position.
A C D B E
0 1 8 9 11 16 24
Now, using Gantt chart above and formula,
TAT = (CT-AT) and WT = (TAT-BT)
Process Arrival time Burst time CT TAT WT
A 1 7 8 7 0
B 2 5 16 14 9
C 3 1 9 6 5
D 4 2 11 7 5
E 5 8 24 19 11
Here Throughput = (5/24) and CPU Utilization = (23/24) since CPU stay in idle for 1 unit
of time.
iii. Shortest Remaining Time (SRT) Scheduling
 It is preemptive scheduling algorithm
 It is also called Preemptive shortest job first or Shortest remaining time next or Shortest
remaining time first
 In this scheduling algorithm, the process with the smallest amount of time remaining until
completion is selected to execute. Since the currently executing process is the one with the

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 shortest amount of time remaining by definition, and since that time should only reduce as
execution progresses, processes will always run until they complete or a new process is
added that requires a smaller amount of time.
Advantage:
 Short processes are handled very quickly.
 The system also requires very little overhead since it only makes a decision when a process
completes or a new process is added.
 When a new process is added the algorithm only needs to compare the currently executing
process with the new process, ignoring all other processes currently waiting to execute.
Disadvantage:
 Like shortest job first, it has the potential for process starvation.
 Long processes may be held off indefinitely if short processes are continually added.
Example 1: Consider the following processes with arrival time and burst time. Schedule them
using SRT.
PROCESSES ARRIVAL TIME(AT) BRUST TIME (BT)
A 0 7
B 1 5
C 2 3
D 3 1
E 4 2
F 5 1
Solution:
Gantt chart for the above processes becomes:
A B C D C C F E B A
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 13 19
Now, TAT = (CT-AT) and WT = (TAT-BT)
Process Arrival time Burst time CT TAT WT
A 0 3 19 19 12
B 2 6 13 12 7
C 4 5 6 4 1
D 6 4 4 1 0
E 8 2 9 5 3
F 5 1 7 2 1
∑TAT=43 ∑WT=24
Average turn-around time = ∑(TAT) / n = 43/6 = 7.16 units
Average waiting time = ∑(WT) / n =24/6 = 4 units

iv. Priority Scheduling

 In this scheduling Priority is assigned for each process.
 Process with highest priority is executed first and so on.

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  Processes with same priority are executed in FCFS manner.
 Priority can be decided based on memory requirements, time requirements or any other
resource requirement
Advantages of Priority Scheduling:
 The priority of a process can be selected based on memory requirement, time requirement
or user preference. For example, a high end game will have better graphics, that means the
process which updates the screen in a game will have higher priority so as to achieve better
graphics performance.
Disadvantages:
 A second scheduling algorithm is required to schedule the processes which have same
priority.
 In preemptive priority scheduling, a higher priority process can execute ahead of an already
executing lower priority process. If lower priority process keeps waiting for higher priority
processes, starvation occurs.
Priority scheduling are of both types: preemptive and non-preemptive.
a. Non-Preemptive Priority Scheduling
 In the Non Preemptive Priority scheduling, The Processes are scheduled according to the
priority number assigned to them.
 Once the process gets scheduled, it will run till the completion.
 Generally, the lower the priority number, the higher is the priority of the process .
Example 1: There are 7 processes P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6 and P7. Their priorities, Arrival Time and
burst time are given in the table. Find waiting time and response time using non preemptive priority
scheduling. Also find average WT.
Process Priority Arrival Time Burst Time
P1 2 0 3
P2 6 2 5
P3 3 1 4
P4 5 4 2
P5 7 6 9
P6 4 5 4
P7 10 7 10
Solution:
Gantt chart for the process is:
P1 P3 P6 P4 P2 P5 P7
0 3 7 11 13 18 27 37

From the GANTT Chart prepared, we can determine the completion time of every process. The
turnaround time, waiting time and response time will be determined.

Turn Around Time = Completion Time - Arrival Time

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 Waiting Time = Turn Around Time - Burst Time
Response time = Time at which process get first response – Arrival Time

Process Priority Arrival Burst Completion Turnaround Waiting Response

Time Time Time Time Time Time
P1 2 0 3 3 3 0 0
P2 6 2 5 18 16 11 13
P3 3 1 4 7 6 2 3
P4 5 4 2 13 9 7 11
P5 7 6 9 27 21 12 18
P6 4 5 4 11 6 2 7
P7 10 7 10 37 30 18 27

Average Waiting Time = (0+11+2+7+12+2+18)/7 = 52/7 units

Example 2: Consider the given processes below. Schedule the algorithm using non preemptive
priority, schedule the given processes. Assume 12 as highest priority and 2 as lowest priority.
Process AT BT (ms) PRIORITY
A 0 4 2(lowest)
B 1 2 4
C 2 3 6
D 3 5 10
E 4 1 3
F 5 4 12(highest)
G 6 6 9
Solution:
A D F G C B E
0 4 9 13 19 22 24 25
b. Preemptive Priority Scheduling
In Preemptive Priority Scheduling, at the time of arrival of a process in the ready queue, its Priority
is compared with the priority of the other processes present in the ready queue as well as with the
one which is being executed by the CPU at that point of time. The One with the highest priority
among all the available processes will be given the CPU next.
Example 1: Consider the given processes below. Schedule the algorithm using preemptive priority
algorithm and hence find AWT and ATAT. Assume 12 as highest priority and 2 as lowest priority.

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 Process AT BT (ms) PRIORITY
A 0 4 2(lowest)
B 1 2 4
C 2 3 6
D 3 5 10
E 4 1 3
F 5 4 12(highest)
G 6 6 9
Solution:
The Gantt chart for the given processes becomes: -
A B C D D F D G C B E A
0 1 2 3 4 5 9 12 18 20 21 22 25
Now,
Process AT BT PRIORITY CT TAT WT
A 0 4 2 25 25 21
B 1 2 4 21 20 18
C 2 3 6 20 18 15
D 3 5 10 12 9 4
E 4 1 3 22 18 17
F 5 4 12 9 4 0
G 6 6 9 18 12 6
∑TAT=106 ∑WT=81
Average turn-around time= (∑TAT=106)/7 = 15.14 ms
Average waiting time will be = (∑WT=81)/7 =11.57 ms

Example 2: There are 7 processes P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6 and P7 given. Their respective priorities,
Arrival Times and Burst times are given in the table below. Find average WT using preemptive
priority scheduling.

Process Id Priority Arrival Time Burst Time

P1 2(L) 0 1
P2 6 1 7
P3 3 2 3
P4 5 3 6
P5 4 4 5
P6 10(H) 5 15
P7 9 15 8

Solution:

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Gantt chart for above process is:

P1 P2 P6 P7 P2 P4 P5 P3
0 1 5 20 28 31 37 42 45

Now,

Process Priority Arrival Burst Completion Turnaround Waiting

Time Time Time Time Time
P1 2 0 1 1 1 0
P2 6 1 7 31 30 23
P3 3 2 3 45 43 40
P4 5 3 6 37 34 28
P5 4 4 5 42 38 33
P6 10(H) 5 15 20 15 0
P7 9 6 8 28 22 14

v. Round Robin Scheduling

 CPU is assigned to the process for a fixed amount of time.
 This fixed amount of time is called as time quantum or time slice.
 After the time quantum expires, the running process is preempted and sent to the ready
queue.
 Then, the processor is assigned to the next arrived process.
 It is always preemptive scheduling algorithm

Advantages

 It gives the best performance in terms of average response time.

 It is best suited for time sharing system, client server architecture and interactive system.

Disadvantages

 It leads to starvation for processes with larger burst time as they have to repeat the cycle
many times.
 Its performance heavily depends on time quantum.
 Priorities cannot be set for the processes.

Example 1: Consider the following processes with AT and BT given. Find waiting time and
turnaround time using round robin with time quantum = 4.

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 PROCESSES ARRIVAL TIME(AT) BRUST TIME (BT)
A 0 3
B 2 6
C 4 4
D 6 5
E 8 2
Solution:
Ready Queue: ABCDBED
Gantt chart:
A B C D B E D
0 3 7 11 15 17 19 20
Now,
Process Arrival time Burst time CT TAT WT
A 0 3 3 3 0
B 2 6 17 15 9
C 4 5 11 7 2
D 6 4 20 14 10
E 8 2 19 11 9

Example 2: Draw the gantt chart of above processes using round robin with quantum 3 and 2.
Solution:
TQ=3
Ready queue: ABCDBECD
A B C D B E C D
0 3 6 9 12 15 17 18 20
Now, TQ = 2
Ready queue: ABACBDCEBDD
A B A C B D C E B D D
0 2 4 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 20

vi. HRRN (Highest Response Ratio Next)

 Highest Response Ratio Next (HRNN) is one of the most optimal scheduling algorithms.
 This is a non-preemptive algorithm in which, the scheduling is done on the basis of an extra
parameter called Response Ratio.
 A Response Ratio is calculated for each of the available jobs and the Job with the highest
response ratio is given priority over the others.

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 Response Ratio is calculated by the given formula,
Response Ratio = (WT+BT)/BT
Where,
WT → Waiting Time
BT → Service Time or Burst Time

Advantages-
 It performs better than SJF Scheduling.
 It not only favors the shorter jobs but also limits the waiting time of longer jobs.
Disadvantages-
 It cannot be implemented practically. This is because burst time of the processes cannot be
known in advance.
Example: Consider the following processes with AT and BT given. Find waiting time and
turnaround time using HRRN.
PROCESSES ARRIVAL TIME(AT) BRUST TIME (BT)
A 0 3
B 2 6
C 4 4
D 6 5
E 8 2
Solution:
Gantt chart:
A B C E D
0 3 9 13 15 20
Here A and B can be executed in FIFO. At, time = 9 C,D,E arrives so RR need to be calculated.
𝑊𝑇+𝐵𝑇 5+4
Response Ratio of C (RR)C = = = 2.25
𝐵𝑇 4
𝑊𝑇+𝐵𝑇 3+5
Response Ratio of D (RR)D = = = 1.6
𝐵𝑇 5
𝑊𝑇+𝐵𝑇 1+2
Response Ratio of E (RR)E = = = 1.5
𝐵𝑇 2
Since (RR)C is larger than other hence C runs.
Again,
𝑊𝑇+𝐵𝑇 7+4
Response Ratio of D (RR)D = = = 2.4
𝐵𝑇 4
𝑊𝑇+𝐵𝑇 5+2
Response Ratio of E (RR)E = = = 3.5
𝐵𝑇 2

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Since (RR)E is larger than other hence E runs.
Now from the Gantt chart:
Process Arrival time Burst time Completion time Turnaround time Waiting time
(AT) (BT) (CT) TAT = CT – AT WT=TAT-BT
A 0 3 3 3 0
B 2 6 9 7 1
C 4 4 13 9 5
D 6 5 20 14 9
E 8 2 15 7 5

vii. Real Time Scheduling

 A real time system is one in which time plays an essential role since processing should be done
within the defined time limit otherwise the system will fail.
 Generally, in this type of system, one or more physical devices external to the computer
generates the real time data (stimuli) and the computer must react appropriately to them within
fixed amount of time.
 The algorithm that are used to schedule such real time system periodically is known as Real
Time Scheduling Algorithm.
 E.g. the computer attached with Compact Disc Player gets the bits as they come of the drive
and must start converting them into music with a very tight time interval.
 If the calculation takes too long the music sounds peculiar.
 Other example includes: Auto pilot aircraft, Robot control in automated factory, Patient
monitoring factory(ICU) etc.
 Real Time scheduling algorithm includes:

i. Rate Monotonic Algorithm (RM)

This is a fixed priority algorithm and follows the philosophy that higher priority is given to tasks with
the higher frequencies. Likewise, the lower priority is assigned to tasks with the lower frequencies. The
scheduler at any time always choose the highest priority task for execution. By approximating to a
reliable degree the execution times and the time that it takes for system handling functions, the behavior
of the system can be determined apriority.
ii. Earliest Deadline First Algorithm(EDF)
This algorithm takes the approach that tasks with the closest deadlines should be meted out the highest
priorities. Likewise, the task with the latest deadline has the lowest priority. Due to this approach, the
processor idle time is zero and so 100% utilization can be achieved.
viii. Multilevel Queue
 In the multilevel queue scheduling algorithm partition the ready queue has divided into seven
separate queues. Based on some priority of the process; like memory size, process priority, or
process type these processes are permanently assigned to one queue.
 Each queue has its own scheduling algorithm. For example, some queues are used for the
foreground process and some for the background process.

