Chapter 3: Process Concept

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 3: Process Concept
 Process Concept
 Process Scheduling
 Operations on Processes
 Interprocess Communication
 Examples of IPC Systems
 Communication in Client-Server Systems

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Objectives
 To introduce the notion of a process -- a program in execution,
which forms the basis of all computation

 To describe the various features of processes, including

scheduling, creation and termination, and communication

 To explore inter-process communication using shared memory

and message passing

 To describe communication in client-server systems

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Process Concept
 An operating system executes a variety of programs:
 Batch system – jobs
 Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks
 Textbook uses the terms job and process almost interchangeably
 Process – a program in execution; process execution must progress in sequential fashion
 Multiple parts
 The program code, also called text section
 Current activity including program counter, processor registers
 Stack containing temporary data
 Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
 Data section containing global variables
 Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time
 Program is passive entity stored on disk (executable file), process is active
 Program becomes process when executable file loaded into memory
 Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks, command line entry of its name, etc.
 One program can be several processes
 Consider multiple users executing the same program

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 Process in Memory

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 Process State
 As a process executes, it changes state
 new: The process is being created
 running: Instructions are being executed
 waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur
 ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor
 terminated: The process has finished execution

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 Diagram of Process State

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 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process
(also called task control block)
 Process state – running, waiting, etc
 Program counter – location of instruction to
next execute
 CPU registers – contents of all process-
centric registers
 CPU scheduling information- priorities,
scheduling queue pointers
 Memory-management information – memory
allocated to the process
 Accounting information – CPU used, clock
time elapsed since start, time limits
 I/O status information – I/O devices allocated
to process, list of open files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Threads
 So far, process has a single thread of execution
 Consider having multiple program counters per process
 Multiple locations can execute at once
 Multiple threads of control -> threads

 Must then have storage for thread details, multiple program

counters in PCB
 See next chapter

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Process Representation in Linux
 Represented by the C structure task_struct
pid t pid; /* process identifier */
long state; /* state of the process */
unsigned int time slice /* scheduling information */
struct task struct *parent; /* this process’s parent */
struct list head children; /* this process’s children */
struct files struct *files; /* list of open files */
struct mm struct *mm; /* address space of this process */

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Process Scheduling
 Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU for time
sharing
 Process scheduler selects among available processes for next
execution on CPU
 Maintains scheduling queues of processes
 Job queue – set of all processes in the system
 Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main memory, ready and
waiting to execute
 Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O device
 Processes migrate among the various queues

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 Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues

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 Representation of Process Scheduling
 Queuing diagram represents queues, resources, flows

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 Schedulers
 Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should
be brought into the ready queue
 Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should be
executed next and allocates CPU
 Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
 Short-term scheduler is invoked very frequently (milliseconds)  (must be fast)
 Long-term scheduler is invoked very infrequently (seconds, minutes)  (may
be slow)
 The long-term scheduler controls the degree of multiprogramming
 Processes can be described as either:
 I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than computations, many short CPU
bursts
 CPU-bound process – spends more time doing computations; few very long CPU bursts
 Long-term scheduler strives for good process mix

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
 Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of multiple
programming needs to decrease
 Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in from disk to
continue execution: swapping

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 Multitasking in Mobile Systems
 Some systems / early systems allow only one process to run,
others suspended
 Due to screen real estate, user interface limits iOS provides for a
 Single foreground process- controlled via user interface
 Multiple background processes– in memory, running, but not on the
display, and with limits
 Limits include single, short task, receiving notification of events, specific
long-running tasks like audio playback
 Android runs foreground and background, with fewer limits
 Background process uses a service to perform tasks
 Service can keep running even if background process is suspended
 Service has no user interface, small memory use

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Context Switch
 When CPU switches to another process, the system must save
the state of the old process and load the saved state for the new
process via a context switch
 Context of a process represented in the PCB
 Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful work
while switching
 The more complex the OS and the PCB -> longer the context switch
 Time dependent on hardware support
 Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per CPU -> multiple
contexts loaded at once

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 CPU Switch From Process to Process

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 Operations on Processes
 System must provide mechanisms for process creation,
termination, and so on as detailed next

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 Process Creation
 Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create
other processes, forming a tree of processes
 Generally, process identified and managed via a process
identifier (pid)
 Resource sharing options
 Parent and children share all resources
 Children share subset of parent’s resources
 Parent and child share no resources
 Execution options
 Parent and children execute concurrently
 Parent waits until children terminate

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 A Tree of Processes in Linux

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 Process Creation (Cont.)
 Address space
 Child duplicate of parent
 Child has a program loaded into it
 UNIX examples
 fork() system call creates new process
 exec() system call used after a fork() to replace the process’ memory
space with a new program

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 C Program Forking Separate Process

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 Creating a Separate Process via Windows API

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 Process Termination
 Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to delete it
(exit())
 Output data from child to parent (via wait())
 Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
 Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort())
 Child has exceeded allocated resources
 Task assigned to child is no longer required
 If parent is exiting
 Some operating systems do not allow child to continue if its parent terminates
– All children terminated - cascading termination
 Wait for termination, returning the pid:
pid t pid; int status;
pid = wait(&status);
 If no parent waiting, then terminated process is a zombie
 If parent terminated, processes are orphans