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  The foreground queue can be scheduled by using a round-robin algorithm while the background
queue is scheduled by a first come first serve algorithm.
 It is said that there will be scheduled between the queues which are easily implemented as a
fixed- priority preemptive scheduling.
Let us take an example of a multilevel queue scheduling algorithm with five queues:
 System process
 Interactive processes
 Interactive editing processes
 Batch processes
 Student processes

ix. Multilevel Feedback Queue

 In multilevel queue scheduling algorithm processes are permanently stored in one queue in
the system and do not move between the queue.
 There is some separate queue for foreground or background processes but the processes do
not move from one queue to another queue and these processes do not change their
foreground or background nature, these type of arrangement has the advantage of low
scheduling but it is inflexible in nature.
 Multilevel feedback queue scheduling it allows a process to move between the queue. This
the process are separate with different CPU burst time.
 If a process uses too much CPU time, then it will be moved to the lowest priority queue.
 This idea leaves I/O bound and interactive processes in the higher priority queue.
 Similarly, the process which waits too long in a lower priority queue may be moved to a
higher priority queue. This form of aging prevents starvation.

The multilevel feedback queue scheduler has the following parameters:

 The number of queues in the system.

 The scheduling algorithm for each queue in the system.
 The method used to determine when the process is upgraded to a higher-priority queue.
 The method used to determine when to demote a queue to a lower - priority queue.

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  The method used to determine which process will enter in queue and when that process
needs service.

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 Chapter 5 Memory Management
5.1 Introduction
Memory management is the functionality of an operating system which handles or manages primary
memory and moves processes back and forth between main memory and disk during execution.
Memory management keeps track of each and every memory location, regardless of either it is
allocated to some process or it is free. It checks how much memory is to be allocated to processes.
It decides which process will get memory at what time. It tracks whenever some memory gets freed
or unallocated and correspondingly it updates the status.
The part of OS that manages the memory hierarchy is called memory manager.
• Keeps track of used/unused part of memory.
• Allocate/de-allocate memory to processes.
• Manages swapping between main memory and disk.
• Protection and sharing of memory
Memory Organization
Memory unit is the collection of storage units or devices together. The memory unit stores the
binary information in the form of bits. Generally, memory/storage is classified into 2 categories:
 Volatile Memory: This loses its data, when power is switched off.
 Non-Volatile Memory: This is a permanent storage and does not lose any data when power
is switched off.
Memory hierarchy
The Memory Hierarchy consists of all storage devices employed in a computer system from slow
but high capacity Auxiliary memory to relatively faster Main memory to an even smaller and faster
Cache memory" accessible to the high speed processing logic. Memory hierarchy separates
computer storage into a hierarchy based on response time.

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 i. Internal register is for holding the temporary results and variables. Accessing data from
these registers is the fastest way of accessing memory.

ii. Cache is used by the CPU for memory which is being accessed over and over again. Instead
of pulling it every time from the main memory, it is put in cache for fast access. It is also a
smaller memory, however, larger than internal register.

iii. Main memory or RAM (Random Access Memory): It is a type of the computer memory
and is a hardware component. It can be increased provided the operating system can handle
it.

iv. Hard disk: A hard disk is a hardware component in a computer. Data is kept permanently
in this memory. Memory from hard disk is not directly accessed by the CPU, hence it is
slower. As compared with RAM, hard disk is cheaper per bit.

v. Magnetic tape: Magnetic tape memory is usually used for backing up large data. When the
system needs to access a tape, it is first mounted to access the data. When the data is
accessed, it is then unmounted. The memory access time is slower in magnetic tape and it
usually takes few minutes to access a tape.

5.2 Storage Allocation

The process of allocating the block of memory to a process is known as storage allocation. Memory
is a large array of bytes, where each byte has its own address. The memory allocation can be
classified into two methods:
i. Contiguous Memory Allocation

The Contiguous memory allocation is one of the methods of memory allocation. In contiguous memory
allocation, when a process requests for the memory, a single contiguous section of memory blocks is
assigned to the process according to its requirement.

The contiguous memory allocation can be achieved by dividing the memory into the fixed-
sized partition and allocate each partition to a single process only. But this will cause the degree

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of multiprogramming, bounding to the number of fixed partition done in the memory. The
contiguous memory allocation also leads to the internal fragmentation. Like, if a fixed sized
memory block allocated to a process is slightly larger than its requirement then the left over memory
space in the block is called internal fragmentation. When the process residing in the partition
terminates the partition becomes available for the another process.

In the variable partitioning scheme, the operating system maintains a table which indicates, which
partition of the memory is free and which occupied by the processes. The contiguous memory
allocation fastens the execution of a process by reducing the overheads of address translation.

ii. Non-contiguous memory

The Non-contiguous memory allocation allows a process to acquire the several memory blocks at
the different location in the memory according to its requirement. The noncontiguous memory
allocation also reduces the memory wastage caused due to internal and external fragmentation. As
it utilizes the memory holes, created during internal and external fragmentation.

The noncontiguous memory allocation has an advantage of reducing memory wastage but, but
it increases the overheads of address translation. As the parts of the process are placed in a different
location in memory, it slows the execution of the memory because time is consumed in address
translation.

5.3 Partitioning
Partitioning is the process of breaking the main memory into number of blocks. Disk partitioning
or disk slicing is the creation of one or more regions on a hard disk or other secondary storage, so
that an operating system can manage information in each region separately. These regions are called
partitions. It is typically the first step of preparing a newly manufactured disk, before any files or
directories have been created.
Partitioning is of two type:
1. Fixed/Static Partition Allocation
2. Variable/Dynamic Partition Allocation

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Fixed/Static Partition Allocation
The simplest way to manage the memory available for the processes is to partition it into regions
with fixed boundaries.
The partition may be equal sized or unequal sized

• A process whose size is less than or equal to the partition size can be loaded into that partition
• Main memory utilization is extremely inefficient.
• Any program, no matter how small, occupies an entire partition. This phenomenon, in which
there is wasted space internal to a partition due to the fact that the block of data loaded is
smaller than the partition, is referred to as internal fragmentation.
• Inefficient use of Memory due to internal fragmentation.
Multiprogramming with Fixed Partitions
Fixed memory partitions
a. separate input queues for each partition
b. single input queue

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If we accept that multiprogramming is a good idea, we next need to decide how to organize the
available memory in order to make effective use of the resource.
One method is to divide the memory into fixed sized partitions. These partitions can be of different
sizes but once a partition has taken on a certain size then it remains at that size. There is no provision
The diagram above shows how this scheme might work. The memory is divided into four partitions
(we'll ignore the operating system). When a job arrives it is placed in the input queue for the smallest
partition that will accommodate it.
There are a few drawbacks to this scheme.
1. As the partition sizes are fixed, any space not used by a particular job is lost.
2. It may not be easy to state how big a partition a particular job needs.
3. If a job is placed in (say) queue three it may be prevented from running by other jobs waiting
(and using) that partition.
To cater for the last problem, we could have a single input queue where all jobs are held. When a
partition becomes free we search the queue looking for the first job that fits into the partition. An
alternative search strategy is to search the entire input queue looking for the largest job that fits into
the partition. This has the advantage that we do not waste a large partition on a small job but has
the disadvantage that smaller jobs are discriminated against. Smaller jobs are typically interactive
jobs which we normally want to service first.
To ensure small jobs do get run we could have at least one small partition or ensure that small jobs
only get skipped a certain number of times. for changing its size.
Dynamic partitioning

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 • To overcome some of the difficulties with fixed partitioning, an approach known as dynamic
partitioning was developed
• The partitions are of variable length and number. When a process is brought into main
memory, it is allocated exactly as much memory as it requires and no more
• Holes (pieces of free memory) might be created during dynamic partitioning.
• Given a new process, the OS must decide which hole to use for new process

• Frequent loading and unloading of programs causes free space to be broken into little pieces
• Eventually it leads to a situation in which there are a lot of small holes in memory. As time
goes on memory becomes more and more fragmented, and memory utilization declines.
This phenomenon is referred to as external fragmentation.
• External fragmentation exists when there is enough memory to fit a process in memory, but
the space is not contiguous.
5.4 Fragmentation
• Fragmentation refers to the condition of a disk in which files are divided into pieces
scattered around the disk.
• Fragmentation occurs naturally when you use a disk frequently, creating, deleting, and
modifying files.
• At some point, the operating system needs to store parts of a file in noncontiguous clusters.
• This is entirely invisible to users, but it can slow down the speed at which data is accessed
because the disk drive must search through different parts of the disk to put together a single
file.
• Fragmentation is of two types: Internal and External fragmentation.

Internal vs. External fragmentation

• External fragmentation exists when there is enough memory to fit a process in memory but
the space is not contiguous. Internal fragmentation exists when memory internal to a
partition is wasted.

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 • External fragmentation exists between the blocks of allocated memory and internal
fragmentation is within the allocated block.
• Internal Fragmentation occurs when a fixed size memory allocation technique is used.
External fragmentation occurs when a dynamic memory allocation technique is used.

Swapping
• Swapping is a mechanism in which a process can be swapped temporarily out of main
memory (or move) to secondary storage (disk) and make that memory available to other
processes.
• Backing store is a usually a hard disk drive or any other secondary storage which fast in
access and large enough to accommodate copies of all memory images for all users. It must
be capable of providing direct access to these memory images
• At some later time, the system swaps back the process from the secondary storage to main
memory.
• Similar to round-robin CPU-scheduling algorithm, when a quantum expires, the memory
manager will swap out that process to swap another process into the memory space that has
been freed
• The total time taken by swapping process includes the time it takes to move the entire
process to a secondary disk and then to copy the process back to memory, as well as the
time the process takes to regain main memory.

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Relocation and protection
Relocation
• Programmers typically do not know in advance which other programs will be resident in
main memory at the time of execution of their Program
• Active processes need to be able to be swapped in and out of main memory in order to
maximize processor utilization
• Specifying that a process must be placed in the same memory region when it is swapped
back in would be limiting
 may need to relocate the process to a different area of memory
Protection
• Processes need to acquire permission to reference memory locations for reading or writing
purposes
• Location of a program in main memory is unpredictable
• Memory references generated by a process must be checked at run time
• Mechanisms that support relocation also support protection

5.5 Logical and Physical Memory

Logical memory enables the user to use large amount of memory to store data. It defines way to
organize the physical memory such as RAM and cache. This enables the Operating System to
arrange memory into a logical manner such as assigning a logical address.
Physical memory refers to the actual RAM of the system, which usually takes the form of cards
attached onto the motherboard. Also called primary memory, it is the only storage type directly
accessibly to the CPU and holds the instructions of programs to execute. Physical memory is
linearly addressable; memory addresses increase in a linear fashion and each byte is directly
addressable.
Logical address
An address generated by the CPU is commonly known as Logical address. When we give the
problem to the computer then our computer pass the problem to the processor through logical

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address, which we are not seen this address called logical address. And the set of all logical
addresses generated by a program is known as logical address Space.
Physical address
when our processor create process and solve our problem then we store data in secondary memory
through address called physical address. In simple word the address seen by the memory unit that
is one loaded into the memory address register of the memory is commonly refereed as the Physical
Address. And the set of all physical addresses corresponding to these logical addresses is physical
address space.

5.6 Coalescing and Compaction

Coalescing
The process of merging two adjacent holes to form a single larger hole is called coalescing.

Compaction

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Even when holes are coalesced, no individual hole may be large enough to hold the job, although
the sum of holes is larger than the storage required for a process. It is possible to combine all the
holes into one big one by moving all the processes downward as far as possible; this technique is
called memory compaction.

MEMORYALLOCATION POLICIES
First-Fit
The memory manager allocates the first hole that is big enough. It stops the searching as soon as it
finds a free hole that is large enough.
Advantages: It is a fast algorithm because it searches as little as possible.
Disadvantages: Not good in terms of storage utilization
Best-Fit
 Allocate the smallest hole that is big enough for a process
 The OS must search the entire list of holes or store the list sorted by size of the hole
 Best fit try to find a hole that is close to the actual size needed.
Advantages: more storage utilization than first fit.
Disadvantages: slower than first fit because it requires searching whole list at time.
Worst - Fit
 Allocate the largest hole.
 It search the entire list, and takes the largest hole, rather than creating a tiny hole
 It produces the largest leftover hole, which may be more useful.
Advantages: some time it has more storage utilization than first fit and best fit.

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Disadvantages: not good for both performance and utilization.

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5.7 Virtual memory
• Virtual memory is a memory management technique that allows programs larger than
physical memory to be executed.
• A computer can address more memory than the amount physically installed on the system.
This extra memory is actually called virtual memory.
• The run time mapping from virtual address to physical address is done by hardware device
called memory management unit (MMU).

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 • Virtual Memory is a space where large programs can store themselves in form of pages
while their execution and only the required pages or portions of processes are loaded into
the main memory

• Virtual memory takes the advantage of the fact that processes typically do not use all the
allocated memory. In other words, most processes never need all their pages at once.

PAGING
 Paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data
from secondary storage for use in main memory.
 Paging is a process of reading data from, and writing data to the secondary storage.
 Partition memory into small equal fixed-size chunks and divide each process into the same size
chunks.
 The chunks of a process are called pages.
 The chunks of memory are called frames.
 The basic idea behind paging is to only keep those part of the processes in memory that are
actually being used
 Paging is non-contiguous memory allocation technique.
 The basic idea behind paging is to only keep those part of the processes in memory that are
actually being used
 Paging:

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  divides processes to a fixed sized pages
 Then selectively allocates pages to frames in memory, and
 manages (moves, removes, reallocates) pages in memory
 The logical memory of the process is still contiguous but the pages need not be allocated
contiguously in memory
 By dividing the memory into fixed sized pages, we can eliminate external fragmentation
 However, paging dose not eliminate internal fragmentation (e.g4KB frame size and 15 KB
of process)
 Summary: breaking process memory into fixed sized pages and map them to a physical
frame of memory
OS needs to do two things
1. Mapping the pages to frame, maintain a page table
2. Translate the virtual address (contiguous) into physical address (not so easy as the physical
address for a process is scattered all over the memory)
Address generated by CPU (logical address) is divided into:
 Page number p is an index into a page table that contains base address of each page in
physical memory.
 Page offset d is a displacement, combined with base address to define the physical
memory address that is sent to the memory unit.
Page Fault
 When the page (data) requested by a program is not available in the memory, it is called as
a page fault. This usually results in the application being shut down.
 A page is a fixed length memory block used as a transferring unit between physical memory and an
external storage. A page fault occurs when a program accesses a page that has been mapped in
address space, but has not been loaded in the physical memory.
Page hit
Whenever a process refers to a page that is present in memory, such condition is known as page
hit.
Page table
A page table is the data structure used by a virtual memory system in a computer operating system
to store the mapping between virtual addresses and physical addresses
Frame
Frame is a fixed sized block in physical memory space.

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 Fig: Address translation process in paging

Fig: Example of Address translation process in paging

Advantages and Disadvantages of paging

• Paging reduces external fragmentation, but still suffer from internal fragmentation.

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 • Paging is simple to implement and assumed as an efficient memory management technique.
• Due to equal size of the pages and frames, swapping becomes very easy.
• Page table requires extra memory space, so may not be good for a system having small
RAM.
Demand paging and pre-paging
With demand paging, a page is brought into memory only when a location on that page is actually
referenced during execution. With pre-paging, pages other than the one demanded by a page fault
are brought in. The selection of such pages is done based on common access patterns, especially
for secondary memory devices.
Translation lookaside buffer (TLB
 A translation lookaside buffer (TLB) is a memory cache that stores recent translations of virtual
memory to physical addresses for faster retrieval.
 When a virtual memory address is referenced by a program, the search starts in the CPU. First,
instruction caches are checked.
 If the required memory is not in these very fast caches, the system has to look up the memory’s
physical address.
 At this point, TLB is checked for a quick reference to the location in physical memory.
 When an address is searched in the TLB and not found, the physical memory must be searched
with a memory page crawl operation. As virtual memory addresses are translated, values
referenced are added to TLB.
 When a value can be retrieved from TLB, speed is enhanced because the memory address is
stored in the TLB on processor. Most processors include TLBs to increase the speed of virtual
memory operations through the inherent latency-reducing proximity as well as the high-running
frequencies of current CPU’s

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Thrashing
Thrashing is term referred to a high paging activity. A process is thrashing if it is spending more of
its time paging than actually executing.

Consider a process that currently needs some more frames. Currently all the frames are occupied.
So it will have to swap with certain pages; however, since all the pages are actively being used,
there would be need for an immediate page replacement after this. Such a scenario is called
thrashing. It results in serious performance problems.

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5.8 Page replacement algorithm
In operating systems, that use paging for memory management, page replacement algorithm are
needed to decide which page needed to be replaced when new page comes in. Whenever a new
page is referred and not present in memory, page fault occurs and Operating System replaces one
of the existing pages with newly needed page. Different page replacement algorithms suggest
different ways to decide which page to replace.
Some of the algorithm used for page replacement algorithm are:
First In First out (FIFO) algorithm
 Oldest page in main memory is the one which will be selected for replacement.
 Easy to implement, keep a list, replace pages from the tail and add new pages at the head.

Belady’s Anomaly
Normally, one would expect that with the total number of frames increasing, the number of page
fault decreases. However, for FIFO, there are cases where this generalization fails. This is called
Belady’s Anomaly.

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Optimal Page algorithm
 An optimal page-replacement algorithm has the lowest page-fault rate of all algorithms. An
optimal page-replacement algorithm exists, and has been called OPT or MIN.
 Replace the page that will not be used for the longest period of time. Use the time when a
page is to be used.

Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm

 Page which has not been used for the longest time in main memory is the one which will
be selected for replacement.
 Easy to implement, keep a list, replace pages by looking back into time.

Least frequently Used(LFU) algorithm

 The page with the smallest count is the one which will be selected for replacement.
 This algorithm suffers from the situation in which a page is used heavily during the initial
phase of a process, but then is never used again.
The Not Recently Used

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The not recently used (NRU) page replacement algorithm is an algorithm that favours keeping
pages in memory that have been recently used. This algorithm works on the following principle:
when a page is referenced, a referenced bit is set for that page, marking it as referenced. Similarly,
when a page is modified (written to), a modified bit is set. The setting of the bits is usually done by
the hardware, although it is possible to do so on the software level as well.
At a certain fixed time interval, a timer interrupt triggers and clears the referenced bit of all the
pages, so only pages referenced within the current timer interval are marked with a referenced bit.
When a page needs to be replaced, the operating system divides the pages into four classes:
3. referenced, modified
2. referenced, not modified
1. Not referenced, modified
0. Not referenced, not modified
Although it does not seem possible for a page to be modified yet not referenced, this happens when
a class 3 page has its referenced bit cleared by the timer interrupt. The NRU algorithm picks a
random page from the lowest category for removal. So out of the above four page categories, the
NRU algorithm will replace a not-referenced, not-modified page if such a page exists. Note that
this algorithm implies that a modified but not-referenced (within the last timer interval) page is less
important than a not-modified page that is intensely referenced.
Random
Random replacement algorithm replaces a random page in memory. This eliminates the overhead
cost of tracking page references. Usually it fares better than FIFO, and for looping memory
references it is better than LRU, although generally LRU performs better in practice
Clock
Clock is a more efficient version of FIFO than Second-chance because pages don't have to be
constantly pushed to the back of the list, but it performs the same general function as Second-
Chance. The clock algorithm keeps a circular list of pages in memory, with the "hand" (iterator)
pointing to the last examined page frame in the list. When a page fault occurs and no empty frames
exist, then the R (referenced) bit is inspected at the hand's location. If R is 0, the new page is put in
place of the page the "hand" points to. Otherwise, the R bit is cleared, then the clock hand is
incremented and the process is repeated until a page is replaced.
Second-chance
A modified form of the FIFO page replacement algorithm, known as the Second-chance page
replacement algorithm, fares relatively better than FIFO at little cost for the improvement. It works
by looking at the front of the queue as FIFO does, but instead of immediately paging out that page,
it checks to see if its referenced bit is set. If it is not set, the page is swapped out. Otherwise, the
referenced bit is cleared, the page is inserted at the back of the queue (as if it were a new page) and
this process is repeated. This can also be thought of as a circular queue. If all the pages have their
referenced bit set, on the second encounter of the first page in the list, that page will be swapped
out, as it now has its referenced bit cleared. If all the pages have their reference bit cleared, then
second chance algorithm degenerates into pure FIFO.

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As its name suggests, Second-chance gives every page a "second-chance" – an old page that has
been referenced is probably in use, and should not be swapped out over a new page that has not
been referenced.
Working set page replacement algorithm
The algorithm works as follows:
The hardware is assumed to set the R and M bits. Similarly, a periodic clock interrupt is assumed
to cause software to run that clears the Referenced bit on every clock tick. On every page fault, the
page table is scanned to look for a suitable page to evict.
As each entry is processed, the R bit is examined. If it is 1, the current virtual time is written into
the Time of last use field in the page table, indicating that the page was in use at the time the fault
occurred. Since the page has been referenced during the current clock tick, it is clearly in the
working set and is not a candidate for removal (t is assumed to span multiple clock ticks).
If R is 0, the page has not been referenced during the current clock tick and may be a candidate for
removal. To see whether or not it should be removed, its age, that is, the current virtual time minus
its Time of last use is computed and compared to t. If the age is greater than t, the page is no longer
in the working set. It is reclaimed and the new page loaded here. The scan continues updating the
remaining entries, however.
However, if R is 0 but the age is less than or equal to t, the page is still in the working set. The page
is temporarily spared, but the page with the greatest age (smallest value of Time of last use) is
noted. If the entire table is scanned without finding a candidate to evict, that means that all pages
are in the working set. In that case, if one or more pages with R = 0 were found, the one with the
greatest age is evicted. In the worst case, all pages have been referenced during the current clock
tick (and thus all have R = 1), so one is chosen at random for removal, preferably a clean page, if
one exists.

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WS Clock page replacement algorithm
 An implementation of the working set algorithm
 All pages are kept in a circular list (ring)
 As pages are added, they go into the ring
 The “clock hand” advances around the ring
 Each entry contains “time of last use”
 Upon a page fault...
 If Reference Bit = 1...
 Page is in use now. Do not evict.
 Clear the Referenced Bit.
 Update the “time of last use” field.
 If Reference Bit = 0
If the age of the page is less than T...
 This page is in the working set.
 Advance the hand and keep looking
If the age of the page is greater than T...
 If page is clean
 Reclaim the frame and we are done!
 If page is dirty
 Schedule a write for the page
 Advance the hand and keep looking

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5.9 Segmentation
• Segmentation is a memory management technique in which each job is divided into several
segments of different sizes, one for each module that contains pieces that perform related
functions. Each segment is actually a different logical address space of the program.
• When a process is to be executed, its corresponding segmentation are loaded into non-
contiguous memory though every segment is loaded into a contiguous block of available
memory.
• Segmentation memory management works very similar to paging but here segments are of
variable-length where as in paging pages are of fixed size.
• A program segment contains the program's main function, utility functions, data structures,
and so on. The operating system maintains a segment map table for every process and a
list of free memory blocks along with segment numbers, their size and corresponding
memory locations in main memory. For each segment, the table stores the starting address
of the segment and the length of the segment. A reference to a memory location includes a
value that identifies a segment and an offset.

Fig: Segmentation

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 • Segmentation is a technique to break memory into logical pieces where each piece
represents a group of related information.
• For example, data segments or code segment for each process, data segment for operating
system and so on.
• Segmentation can be implemented using or without using paging.
• Unlike paging, segment are having varying sizes and thus eliminates internal fragmentation.
External fragmentation still exists but to lesser extent.
• Because of the use of unequal size segments, segmentation is similar to dynamic partitioning
• Segmentation eliminates internal fragmentation but like dynamic partitioning, it suffers
from external fragmentation
• Like paging, a logical address using segmentation consists of two parts:
1. Segment number
2. Offset

Address translation in segmentation

• Base address is fetched
• Certain limit is set initially
• Offset must be in between 0 and limit of that segment
• If third step is complete without error, then add base with offset.

Fig: Address translation process in segmentation

ADVANTAGE OF SEGMENTATION
 It simplifies the handling of growing data structure (OS can grow or shrink the segments as
needed)

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  It allows programs to be altered and recompiled independently, without requiring the entire
set of programs to be relinked and reloaded
 It lends itself to sharing among a process. A programmer can place a utility program or a
useful table of data in a segment that can be referenced by other processes
 It lends itself to protection. Because a segment can be constructed to contain a well-defined
set of programs or data, the programmer/system administrator can assign access privileges
in a convenient fashion.
PAGING vs SEGMENTATION
BASIS PAGING SEGMENTATION

Basic A page is of fixed block size. A segment is of variable size.

Fragmentation Paging may lead to internal Segmentation may lead to external
fragmentation. fragmentation.
Address The user specified address is divided The user specifies each address by two
by CPU into a page number and offset. quantities a segment number and the
offset (Segment limit).
Size The hardware decides the page size. The user specifies the segment size.
Table Paging involves a page table that Segmentation involves the segment
contains base address of each page. table that contains segment number and
offset (segment length).

Segmentation with paging

• It allows to use segmentation from user’s point of view and also to divide each segment into
pages of fixed size.
• In a combined paging/segmentation system, a user’s address space is broken up into a number
of segments. Each segment is broken up into a number of fixed-sized pages which are equal in
length to a main memory frame
• Segmentation is visible to the programmer
• Paging is transparent to the programmer
• Segments can be of different lengths, so it is harder to find a place for a segment in memory
than a page. With segmented virtual memory, we get the benefits of virtual memory but we still
have to do dynamic storage allocation of physical memory. In order to avoid this, it is possible
to combine segmentation and paging into a two-level virtual memory system. Each segment
descriptor points to page table for that segment. This give some of the advantages of paging
(easy placement) with some of the advantages of segments (logical division of the program).

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How to get address?

• The segment number indexes into the segment table which yields the base address of the
page table for that segment.
• Check the remainder of the address (page number and offset) against the limit of the
segment.
• Use the page number to index the page table. The entry is the frame. (The rest of this is just
like paging.)
• Concat the frame and the offset to get the physical address.

Fig: Address Translation Segmentation with paging

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Advantages
 Reduces memory usage as opposed to pure paging
– Page table size limited by segment size
– Segment table has only one entry per actual segment
 Share individual pages by copying page table entries.
 Share whole segments by sharing segment table entries, which is the same as sharing the
page table for that segment.
 Most advantages of paging still hold
– Simplifies memory allocation
– Eliminates external fragmentation.
 In general, this system combines the efficiency in paging with the protection and sharing
capabilities of the segmentation.

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 Chapter 6 Input / Output

6.1 Introduction

Input/output or I/O is the communication between an information processing system, such as a

computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system.
Inputs are the signals or data received by the system and outputs are the signals or data sent from
it. The term can also be used as part of an action; to "perform I/O" is to perform an input or output
operation.

Besides providing abstractions like processes, address spaces and files, and OS also controls all of
the computer’s I/O devices.
For that, the OS should:
• issue commands to handle the I/O devices
• catch the interrupts
• handle the errors
• Provide the interface between devices and rest of the system.
6.2 PRINCIPLES OF I/O HARDWARE
• Different people look at I/O hardware differently
• Electrical engineers look in terms of chips, wires, motors, power supplies and other physical
components that make up the hardware
• Programmers look at the interface presented to the software (the commands the hardware
accepts, the function it carries out and the errors that can be reported back)
• We are concerned with programming I/O devices, not designing, building or maintaining them.
• Our interest is restricted to how the hardware is programmed not, how it works inside.

I/O devices

I/O devices are the pieces of hardware used by a human (or other system) to communicate with a
computer. For instance, a keyboard or computer mouse is an input device for a computer, while
monitors and printers are output devices. Devices for communication between computers, such as
modems and network cards, typically perform both input and output operations.
I/O devices can be roughly divided into:

i. Block devices
 stores information in a fixed sized block, each one with its own address.
 common block size ranges from 512 bytes to 32,768 bytes
 data transfer takes place in blocks
 block addressable not byte addressable
 e.g. Hard disks, CD-ROMs, USB sticks etc.

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 ii. Character devices
 delivers or accepts a stream of characters, without regard to any block structure
 they are not addressable
 e.g. printers, network interfaces, mice etc.

DEVICE CONTROLLERS
• A device controller is a piece of hardware that receives commands from the system bus,
translates them into device actions and reads/writes the data onto the system bus.
• I/O devices typically consists of two components: electrical and mechanical
• The electronic component is called the device controller or the adapter
• A device controller is a part of a computer system that makes sense of the signals going to, and
coming from the CPU
• There are many device controllers in a computer system
• Any device connected to the computer is connected by a plug and socket, and the socket is
connected to a device controller
• In personal computer, device controller usually takes the form of a chip on the parent board
• Many controllers can handle two, four or even eight identical devices

Memory-mapped I/O

 Memory-mapped I/O uses the same address bus to address both memory and I/O devices
 The memory and registers of the I/O devices are mapped to (associate with) address values.
 When an address is accessed by the CPU, it may refer to a portion of physical RAM, but it can
also refer to memory of the I/O device.
 The CPU instructions used to access the memory can also be used for accessing devices.
 Each I/O device monitors the CPU's address bus and responds to any CPU access of an address
assigned to that device, connecting the data bus to the desired device's hardware register.
 To accommodate the I/O devices, areas of the addresses used by the CPU must be reserved for
I/O and must not be available for normal physical memory

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DMA – Direct memory access

Direct Memory Access (DMA) is a method that allows an input/output (I/O) device to send or
receive data directly to or from the main memory, bypassing the CPU to speed up memory
operations. CPU is only involved at the beginning and end of the transfer and interrupted only after
entire block has been transferred.

Slow devices like keyboards will generate an interrupt to the main CPU after each byte is
transferred. If a fast device such as a disk generated an interrupt for each byte, the operating system
would spend most of its time handling these interrupts. So a typical computer uses direct memory
access (DMA) hardware to reduce this overhead.

Direct Memory Access needs a special hardware called DMA controller (DMAC) that manages the
data transfers and arbitrates access to the system bus. The controllers are programmed with source
and destination pointers (where to read/write the data), counters to track the number of transferred
bytes, and settings, which includes I/O and memory types, interrupts and states for the CPU cycles.

Advantage
 Free up CPU
 high transfer rates
 fewer CPU cycles for each transfer

Disadvantages

 DMA transfer requires a DMA controller to carry out the operation, hence more expensive
system
 synchronization mechanisms must be provided in order to avoid accessing non-updated
information from RAM

Use CPU over DMA if

 device speed is fast
 CPU has nothing to do (if cpu is free)

Working of DMA

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.

Fig: Block diagram and working of DMA

6.3 PRINCIPLES OF I/O SOFTWARE

Goals of I/O software

1. Device independence
• It should be possible to write programs that can access any I/O device without having to specify
the device in advance.
• For example, a program that reads a file as input should be able to read a file on a hard disk, a
CD-ROM, a DVD, or a USB without having to modify the program for each different device.
2. Uniform naming
• The name of the device should simply be a string or an integer and do not depend on the
device in any way
3. Error Handling
• In general, the error should be handled as close to the hardware as possible
• For example, if controller discovers read error, it should try to correct the error itself. If it
cannot, the device driver should handle it.
4. Synchronous (blocking) Vs. Asynchronous (interrupt driven) transfers
• It is up to the OS to make the operation that are interrupt driven look blocking to the user
programs

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5. Buffering
• Often, data that comes off a device cannot be stored directly to its final destination due to
various reasons.
• buffer is the intermediate destination
6. Dedicated Vs Shared devices
• Devices that can be used by many users at a time are sharable. E.g. Disk (multiple users can
open files from the same disk at the same time)
• Some devices have to be dedicated to a single person. E.g. tapes
Basically, input/output software organized in the following four layers:
 Interrupt handlers
 Device drivers
 Device-independent input/output software
 User-space input/output software
In every input/output software, each of the above given four layer has a well-defined function to
perform and a well-defined interface to the adjacent layers.
The figure given below shows all the layers along with hardware of the input/output software
system.

Here is another figure shows all the layers of the input/output software system along with their
principal functions.

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DEVICE DRIVERS

 Device specific code for controlling the device is called device driver.
 Written by device’s manufacturer and delivered along with the device.
 Device driver is the software part that communicates to the device controller, giving it
commands and accepting response
 A driver provides the software interface to hardware devices, enabling the OS and other
programs to access hardware functions without having to now the precise details of the
hardware being used.

FUNCTIONS OF DEVICE DRIVERS

i. Accept read/write request from device independent I/O software above it.
ii. Initialize the device if needed.
iii. Manage its power requirements and log events
iv. Check whether the input parameters are valid
v. Translate parameters from abstract to concrete terms (e.g, linear block number to
CHS(Cylinder Head, Sector) for disk)
vi. Check if the device is currently in use. If it is request will be queued for later
processing.

Interrupt handlers
An interrupt handler, also known as an interrupt service routine or ISR, is a piece of software or
more specifically a callback function in an operating system or more specifically in a device driver,
whose execution is triggered by the reception of an interrupt.

When the interrupt happens, the interrupt procedure does whatever it has to in order to handle the
interrupt, updates data structures and wakes up process that was waiting for an interrupt to happen.

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The interrupt mechanism accepts an address ─ a number that selects a specific interrupt handling
routine/function from a small set. In most architectures, this address is an offset stored in a table
called the interrupt vector table. This vector contains the memory addresses of specialized interrupt
handlers.

DEVICE INDEPENDENT I/O SOFTWARE

Although some of the I/O software is device specific, other parts of it are device independent. The
basic function of device-independent software is to perform the I/O functions that are common to
all devices and provide uniform interface to user-level software.

Functions of device independent I/O software

i. Uniform interfacing for device drivers
ii. Buffering
iii. Error Reporting
iv. Allocating and releasing dedicated devices
v. Providing a device-independent block size

User-Space I/O Software

These are the libraries which provide richer and simplified interface to access the functionality of
the kernel or ultimately interactive with the device drivers. Most of the user-level I/O software
consists of library procedures with some exception like spooling system which is a way of dealing
with dedicated I/O devices in a multiprogramming system.

I/O Libraries (e.g., stdio) are in user-space to provide an interface to the OS resident device-
independent I/O SW. For example putchar(), getchar(), printf() and scanf() are example of user
level I/O library stdio available in C programming.

Polled driven IO and Interrupt driven IO

Most input and output devices are much slower than the CPU—so much slower that it would be a
terrible waste of the CPU to make it wait for the input devices. For example, compare the speed
you can type with the speed the CPU can execute instructions. Even a very fast typist could probably
type no more than 10 characters per second, while a modern CPU can execute more than two billion
instructions in that same second!

Polled driven

If the CPU simply waits for the next input character, we call this polled I/O. In this method, the
CPU continuously polls the I/O device in a program loop, waiting for the next input. Think of a
game where a basketball player is asked to make as many free-throws as possible in one minute,

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but the clock is down the hall in another room. The player must run down the hall and check if the
minute has passed, and if not, go back to the gym and try to make another shot, then run down the
hall to check the clock and run back to take another shot. The player spends much of the time simply
checking (polling) the clock.

Interrupt driven

An alternative scheme for dealing with I/O is the interrupt-driven method. Here the CPU works on
its given tasks continuously. When an input is available, such as when someone types a key on the
keyboard, then the CPU is interrupted from its work to take care of the input data. In our example,
the basketball player would take shots one after another, while a second person watched the clock
down the hall. When the clock reached one minute, the person watching the clock would yell down
the hallway for the player to stop. This allows the player to take many more shots, but at the expense
of needing someone to watch the clock. Similarly, the CPU can work continuously on a task without
checking the input devices, allowing the devices themselves to interrupt it as necessary. This
requires some extra "smarts" in the form of electronic circuitry at the I/O devices so that they can
interrupt the CPU.

CUI and GUI

GUI and CUI are two types of User Interfaces. GUI stands for Graphical User Interface while CUI
stands for Character User Interface. In this article we will be discussing the differences between
these two interfaces and which one has advantages over the other.

User Interface: User Interface comprises of everything the user can use to interact with the
computer. It is basically the means by which the user and computer system can interact using input
and output devices.

GUI: GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. This is a type of user interface where user interacts
with the computer using graphics. Graphics include icons, navigation bars, images etc. Mouse can
be used while using this interface to interact with the graphics. It is a very user friendly interface
and requires no expertise. Eg: Windows has GUI.

CUI: CUI stands for Character User Interface. This is a type of user interface where user interacts
with computer using only keyboard. To perform any action a command is required. CUI is precursor
of GUI and was used in most primitive computers. Most modern computers use GUI and not CUI.
Eg: MS-DOS has CUI.

6.4 Disk

• Disk is an I/O devices that is common to every computer.

• Disks comes in many sizes and speeds, and information may be stored optically or
magnetically; however, all disks share a number of important features.

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 • Disks are the information storage media
• Advantages of disks over main memory:
• Storage capacity of disk is greater than main memory
• Disks are non-volatile (i.e. unlike main memory, the information on disk is not lost
even after power off)
• Disks come in variety of types:
-Magnetic Disks : Hard Disks, Floppy disks
-Optical Disks : CD-ROMs, DVDs etc.

A disk consists of several platters

 Each disk platter has a flat circular shape, like a CD
 The two surfaces of a platter are covered with a magnetic material
 A read-write head "flies" just above each surface of every platter
 The heads are attached to a disk arm that moves all the heads as a unit
 The surface of a platter is logically divided into circular tracks, which are subdivided into
sectors
 The set of tracks that are at one arm position makes up a cylinder
 There may be thousands of concentric cylinders in a disk drive, and each trackmay contain
hundreds of sectors

Disk scheduling

• Disk scheduling is done by operating systems to schedule I/O requests arriving for disk.
• Disk scheduling is also known as I/O scheduling.
• OS is responsible to use the hardware efficiently –for the disk drive this means fast seek,
latency and transmission time.
• For most disks, the seek time dominates the other two times, so reducing the mean seek time
can improve system performance substantially.
• Disk I/O time = seek time + rotational delay + transfer time

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Seek: Position head over desired cylinder/track. Seek time depends on how fast the hardware moves
the arm.
Rotational Delay: time for the sector to rotate underneath the head. Rotational delay depends on
how fast the disk spins.
Transfer time: time to move the bytes from disk to memory.

Disk Scheduling Algorithms

1. FCFS (First Come First Serve)

FCFS is the simplest of all the Disk Scheduling Algorithms. In FCFS, the requests are addressed in
the order they arrive in the disk queue.
Advantages:
 Every request gets a fair chance i.e no starvation
 No indefinite postponement
Disadvantages:
 Does not try to optimize seek time
 May not provide the best possible service

Example: Given the following queue: 95, 180, 34, 119, 11, 123, 62, 64 with the Read-write head
initially at the track 50 and total track is 200(0-199). Find total head movement and average head
movement.

2. SSTF( Shortest Seek Time First)

In SSTF (Shortest Seek Time First), requests having shortest seek time are executed first. So, the
seek time of every request is calculated in advance in queue and then they are scheduled according
to their calculated seek time. As a result, the request near the disk arm will get executed first. SSTF

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is certainly an improvement over FCFS as it decreases the average response time and increases the
throughput of system.

Advantages:
 Average Response Time decreases
 Throughput increases

Disadvantages:
 Overhead to calculate seek time in advance
 Can cause Starvation for a request if it has higher seek time as compared to incoming requests
 High variance of response time as SSTF favors only some requests
 Switching directions causes things slow down

Example: Given the following queue: 95, 180, 34, 119, 11, 123, 62, 64 with the Read-write head
initially at the track 50 and total track is 200(0-199). Find total head movement and average head
movement.

3. SCAN

In SCAN algorithm the disk arm moves into a particular direction and services the requests
coming in its path and after reaching the end of disk, it reverses its direction and again services
the request arriving in its path. So, this algorithm works like an elevator and hence also known
as elevator algorithm. As a result, the requests at the midrange are serviced more and those
arriving behind the disk arm will have to wait.

Advantages-
 It is simple, easy to understand and implement.
 It does not lead to starvation.
 It provides low variance in response time and waiting time.
Disadvantages-
 It causes long waiting time for the cylinders just visited by the head.

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  It causes the head to move till the end of the disk even if there are no requests to be serviced.

Example: Consider a disk queue with requests for I/O to blocks on cylinders 98, 183, 41, 122, 14,
124, 65, 67. The head is initially at cylinder number 53 moving towards larger cylinder numbers on
its servicing pass. Find the cylinders are numbered from 0 to 199. The total head movement (in
number of cylinders) incurred while servicing these requests using SCAN.

Total head movements incurred while servicing these requests

= (65 – 53) + (67 – 65) + (98 – 67) + (122 – 98) + (124 – 122) + (183 – 124) + (199 – 183) + (199
– 41) + (41 – 14)
= 12 + 2 + 31 + 24 + 2 + 59 + 16 + 158 + 27
= 331 cylinders
4. CSCAN:

In SCAN algorithm, the disk arm again scans the path that has been scanned, after reversing its
direction. So, it may be possible that too many requests are waiting at the other end or there may
be zero or few requests pending at the scanned area.
These situations are avoided in CSCAN algorithm in which the disk arm instead of reversing its
direction goes to the other end of the disk and starts servicing the requests from there. So, the disk
arm moves in a circular fashion and this algorithm is also similar to SCAN algorithm and hence it
is known as C-SCAN (Circular SCAN).

Advantages-
 The waiting time for the cylinders just visited by the head is reduced as compared to the
SCAN Algorithm.
 It provides uniform waiting time.
 It provides better response time.
Disadvantages-
 It causes more seek movements as compared to SCAN Algorithm.
 It causes the head to move till the end of the disk even if there are no requests to be serviced.
Example: Consider a disk queue with requests for I/O to blocks on cylinders 98, 183, 41, 122, 14,
124, 65, 67. The head is initially at cylinder number 53 moving towards larger cylinder numbers on
its servicing pass. The cylinders are numbered from 0 to 199. Find the total head movement (in
number of cylinders) incurred while servicing these requests using C-SCAN.

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 Total head movements incurred while servicing these requests
= (65 – 53) + (67 – 65) + (98 – 67) + (122 – 98) + (124 – 122) + (183 – 124) + (199 – 183) + (199
– 0) + (14 – 0) + (41 – 14)
= 12 + 2 + 31 + 24 + 2 + 59 + 16 + 199 + 14 + 27
= 386 cylinders

5. LOOK:

It is similar to the SCAN disk scheduling algorithm except the difference that the disk arm in spite
of going to the end of the disk goes only to the last request to be serviced in front of the head and
then reverses its direction from there only. Thus it prevents the extra delay which occurred due to
unnecessary traversal to the end of the disk.
Advantages-
 It does not cause the head to move till the ends of the disk when there are no requests to be
serviced.
 It provides better performance as compared to SCAN Algorithm.
 It does not lead to starvation.
 It provides low variance in response time and waiting time.

Disadvantages-
 There is an overhead of finding the end requests.
 It causes long waiting time for the cylinders just visited by the head.

Example: Consider a disk queue with requests for I/O to blocks on cylinders 98, 183, 41, 122, 14,
124, 65, 67. The head is initially at cylinder number 53 moving towards larger cylinder numbers on
its servicing pass. The cylinders are numbered from 0 to 199.Find the total head movement (in
number of cylinders) incurred while servicing these requests using LOOK scheduling algorithm.

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Total head movements incurred while servicing these requests
= (65 – 53) + (67 – 65) + (98 – 67)+(122 – 98)+(124 – 122)+(183 – 124) +(183 – 41) + (41 – 14)
= 12 + 2 + 31 + 24 + 2 + 59 + 142 + 27
= 299 cylinders

6. CLOOK

As LOOK is similar to SCAN algorithm, in similar way, CLOOK is similar to CSCAN disk
scheduling algorithm. In CLOOK, the disk arm inspite of going to the end goes only to the last
request to be serviced in front of the head and then from there goes to the other end’s last request.
Thus, it also prevents the extra delay which occurred due to unnecessary traversal to the end of the
disk.

Advantages-
 It does not cause the head to move till the ends of the disk when there are no requests to be
serviced.
 It reduces the waiting time for the cylinders just visited by the head.
 It provides better performance as compared to LOOK Algorithm.
 It does not lead to starvation.
 It provides low variance in response time and waiting time.
Disadvantages-
 There is an overhead of finding the end requests.

Example: Consider a disk queue with requests for I/O to blocks on cylinders 98, 183, 41, 122, 14,
124, 65, 67. The head is initially at cylinder number 53 moving towards larger cylinder numbers
on its servicing pass. The cylinders are numbered from 0 to 199. Find The total head movement
(in number of cylinders) incurred while servicing these requests using CLOOK.

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Total head movements incurred while servicing these requests
= (65 – 53)+(67 – 65)+(98 – 67)+(122 – 98)+(124 – 122) + (183 – 124) + (183 – 14) + (41 – 14)
= 12 + 2 + 31 + 24 + 2 + 59 + 169 + 27
= 326 cylinders
Alternatively,
Total head movements incurred while servicing these requests
= (183 – 53) + (183 – 14) + (41 – 14)
= 130 + 169 + 27
= 326 cylinders
Selecting a Disk-Scheduling Algorithm

 SSTF is common and has a natural appeal

 SCAN and C-SCAN perform better for systems that place a heavy load on the disk.
 Performance depends on the number and types of requests.
 Requests for disk service can be influenced by the file allocation method.
 The disk-scheduling algorithm should be written as a separate module of the operating
system, allowing it to be replaced with a different algorithm if necessary.
 Either SSTF or LOOK is a reasonable choice for the default algorithm

Interleaving
• Consider, a controller with a one-sector buffer that has been given a command to read two
consecutive sectors.
• After reading the first sector from the disk and doing the ECC-error correction code calculation,
the data must be transferred to main memory.
• While this transfer is taking place, the next sector will fly by the head.
• When the copy to memory is complete, the controller will have to wait almost an entire rotation
time for the second sector to come around again.
• This problem can be eliminated by a technique called interleaving
• The idea is to number the sectors in interleaved fashion rather than sequentially

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• Interleaving gives the controller some breathing time between consecutive sectors in order to
copy the buffer to main memory
• We may also implement double interleaving if the copying is really slow.

RAID

RAID, short for redundant array of independent (originally inexpensive) disks is a disk subsystem
that stores your data across multiple disks to either increase the performance, reliability or provide
fault tolerance to the system. RAID can be categorized into Software RAID and Hardware RAID.
In software RAID, the memory architecture is managed by the operating system. In case of
hardware RAID, there is a dedicated controller and processor present inside the disks that manage
the memory. There are various raid levels as discussed below.

Standard RAID levels

RAID 0:
RAID 0 is based on data striping. A stream of data is divided into multiple segments or blocks and
each of those blocks is stored on different disks. So, when the system wants to read that data, it can
do so simultaneously from all the disks and join them together to reconstruct the entire data stream.
The benefit of this is that the speed increases drastically for read and write operations.

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Advantages:
 Performance boost for read and write operations
 Space is not wasted as the entire volume of the individual disks are used up to store unique
data.
Disadvantages
 There is no redundancy/duplication of data. If one of the disks fails, the entire data is lost.

RAID 1:
RAID 1 uses the concept of data mirroring. Data is mirrored or cloned to an identical set of disks
so that if one of the disks fails, the other one can be used. It also improves read performance since
different blocks of data can be accessed from all the disks simultaneously.

Advantages
 Data can be recovered in case of disk failure
 Increased performance for read operation
Disadvantages
 Slow write performance
 Space is wasted by duplicating data which increases the cost per unit memory

RAID 4:
RAID 4 stripes the data across multiple disks just like RAID 0. In addition to that, it also stores
parity information of all the disks in a separate dedicated disk to achieve redundancy. In the diagram
below, Disk 4 serves as the parity disk having parity blocks Ap, Bp, Cp and Dp. So, if one of the
disks fails, the data can be reconstructed using the parity information of that disk. Space is more
efficiently used here when compared to RAID 1 since parity information uses way less space than
mirroring the disk.

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Advantages
 Efficient data redundancy in terms of cost per unit memory
 Performance boost for read operations due to data stripping
Disadvantages
 Write operation is slow because all the parity information is written on a single disk which
is a bottleneck.
 If the dedicated parity disk fails, data redundancy is lost

RAID 5
RAID 5 is very similar to RAID 4, but here the parity information is distributed over all the disks
instead of storing them in a dedicated disk. This has two benefits — First, there is no more a
bottleneck as the parity stress evens out by using all the disks to store parity information and second,
there is no possibility of losing data redundancy since one disk does not store all the parity
information.

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Advantages
 All the advantages of RAID 4 plus increased write speed and better data redundancy
Disadvantages
 Can only handle up to a single disk failure

RAID 6
RAID 6 uses double parity blocks to achieve better data redundancy than RAID 5. This increases
the fault tolerance for up to two drive failures in the array. Each disk has two parity blocks which
are stored on different disks across the array. RAID 6 is a very practical infrastructure for
maintaining high availability systems.

Advantages
 Better data redundancy. Can handle upto 2 failed drives
Disadvantages
 Large parity overhead

RAID 10 (RAID 1+0)

RAID 10 combines both RAID 1 and RAID 0 by layering them in opposite order. Sometimes, it is
also called as “nested” or “hybrid” RAID. This is a “best of both worlds approach”, because it has
the fast performance of RAID 0 and the redundancy of RAID 1. In this setup, multiple RAID 1
blocks are connected with each other to make it like RAID 0. It is used in cases where huge disk
performance (greater than RAID 5 or 6) along with redundancy is required.

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Advantages
 Very fast performance
 Redundancy and fault tolerance
Disadvantages
 Cost per unit memory is high since data is mirrored

What about RAID levels 2, 3 and 7?

These levels do exist but are not that common.

RAM Disk
RAM Disk also known as RAM Drive is not a disk at all; It is a program which takes the portion
of the system memory (RAM, in the form of memory chips) and uses it as a disk drive. You can
create a larger RAM disk, if your computer has more RAM.
A RAM disk can also take the form of a hardware device or a virtual disk. RAM drive makes use
of regular RAM instead of accessing the data bus. Sometimes RAM drive also makes use of the
compressed file system, so that compressed data can access but without decompressing the
compressed data.
As long as the power is on, you can use a RAM disk just like a real disk drive-you can copy files
to and from the RAM disk, display the RAM disk's directory or folder on your screen, and run any
programs you've stored there. A RAM disk may be an external SCSI device, that looks similar to a
regular external hard drive (but is very expensive and is slowed down by the limitations of the SCSI
connection), or it may be a lot of extra memory that you set aside with special RAM-disks of
software, or it may be a memory card that you add to your computer.
The significant advantage of a RAM disk is that because it's purely electronic (rather than a physical
platter), it's much, much faster than any mechanical disk-hard, floppy, or optical. Typically, if a
broad application or program can't fit into regular memory all at once, the computer has to go to the

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hard disk from time to time and retrieve what it needs to continue working, which slows down the
entire process. But if you copy the application to your RAM disk and run it from there, you'll barely
notice when the program fetches more instructions from the RAM disk.
RAM disappears when the power goes out, or the system crashes. If you make changes in a
document file parked on a RAM disk, you still must be careful to save the file to a real drive. Unless
you're willing to go long periods without saving "permanently" and risk losing a lot of work, putting
your documents on a RAM disk will slow you down.
RAM disks have another disadvantage: the memory they use is unavailable for other programs.
Unless you always use the same programs, your system will run faster, on the average, if you use
extra memory for a "disk cache"instead of a RAM disk.

Advantages of RAM Disk

The benefits of RAM disk are as follows:
 It makes the performance of I/O process faster and more efficient.
 The users make use of a RAM disk to speed up their applications like games,
audio, and video editing, databases, etc.
 The performance of a RAM Disk is higher.
 It creates a virtual memory from the RAM.
 The main benefit of RAM disk is you can access the RAM disk at maximum bandwidth
without any fear of mechanical failure.
 Also, at maximum bandwidth, it does not produce excessive heat, noise or vibration.

Disadvantages of using RAM Disk

The disadvantages of using RAM Disk are as follows:
 Its most significant disadvantage is its cost. As we know that, RAM is very costly as
compared to a hard disk.
 If your computer lost power and your system gets crashed, then all of your saved data also
get lost.
 RAM disk reserves a good portion of your memory so that you cannot use that memory for
any other purpose.

Applications of using a RAM disk

A RAM disk is like a hard drive, but it makes the use of memory. You can use a RAM disk like:
you can copy applications and files to the RAM disk, and then you can start those applications or
those files from there if the program allows that.
Mostly, RAM disks are suitable for those
 who want to store temporary data.
 You can also set the Windows temp folder location there for instance.

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Whenever you restart your computer, this data got removed entirely automatically, and you do not
need to do this manually.

Terminals
• Terminals are data input-output device usually made up of a monitor (display), keyboard,
mouse, or touch screen.
• A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for
entering data into, and displaying or printing data from, a computer or a computing system.
• It is the point at which a user is connected to and communicates with a computer or a website
through a network.
Three basic types of terminals are:
1. Dumb terminal: has no built-in data processing capabilities and serves only to send
and receive data.
2. Smart terminal: has limited data processing capabilities.
3. Intelligent terminal: has a substantial data processing capability to inbuilt processor
and memory.

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 Chapter 7 File System
7.1 File Organization
File
 A file is sequence of logical records i.e. a sequence of bits and bytes.
 A file is a named collection of related information that is recorded on secondary storage such
as magnetic disks, magnetic tapes and optical disks.
 In general, a file is a sequence of bits, bytes, lines or records whose meaning is defined by the
files creator and user.
File System
 A file system is the methods and data structures that an operating system uses to keep track of
files on a disk or partition; that is, the way the files are organized on the disk.
 The word is also used to refer to a partition or disk that is used to store the files or the type of
the file system.
File Attributes
A file has a name and data. Other than this, it contains information like date and time of file creation,
file’s current size etc. with a file. These are known as attributes of a file. The lists of file attributes
are:
 Name –only information kept in human-readable form
 Identifier–unique tag (number) identifies file within file system
 Type–needed for systems that support different types
 Location–This information is a pointer to a device and to the location of the file on that device
 Size–current file size and possibly the maximum allowed size
 Protection–Access-control information determines who can do reading, writing, executing
 Time, date, and user identification –data for protection, security, and usage monitoring etc.

File Naming
 When a process creates a file, it gives the file a name. When the process terminates, the file
continues to exist and can be accessed by other processes using its name.
 File naming = File name + File extension
 Eg. bcabit.doc In this example the bcabit is the file name and doc is the file
 Some common file extension are: DOC and DOCX, .HTML and .HTM,.ODT,.PDF,.XLS and
XLSX, .ODS, .PPT and .PPTX ,.TXT etc

File Operation
CREATE: A blank file is created.
DELETE: The purpose of this system call is to delete this file
OPEN: Open a file either for reading or writing.
CLOSE: When a file is no longer accessed.

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READ: When a file is only to be read.
WRITE: To write some data on file.
APPEND: To add some data to the end of the file.
RENAME: To rename the file.

File Type
File type refers to the ability of the operating system to distinguish different types of file such as
text files source files and binary files etc. Many operating systems support many types of files.
Operating system like MS-DOS and UNIX have the following types of files −
1. Ordinary files
 These are the files that contain user information.
 These may have text, databases or executable program.
 The user can apply various operations on such files like add, modify, delete or even remove the
entire file.
2. Directory files
 These files contain list of file names and other information related to these files.
3. Special files
 These files are also known as device files.
 These files represent physical device like disks, terminals, printers, network, tape drive etc.
These files are of two types −
 Character special files − data is handled character by character as in case of terminals or
printers.
 Block special files − data is handled in blocks as in the case of disks and tapes.
File Access Mechanisms
File access mechanism refers to the manner in which the records of a file may be accessed. There
are several ways to access files −
 Sequential access
 Direct/Random access
 Indexed sequential access
Sequential access
 A sequential access is that in which the records are accessed in some sequence, i.e., the
information in the file is processed in order, one record after the other.
 This access method is the most primitive one.
 Example: Compilers usually access files in this fashion.
Direct/Random access
 Random access file organization provides, accessing the records directly.
 Each record has its own address on the file with by the help of which it can be directly
accessed for reading or writing.
 The records need not be in any sequence within the file and they need not be in adjacent
locations on the storage medium.
 Example: Accessing file in hard disk
Indexed sequential access
 This mechanism is built up on base of sequential access.
 An index is created for each file which contains pointers to various blocks.
 Index is searched sequentially and its pointer is used to access the file directly.
 Example: Accessing files in payroll system

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7.2 Sharing

When several users are working together sharing of files takes place. In such a case it is convenient
for a file to appear simultaneously in different directories belonging to different users. Sharing files
is convenient but also introduces problems like if the original file or the shared file are appended
with new features then it will not be updated in both the copies of the file, it is updated only at its
original location. This way the purpose of file sharing is defeated. This problem can be solved by
two ways:
 i-node
 Symbolic linking

7.3 ACL (Access Control List)

 An access control list (ACL) is a table that tells a computer operating system which access
rights each user has to a particular system object, such as a file directory or individual file.
 Each object has a security attribute that identifies its access control list. The list has an entry
for each system user with access privileges.
 For instance, if a file object has an ACL that contains (Binod: read,write; Puspa: read), this
would give Binod permission to read and write the file and Puspa to only read it.
 ACL usually consists of multiple entries. Each ACL has an owner that is associated with it,
who owns the file or directory for which the ACL is defined. Owners usually have full access
to the files or directories that they own. If the directory contains files or subdirectories, the
owner, owning group, and ACL cannot be modified. Even if the directory contains files or
subdirectories, the ACL can be modified by users with the Dataaccess role.

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 You can enable access control for users to directories, files, and other objects such as file
systems and filesets. To provide simplified access to the most common sets of access rights,
the following generic rights are defined for the ACL entries:
 Read
 Write
 Execute
 Microsoft Windows NT/2000, Novell's NetWare, Digital's OpenVMS, and UNIX-based
systems are among the operating systems that use access control lists. The list is implemented
differently by each operating system.

Working of ACL
ACL works on simply in following three steps:

Access Control Matrix ( ACM )

 Access Matrix is an abstract, formal security model of protection state in computer systems,
that characterizes the rights of each subject with respect to every object in the system.
 Access control matrix consists of triple parts such as subject, object, and access operation. A
subject is an active entity in a computer system such as user, program, process, and thread.
 An object is a passive entity or system resource such as file, directory, database record and
printer. In access control matrix’s schema, the subjects and objects are placed in a table. Each
row represents a subject and each column represents an object. The data inside the table are set
of access operations such as read, write, and execute. The access operations are responsible for
interactions between subjects and objects.

• S: subjects, users or processes

• O: objects, resources such as files, devices, messages, etc.
• A: access matrix A: S  O  R (rights)
• Example:

Capability List
 A capability is a token, ticket, or key that gives the possessor permission to access an entity or
object in a computer system.
 A capability can be thought of as a pair (x, r) where x is the name of an object and r is a set of
privileges or rights. With each subject we can store that subject's capabilities. And, the subject
presents to the guard a capability in order to get access to an object.

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 Note that a capability is completely transferable; it doesn't matter who presents the capability.
This framework completely eliminates the need for authentication.
 However, with ACLs we were assuming that authentication was unforgettable. With
capabilities, we now need a way to make capabilities unforgettable. The success of a
capability-based mechanism depends on it.
7.4 Directories
Directory is the collection of files. The directory contains information about the files, including
attributes, location and ownership. Much of this information especially that is concerned with
storage is managed by the operating system. The directory is itself a file, accessible by various file
management routines.

Information contained in a device directory

 Name
 Type
 Address
 Current length
 Maximum length
 Date last accessed
 Date last updated
 Owner id
 Protection information

Directory Operations

 CREATE: A directory is created.

 DELETE: A directory is deleted.
 OPENDIR: Directories can be opened for reading it.
 CLOSEDIR: When a directory has been read, it should be closed to free up internal table
space in main memory.
 RENAME: Directories can be renamed just like files.

Advantages of maintaining directories

 Efficiency: A file can be located more quickly.

 Naming: It becomes convenient for users as two users can have same name for different files
or may have different name for same file.
 Grouping: Logical grouping of files can be done by properties e.g. all java programs, all
games etc.

Types of directories
A directory system can be classified in to single level and hierarchical directory system:
i. Single level directory system:
 In this type of directory system, there is a root directory which has all files.
 It has a simple architecture and there are no sub directories.

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  Advantage of single level directory system is that it is easy to find a file in the directory.
 This type of directory system is used in cameras and phones.

ii. Two-Level Directory

 Each user gets their own directory space.

 File names only need to be unique within a given user's directory.
 A master file directory is used to keep track of each users directory, and must be maintained
when users are added to or removed from the system.
 A separate directory is generally needed for system ( executable ) files.
 Systems may or may not allow users to access other directories besides their own

 If access to other directories is allowed, then provision must be made to specify the
directory being accessed.
 If access is denied, then special consideration must be made for users to run programs
located in system directories. A search path is the list of directories in which to search
for executable programs, and can be set uniquely for each user.

iii. Hierarchical directory or Tree directory

 In a hierarchical directory system, files are grouped together to form a sub directory.
 At the top of the hierarchy is the root directory and then there are sub directories which has
files.
 Advantage of hierarchical directory system is that users can be provided access to a sub
directory rather than the entire directory. It provides a better structure to file system. Also,
managing millions of files is easy with this architecture.
 Personal computers use hierarchical directory system for managing files

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Path
A path is a unique location to a file or a folder in a file system of an OS.A path to a file is a
combination of / and alpha-numeric characters.
Absolute Path-name
An absolute path is defined as the specifying the location of a file or directory from the root
directory(/).
To write an absolute path-name:
 Start at the root directory ( / ) and work down.
 Write a slash ( / ) after every directory name (last one is optional)
For example:
binod /home/os/yubraj.pdf
Relative path-name
Relative path is defined as the path related to the present working directly. It starts at your current
directory and never starts with a /.
For example:
If we are currently in home then,
home/os/yubraj.pdf is a relative path.
7.5 File System Implementation

The allocation methods define how the files are stored in the disk blocks. There are three main disk
space or file allocation methods.
i. Contiguous Allocation
ii. Linked Allocation
iii. Indexed Allocation
The main idea behind these methods is to provide:
 Efficient disk space utilization.
 Fast access to the file blocks

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1. Contiguous Allocation
In this scheme, each file occupies a contiguous set of blocks on the disk. For example, if a file
requires n blocks and is given a block b as the starting location, then the blocks assigned to the file
will be: b, b+1, b+2,……b+n-1. This means that given the starting block address and the length of
the file (in terms of blocks required), we can determine the blocks occupied by the file.
For example, If we have a disk with 1 KB blocks, then for storing a 50 KB file, we will require 50
consecutive blocks.

The file allocation table in contiguous allocation contains

 Address of starting block
 Length of the allocated portion.

The file ‘File A’ in the above figure starts from the block 2 with length = 3 blocks. Therefore, it
occupies 2,3 and 4 blocks.

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Advantages:
 Both the Sequential and Direct Accesses are supported by this. For direct access, the address
of the kth block of the file which starts at block b can easily be obtained as (b+k).
 This is extremely fast since the number of seeks are minimal because of contiguous
allocation of file blocks.

Disadvantages:
 This method suffers from both internal and external fragmentation. This makes it inefficient
in terms of memory utilization.
 Increasing file size is difficult because it depends on the availability of contiguous memory
at a particular instance.

2. Linked Allocation (Non-contiguous allocation)

In this scheme, each file is a linked list of disk blocks which need not be contiguous. The disk
blocks can be scattered anywhere on the disk. The file allocation table contains a pointer to the
starting and the ending file block. Each block contains a pointer to the next block occupied by the
file.

The file ‘jeep’ in following image shows how the blocks are randomly distributed. The last block
(25) contains -1 indicating a null pointer and does not point to any other block.

Advantages:
 This is very flexible in terms of file size. File size can be increased easily since the system
does not have to look for a contiguous chunk of memory.
 This method does not suffer from external fragmentation. This makes it relatively better in
terms of memory utilization.

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Disadvantages:
 Because the file blocks are distributed randomly on the disk, a large number of seeks are
needed to access every block individually. This makes linked allocation slower.
 It does not support random or direct access. We cannot directly access the blocks of a file.
A block k of a file can be accessed by traversing k blocks sequentially (sequential access)
from the starting block of the file via block pointers.
 Pointers required in the linked allocation incur some extra overhead.

3. Indexed Allocation (i-nodes)

In this scheme, a special block known as the Index block contains the pointers to all the blocks
occupied by a file. Each file has its own index block. The ith entry in the index block contains the
disk address of the ith file block. The directory entry contains the address of the index block as
shown below:

I-nodes can point directly or indirectly as follows:

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Advantages:
 This supports direct access to the blocks occupied by the file and therefore provides fast access
to the file blocks.
 It overcomes the problem of external fragmentation.

Disadvantages:
 The pointer overhead for indexed allocation is greater than linked allocation.
 For very small files, say files that expand only 2-3 blocks, the indexed allocation would keep
one entire block (index block) for the pointers which is inefficient in terms of memory
utilization. However, in linked allocation we lose the space of only 1 pointer per block.

7.6 Security and multimedia files

Security refers to providing a protection system to computer system resources such as CPU,
memory, disk, software programs and most importantly data/information stored in the computer
system. If a computer program is run by an unauthorized user, then he/she may cause severe
damage to computer or data stored in it. So a computer system must be protected against
unauthorized access, malicious access to system memory, viruses, worms etc. Some of the
securities issues in operating system are:
Program Threats
Operating system's processes and kernel do the designated task as instructed. If a user program
made these process do malicious tasks, then it is known as Program Threats. One of the common
examples of program threat is a program installed in a computer which can store and send user
credentials via network to some hacker. Following is the list of some well-known program threats.
 Trojan Horse − Such program traps user login credentials and stores them to send to
malicious user who can later on login to computer and can access system resources.
 Trap Door − If a program which is designed to work as required, have a security hole in
its code and perform illegal action without knowledge of user then it is called to have a
trap door.
 Logic Bomb − Logic bomb is a situation when a program misbehaves only when certain
conditions met otherwise it works as a genuine program. It is harder to detect.
 Virus − Virus as name suggest can replicate themselves on computer system. They are
highly dangerous and can modify/delete user files, crash systems. A virus is generally a
small code embedded in a program. As user accesses the program, the virus starts getting
embedded in other files/ programs and can make system unusable for user

System Threats
System threats refer to misuse of system services and network connections to put user in trouble.
System threats can be used to launch program threats on a complete network called as program
attack. System threats create such an environment that operating system resources/ user files are
misused. Following is the list of some well-known system threats.
 Worm − Worm is a process which can choked down a system performance by using system
resources to extreme levels. A Worm process generates its multiple copies where each copy
uses system resources, prevents all other processes to get required resources. Worms
processes can even shut down an entire network.
 Port Scanning − Port scanning is a mechanism or means by which a hacker can detects
system vulnerabilities to make an attack on the system.

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  Denial of Service − Denial of service attacks normally prevents user to make legitimate
use of the system. For example, a user may not be able to use internet if denial of service
attacks browser's content settings.

Virus Worm
A computer virus is a type of malware that Computer worms are similar to viruses in that
propagates by inserting a copy of itself into and they replicate functional copies of themselves
becoming part of another program. and can cause the same type of damage.
It need a host file to spread. No need of host file, it is standalone software.
Human intervention. No human intervention.
It infects the files and infect other system by It infects computer and spread over the
sharing files. network.
It cause damage to hardware and software. It consume too much system resource or
network bandwith.

Protection Mechanism
Protection mechanism refers to any mechanism for controlling access of processes or users to
resources defined by the operating system. Several strategies for Protection mechanism are:
Authentication
Authentication refers to identifying each user of the system and associating the executing programs
with those users. It is the responsibility of the Operating System to create a protection system
which ensures that a user who is running a particular program is authentic. Operating Systems
generally identifies/authenticates users using following three ways −
 Username / Password − User need to enter a registered username and password with
Operating system to login into the system.
 User card/key − User need to punch card in card slot, or enter key generated by key
generator in option provided by operating system to login into the system.
 User attribute - fingerprint/ eye retina pattern/ signature − User need to pass his/her
attribute via designated input device used by operating system to login into the system.
One Time passwords
One-time passwords provide additional security along with normal authentication. In One-Time
Password system, a unique password is required every time user tries to login into the system.
Once a one-time password is used, then it cannot be used again. One-time password are
implemented in various ways.
 Random numbers − Users are provided cards having numbers printed along with
corresponding alphabets. System asks for numbers corresponding to few alphabets
randomly chosen.
 Secret key − User are provided a hardware device which can create a secret id mapped with
user id. System asks for such secret id which is to be generated every time prior to login.
 Network password − Some commercial applications send one-time passwords to user on
registered mobile/ email which is required to be entered prior to login.

Encryption

In computing, encryption is the method by which plaintext or any other type of data is converted
from a readable form to an encoded version that can only be decoded by another entity if they have

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access to a decryption key. Encryption is one of the most important methods for providing data
security, especially for end-to-end protection of data transmitted across networks.

Encryption is widely used on the internet to protect user information being sent between a browser
and a server, including passwords, payment information and other personal information that should
be considered private. Organizations and individuals also commonly use encryption to protect
sensitive data stored on computers, servers and mobile devices like phones or tablets.

Unencrypted data, often referred to as plaintext, is encrypted using an encryption algorithm and an
encryption key. This process generates cipher text that can only be viewed in its original form if
decrypted with the correct key. Decryption is simply the inverse of encryption, following the same
steps but reversing the order in which the keys are applied.

Multi – media files

 A file that is capable of holding two or more multimedia elements (text, images, audio, video
and animations) is known as multimedia files.
 Although still images are a different medium than text, multimedia is typically used to mean
the combination of text, sound, and/or motion video. Some people might say that the addition
of animated images (for example, animated GIF on the Web) produces multimedia, but it has
typically meant one of the following:
 Text and sound
 Text, sound, and still or animated graphic images
 Text, sound, and video images
 Video and sound
 Multiple display areas, images, or presentations presented concurrently
 In live situations, the use of a speaker or actors and "props" together with sound,
images, and motion video
Categories of files
 Uncompressed - files that are not compressed and are capable of having a large file size.
 Lossless - files that are compressed but doesn’t lose any quality to the file.
 Lossy - files that lose some quality when being compressed.

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Multi – media file format
A file format is the structure of how information is stored (encoded) in a computer file. File formats
are designed to store specific types of information, such as JPEG and TIFF for image or raster data,
AI (Adobe Illustrator) for vector data, or PDF for document exchange.

Several kinds of Multi – media file format are:

 Audio file format
 Video file format
 Image file format

Audio file format

Audio is an electrical or other representation of sound. An audio file format is a file format for
storing digital audio data on a computer system. It can be a raw bit stream, but it is usually a
container format or an audio data format with defined storage layer.
Examples of audio files includes: MP3,WAV, WMA - Windows Media Audio (.wma), ogg etc.

Video file format

Video files are collections of images, audio and other data. The attributes of the video signal include
the pixel dimensions, frame rate, audio channels, and more. In addition, there are many different
ways to encode and save video data. This page outlines the key characteristics of the video signal,
and the file formats used to capture, work with, and deliver that data.
Examples of audio files includes: AVI (Audio Video Interleave), WMV (Windows Media Video),
MOV (Apple QuickTime Movie), MP4 (Moving Pictures Expert Group 4) etc.
Image file formats
Image file formats are standardized means of organizing and storing digital images. Image files are
composed of digital data in one of these formats that can be rasterized for use on a computer display
or printer. An image file format may store data in uncompressed, compressed, or vector formats.
Once rasterized, an image becomes a grid of pixels, each of which has a number of bits to designate
its color equal to the color depth of the device displaying it.
Examples of image files includes: JPEG,TIF,PNG etc

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 Chapter 8 Distributed Operating System
8.1 Introduction to distributed operating system
 Distributed Operating System is a model where distributed applications are running on
multiple computers linked by communications.
 Distributed system is a collection of independent computers that appear to the user of the
system as a single computer.
 A distributed operating system is an extension of the network operating system that supports
higher levels of communication and integration of the machines on the network.

Fig: Distributed System

Example: WWW (WorldWide Web), Banking system, ATM Machines, Mobile computing etc
Characteristic / Goals/ Design issue of Distributed System
 Resource sharing: The opportunity to use available hardware, software or data anywhere in
the system. As the distributed system is a collection of several computers in a network so the
resources of several computers can be shared.
 Concurrency: Components in DS execute in concurrent processes. Components access and
update shared resources (e.g., variables, data bases, device drivers). Integrity of the system may
be violated if concurrent updates are not coordinated components execute in concurrent
processes that read and update shared resources.
 Scalability: Scalability denotes the ability of a system to handle an increasing future load.
Resources such as processing and storage capacity can be increased significantly. Should work
efficiently with an increasing number of users. System performance should increase with
inclusion of additional resources.

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 Fault tolerance: Failure of one or more components should not bring down the entire system.
If one system fails in DS, another system works. So the whole system cannot be failed at once.
 Transparency: The end users can be concealed or hidden from the actual separation of the
distributed system so that the user feels that everything is transparent to everyone
 Openness: Degree by which new services can be added: publication of specification and
documentation of interfaces used by components. Openness facilitates interoperability,
portability, extensibility, adaptively. Activities addresses by openness extensions of new
components, re-implementations (by independent providers).
Advantage of distributed system over centralized system
 Reliability: If one machine crashes, the system as a whole can still survive. Higher
availability and improved reliability.
 Economics: A collection of microprocessors offers a better price/performance than
mainframes. Low price/performance ratio: cost effective way to increase computing power.
(Note CS use mainframe while DS use mp)
 Speed: A distributed system may have more total computing power than a mainframe.
Enhanced performance through load distributing.
 Incremental growth: Computing power can be added in small increments. This leads to
Modular expandability.
 Data sharing: allow many users to access to a common data base
 Resource Sharing: expensive peripherals like color printers.
 Communication: enhance human-to-human communication. E.g. email, chat.
 Flexibility: spread the workload over the available machines
Disadvantage of Distributed System
The added complexity required to ensure proper co-ordination among the sites, is the major
disadvantage. This increased complexity takes various forms:
• Software Development Cost: It is more difficult to implement a distributed database system;
thus it is costlier.
• Greater Potential for Bugs: Since the sites that constitute the distributed database system
operate parallel, it is harder to ensure the correctness of algorithms, especially operation during
failures of part of the system, and recovery from failures. The potential exists for extremely
subtle bugs.
• Increased Processing Overhead: The exchange of information and additional computation
required to achieve interstice co-ordination are a form of overhead that does not arise in
centralized system.
• Complexity: As there are several computers and the connection of computer to each other in a
distributed network which makes the system more complex.

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Network Architecture
When a computer, terminal and other data processing devices exchange data, some of the typical
task to be performed. The source system must inform the network, the identity of the desi system.
The source system must determine that the destination system is prepared to receive data. The file
transfer application on the source system must file management programme on the destination
system is prepared to accept and store the file. If the format used on the two systems is incompatible,
systems must perform a format translation function. It is most important that there must be high
degree of coordination between two computers. Instead of single module for performing all these
function, there is structure of module for performing communication. This structure is known as
networking architecture.
Different type of networking architecture is adapted which includes:

OSI Model

The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model is a conceptual and logical layout that defines
network communication used by systems open to interconnection and communication with other
systems. The model is broken into seven subcomponents, or layers, each of which represents a
conceptual collection of services provided to the layers above and below it. The OSI Model also

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defines a logical network and effectively describes computer packet transfer by using different layer
protocols.

TCP/IP Model

TCP/IP, or the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, is a suite of

communication protocols used to interconnect network devices on the internet. TCP/IP can also be
used as a communications protocol in a private network (an intranet or an extranet).

It is the network model used in the current Internet architecture as well. The Internet protocol suite
is the conceptual model and set of communications protocols used on the Internet and similar
computer networks. The Internet protocol suite provides end-to-end data communication specifying
how data should be packetized, addressed, transmitted, routed and received.

• Layer 4. Application Layer

Application layer is the top most layer of four layer TCP/IP model. Application layer is present on
the top of the Transport layer. Application layer defines TCP/IP application protocols and how host
programs interface with Transport layer services to use the network.

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 • Layer 3. Transport Layer
Transport Layer is the third layer of the four layer TCP/IP model. The position of the Transport
layer is between Application layer and Internet layer. The purpose of Transport layer is to permit
devices on the source and destination hosts to carry on a conversation. Transport layer defines the
level of service and status of the connection used when transporting data.

• Layer 2. Internet Layer:

Internet Layer is the second layer of the four layer TCP/IP model. The position of Internet layer is
between Network Access Layer and Transport layer. Internet layer pack data into data packets
known as IP datagrams, which contain source and destination address (logical address or IP address)
information that is used to forward the datagrams between hosts and across networks. The Internet
layer is also responsible for routing of IP datagrams.

• Layer 1. Network Access Layer

Network Access Layer is the first layer of the four layer TCP/IP model. Network Access Layer
defines details of how data is physically sent through the network, including how bits are
electrically or optically signaled by hardware devices that interface directly with a network medium,
such as coaxial cable, optical fiber, or twisted pair copper wire.

Network Operating System vs Distributed Operating System

Network Operating System Distributed Operating System

A network operating system is made up of A distributed operating system is an ordinary
software and associated protocols that allow a centralized operating system but runs on
set of computer network to be used together. multiple independent CPUs.
Environment users are aware of multiplicity of Environment users are not aware of
machines. multiplicity of machines.
Control over file placement is done manually It can be done automatically by the system
by the user. itself.
Performance is badly affected if certain part of It is more reliable or fault tolerant i.e
the hardware starts malfunctioning. distributed operating system performs even if
certain part of the hardware starts
malfunctioning.
Remote resources are accessed by either Users access remote resources in the same
logging into the desired remote machine or manner as they access local resources.
transferring data from the remote machine to
user's own machines.

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Hardware and Software Concepts
Hardware Concepts
Even though all distributed systems consist of multiple CPUs, there are several different ways the
hardware can be organized, especially in terms of how they are interconnected and how they
communicate.
Various classification schemes for multiple CPU computer systems have been proposed over the
years.
According to Flynn, classification can be done based on, the number of instruction streams and
number of data streams.
Flynn’s classification –
1. Single-instruction, single-data (SISD) systems
An SISD computing system is a uniprocessor machine which is capable of executing a single
instruction, operating on a single data stream. In SISD, machine instructions are processed in a
sequential manner and computers adopting this model are popularly called sequential computers.
Most conventional computers have SISD architecture. All the instructions and data to be processed
have to be stored in primary memory.

The speed of the processing element in the SISD model is limited(dependent) by the rate at which
the computer can transfer information internally. Dominant representative SISD systems are IBM
PC, workstations.
2. Single-instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) systems
An SIMD system is a multiprocessor machine capable of executing the same instruction on all the
CPUs but operating on different data streams. Machines based on an SIMD model are well suited
to scientific computing since they involve lots of vector and matrix operations. So that the
information can be passed to all the processing elements (PEs) organized data elements of vectors
can be divided into multiple sets (N-sets for N PE systems) and each PE can process one data set.

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Dominant representative SIMD systems is Cray’s vector processing machine.
3. Multiple-instruction, single-data (MISD) systems

An MISD computing system is a multiprocessor machine capable of executing different instructions

on different PEs but all of them operating on the same dataset.

Example Z = sin(x)+cos(x)+tan(x)

The system performs different operations on the same data set. Machines built using the MISD
model are not useful in most of the application, a few machines are built, but none of them are
available commercially.

4. Multiple-instruction, multiple-data (MIMD) system

An MIMD system is a multiprocessor machine which is capable of executing multiple instructions

on multiple data sets. Each PE in the MIMD model has separate instruction and data streams;
therefore, machines built using this model are capable to any kind of application. Unlike SIMD and
MISD machines, PEs in MIMD machines work asynchronously.

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MIMD machines are broadly categorized into two taxonomy based on the way PEs are coupled to
the main memory.
 Shared-memory MIMD
 Distributed-memory MIMD

In the shared memory MIMD model (tightly coupled multiprocessor systems), all the PEs are
connected to a single global memory and they all have access to it. The communication between
PEs in this model takes place through the shared memory, modification of the data stored in the
global memory by one PE is visible to all other PEs. Dominant representative shared memory
MIMD systems are Silicon Graphics machines and Sun/IBM’s SMP (Symmetric Multi-
Processing).
In Distributed memory MIMD machines (loosely coupled multiprocessor systems) all PEs have a
local memory. The communication between PEs in this model takes place through the
interconnection network (the inter process communication channel, or IPC). The network
connecting PEs can be configured to tree, mesh or in accordance with the requirement.
The shared-memory MIMD architecture is easier to program but is less tolerant to failures and
harder to extend with respect to the distributed memory MIMD model. Failures in a shared-memory
MIMD affect the entire system, whereas this is not the case of the distributed model, in which each
of the PEs can be easily isolated. Moreover, shared memory MIMD architectures are less likely to
scale because the addition of more PEs leads to memory contention. This is a situation that does
not happen in the case of distributed memory, in which each PE has its own memory. As a result of
practical outcomes and user’s requirement, distributed memory MIMD architecture is superior to
the other existing models.
Software Concepts
The image that a system presents to its users, and how they think about the system, is largely
determined by the operating system software, not the hardware.
There are basic two types of operating system namely:
1. Tightly coupled operating system
2. loosely couple operating system

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Loosely-coupled software allows machines and users of a distributed system to be fundamentally
independent of one another. Consider a group of personal computers, each of which has its own
CPU, its own memory, its own hard disk, and its own operating system, but which share some
resources, such as laser printers and data bases, over a LAN. This system is loosely coupled, since
the individual machines are clearly distinguishable, each with its own job to do. If the network
should go down for some reason, the individual machines can still continue to run to a considerable
degree, although some functionality may be lost.

For tightly coupled system consider a multiprocessor dedicated to running a single chess program
in parallel. Each CPU is assigned a board to evaluate, and it spends its time examining that board
and all the boards that can be generated from it. When the evaluation is finished, the CPU reports
back the results and is given a new board to work on. The software for this system, both the
application program and the operating system required to support it, is clearly much more tightly
coupled.

8.2 Communication in Distributed System

Every computer of the distributed system consists of resources manager process to monitor the
current status of usage of its local resources, and resource manager of all the computer communicate
with each other from time to time dynamically balance the system load among all the computer.
Therefore, a distributed system need to provide interposes communication (IPC) mechanism in

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order to facilitate such communication. Interposes communication basically require information
sharing among two or more processors.
The two basic methods for information sharing are adapted.
a. Shared data approach or original sharing
b. Message passing approach or copy sharing
In a shared data approach, the information to be shared is placed in a common memory are that
is accessible to all processes involved in IPC.
In message passing approach, the information to be shared is physically copied from the address
space to the address space of all the receiver processes. And this is done by transmitting the data
to be copied in the form of message.
This method of Inter Process Communication (IPC) uses two primitives:
 send (destination, message);
 receive (source, message);
Processes must name each other explicitly:
i. send (P, message): send a message to process P
ii. receive (Q, message): receive a message from process Q

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

It is a high-speed networking standard designed to support voice, video and data communications,
and to improve utilization and quality of service (QoS) on high-traffic networks.

ATM is normally utilized by internet service providers on their private long-distance networks.
ATM operates at the data link layer (Layer 2 in the OSI model) over either fiber or twisted-pair
cable.

Working of ATM

ATM differs from more common data link technologies like Ethernet in several ways. For one,
ATM uses zero routing. Instead of using software, dedicated hardware devices known as ATM
switches establish point-to-point connections between endpoints and data flows directly from
source to destination.

Additionally, instead of using variable-length packets like Ethernet and Internet Protocol does,
ATM utilizes fixed-sized cells to encode data. These ATM cells are 53 bytes in length, that include
48 bytes of data and five bytes of header information.
Each cell is processed at their own time. When one is finished, the procedure then calls for the next
cell to process. This is why it's called asynchronous; none of them go off at the same time relative
to the other cells.

The connection can be preconfigured by the service provider to make a dedicated/permanent circuit
or be switched/set up on demand and then terminated at the end of its use.

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8.3 Client Server Model
Client/server architecture is a computing model in which the server hosts, delivers and manages
most of the resources and services to be consumed by the client. This type of architecture has one
or more client computers connected to a central server over a network or internet connection. This
system shares computing resources. Client/server architecture is also known as a networking
computing model or client/server network because all the requests and services are delivered over
a network.
Client/server architecture is a producer/consumer computing architecture where the server acts as
the producer and the client as a consumer. The server houses and provides high-end, computing-
intensive services to the client on demand. These services can include application access, storage,
file sharing, printer access and/or direct access to the server’s raw computing power.

Client/server architecture works when the client computer sends a resource or process request to
the server over the network connection, which is then processed and delivered to the client. A server
computer can manage several clients simultaneously, whereas one client can be connected to
several servers at a time, each providing a different set of services. In its simplest form, the internet
is also based on client/server architecture where web servers serve many simultaneous users with
website data.

8.4 Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is a protocol that one program can use to request a service from a
program located in another computer on a network without having to understand the network's
details. A procedure call is also sometimes known as a function call or a subroutine call. RPC
concept is to make a remote procedure call appear like a local procedure call. The goal is to hide
the details of the network communication (namely, the sending and receiving of messages). The
calling procedure should not be aware that the called procedure is executing on a different machine.

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Working of RPC

A stub is a piece of code that converts parameters passed.

As the illustration shows, the client application calls a local stub procedure instead of the actual
code implementing the procedure. Stubs are compiled and linked with the client application. Instead
of containing the actual code that implements the remote procedure, the client stub code:
1. Retrieves the required parameters from the client address space.
2. Translates the parameters as needed into a standard NDR(Network Data Representation)
format for transmission over the network.
3. Calls functions in the RPC client run-time library to send the request and its parameters to
the server.

The server performs the following steps to call the remote procedure.

1. The server RPC run-time library functions accept the request and call the server stub
procedure.
2. The server stub retrieves the parameters from the network buffer and converts them from
the network transmission format to the format the server needs.
3. The server stub calls the actual procedure on the server.

The remote procedure then runs, possibly generating output parameters and a return value. When
the remote procedure is complete, a similar sequence of steps returns the data to the client.

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 1. The remote procedure returns its data to the server stub.
2. The server stub converts output parameters to the format required for transmission over the
network and returns them to the RPC run-time library functions.
3. The server RPC run-time library functions transmit the data on the network to the client
computer.

The client completes the process by accepting the data over the network and returning it to the
calling function.

1. The client RPC run-time library receives the remote-procedure return values and returns
them to the client stub.
2. The client stub converts the data from its NDR to the format used by the client computer.
The stub writes data into the client memory and returns the result to the calling program on
the client.
3. The calling procedure continues as if the procedure had been called on the same computer.

In this way communication between client and server is established using RPC.

8.5 Group Communication

Communication basically involves only two panics, the client and the sender. Sometimes there are
circumstances in which communication involves multiple processes. The most common form of
message-based communication is in which a single sender process sends a message to a single
receiver process. For high performance several parallel distributed applications require that a
message passing system should also provide group communication facility.
Group communication means that a group of processes that act together in some system
communicates. The main property is that when a message is sent to the group itself, all the member
of the group receives it.
Depending on single or multiple sender and receiver, the following three type of up communication
are possible:
a. One to Many (Single sender and multiple receiver)
b. Many to One (Multiple sender and Single receiver)
c. Many to Many (Multiple Sender and Multiple receiver)
One to Many Communications
 In this type of communication there are multiple receivers for a message single sender.
 One to many schemes are also known as multicast communication.
 Best example is broadcast communication in which message are sent to all processor connected
to the network.
 In one to many communication, receiver processes of a message form a group. such group are
of two types: closed and open group.

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 Closed group is one in which only the member of the group can send a message to the group.
An outside process cannot send a message to a group on the other hand. open group is one in
which any process in the system can send a message to the group as whole.
Many to One Communication
 In this method, multiple sender send message to a single receiver.
 The single receiver maybe selective or non-selective: A selective receiver specifies a unique
sender, a message exchange take place only if that sender send a message where, a non-selective
receiver specify a set of sender and if anyone sender in the set send a message to this receiver,
a message exchange take place.
 Example: Buffer
Many to Many communications
 In this method, multiple sender send message to multiple receiver.
 An important issue related to many to many communication method is that of ordered message
delivery.
 Ordered message delivery ensure that all the message is delivered to all the receiver in order for
example suppose two sender send message to update the same record of data base to two server
process's, if the message of two senders are received by the two server in different order, then
the final value of the update record of the data base, maybe different. Therefore, this application
requires that the entire message be delivered in the same order to all receivers.
8.6 Clock Synchronization

 In a distributed system the internal clocks of several computers may differ with each other.
 Even when initially set accurately, real clocks will differ after some time due to clock drift,
caused by clocks counting time at slightly different rates.
 In serial communication, some people use the term "clock synchronization" merely to discuss
frequency synchronization and phase synchronization. Such "clock synchronization" is used
in synchronization in telecommunications and automatic baud rate detection.
 It is the process of setting all the cooperating systems of distributed network to the same logical
or physical clock.
 External synchronization: synchronization to an external source
 Internal Synchronization: synchronization to the local time by appealing to their local clocks.
 Logical clocks - It is sufficient that all machines agree on the same time. E.g. make example -
it is adequate that all machines agree that it is 10:00 even if it is really 10:02.
 Physical clocks - Must not only be the same. Clocks whose values must not deviate from the
real time (UTC – Universal Co-ordinated Time) by more than a certain amount.

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8.6 Scheduling in Distributed System

Normally, each processor does its own local scheduling (assuming that it has multiple processes
running on it), without regard to what the other processors are doing. Usually, this approach works
fine. However, when a group of related, heavily interacting processes are all running on different
processors, independent scheduling is not always the most efficient way.

Although it is difficult to determine dynamically the inter-process communication patterns, in

many cases, a group of related processes will be started off together. For example, it is usually a
good bet that the filters in a UNIX pipeline will communicate with each other more than they will
with other, previously started processes. Let us assume that processes are created in groups and
that intragroup communication is much more prevalent than intergroup communication. Let us
assume further that a sufficiently large number of processors is available to handle the largest
group, and that each processor is multi-programmed with N process slots (N–way
multiprogramming).

One of the purposed proposed algorithms based on a concept of co-scheduling, which takes inter-
process communication patterns into account while scheduling to ensure that all members of a
group run at the same time. The algorithm uses a conceptual matrix in which each column is the
process table for one processor in which certain time slot is divided for each process.

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