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Multiprocess Architecture – Chrome Browser
 Many web browsers ran as single process (some still do)
 If one web site causes trouble, entire browser can hang or crash
 Google Chrome Browser is multiprocess with 3 categories
 Browser process manages user interface, disk and network I/O
 Renderer process renders web pages, deals with HTML, Javascript, new
one for each website opened
 Runs in sandbox restricting disk and network I/O, minimizing effect of
security exploits
 Plug-in process for each type of plug-in

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Interprocess Communication
 Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating
 Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution of
another process
 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes,
including sharing data
 Reasons for cooperating processes:
 Information sharing
 Computation speedup
 Modularity
 Convenience
 Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
 Two models of IPC
 Shared memory
 Message passing

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 Communications Models

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 Producer-Consumer Problem
 Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer process produces
information that is consumed by a consumer process
 Unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of the buffer
 Bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size

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 Bounded-Buffer – Shared-Memory Solution
 Shared data
#define BUFFER_SIZE 10
typedef struct {
. . .
} item;

item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0;

 Solution is correct, but can only use BUFFER_SIZE-1 elements

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bounded-Buffer – Producer

item next produced;

while (true) {
/* produce an item in next produced */
while (((in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE) == out)
; /* do nothing */
buffer[in] = next produced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Bounded Buffer – Consumer

item next consumed;

while (true) {
while (in == out)
; /* do nothing */
next consumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;

/* consume the item in next consumed */

}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Interprocess Communication – Message Passing
 Mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize their
actions
 Message system – processes communicate with each other without
resorting to shared variables
 IPC facility provides two operations:
 send(message) – message size fixed or variable
 receive(message)

 If P and Q wish to communicate, they need to

 establish a communication link between them
 exchange messages via send/receive

 Implementation of communication link

 physical (e.g., shared memory, hardware bus)
 logical (e.g., direct or indirect, synchronous or asynchronous, automatic or
explicit buffering)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Implementation Questions
 How are links established?
 Can a link be associated with more than two processes?
 How many links can there be between every pair of communicating
processes?
 What is the capacity of a link?
 Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or
variable?
 Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Direct Communication
 Processes must name each other explicitly
 send (P, message) – send a message to process P
 receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q

 Properties of communication link

 Links are established automatically
 A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating processes
 Between each pair there exists exactly one link
 The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Indirect Communication (1)
 Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred
to as ports)
 Each mailbox has a unique id
 Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox

 Properties of communication link

 Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
 A link may be associated with many processes
 Each pair of processes may share several communication links
 Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Indirect Communication (2)
 Operations
 create a new mailbox
 send and receive messages through mailbox
 destroy a mailbox

 Primitives are defined as

 send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
 receive(A, message) – receive a message from mailbox A

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Indirect Communication (3)
 Mailbox sharing
 P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A
 P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive
 Who gets the message?

 Solutions
 Allow a link to be associated with at most two processes
 Allow only one process at a time to execute a receive operation
 Allow the system to select arbitrarily the receiver. Sender is notified who
the receiver was

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Synchronization (1)
 Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking

 Blocking is considered synchronous

 Blocking send has the sender block until the message is received
 Blocking receive has the receiver block until a message is available

 Non-blocking is considered asynchronous

 Non-blocking send has the sender send the message and continue
 Non-blocking receive has the receiver receive a valid message or null

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Synchronization (2)
 Different combinations possible
 If both send and receive are blocking, we have a rendezvous
 Producer-consumer becomes trivial

message next produced;

while (true) {
/* produce an item in next produced */
send(next produced);
}

message next consumed;

while (true) {
receive(next consumed);

/* consume the item in next consumed */

}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Buffering
 Queue of messages attached to the link; implemented in one of
three ways
1. Zero capacity – 0 messages
Sender must wait for receiver (rendezvous)
2. Bounded capacity – finite length of n messages
Sender must wait if link full
3. Unbounded capacity – infinite length
Sender never waits

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Examples of IPC Systems - POSIX
 POSIX Shared Memory
 Process first creates shared memory segment
shm_fd = shm_open(name, O CREAT | O RDRW, 0666);
 Also used to open an existing segment to share it
 Set the size of the object
ftruncate(shm fd, 4096);
 Now the process could write to the shared memory
sprintf(shared memory, "Writing to shared memory");

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 IPC POSIX Producer

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 IPC POSIX Consumer

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 Examples of IPC Systems - Mach
 Mach communication is message based
 Even system calls are messages
 Each task gets two mailboxes at creation- Kernel and Notify
 Only three system calls needed for message transfer
msg_send(), msg_receive(), msg_rpc()
 Mailboxes needed for commuication, created via
port_allocate()
 Send and receive are flexible, for example four options if mailbox full
 Wait indefinitely
 Wait at most milliseconds
 Return immediately
 Temporarily cache a message

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Examples of IPC Systems – Windows
 Message-passing centric via advanced local procedure call
(LPC) facility
 Only works between processes on the same system
 Uses ports (like mailboxes) to establish and maintain communication
channels
 Communication works as follows
 The client opens a handle to the subsystem’s connection port object.
 The client sends a connection request.
 The server creates two private communication ports and returns the handle to one
of them to the client.
 The client and server use the corresponding port handle to send messages or
callbacks and to listen for replies.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Local Procedure Calls in Windows XP

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Communications in Client-Server Systems

 Sockets

 Remote Procedure Calls

 Pipes

 Remote Method Invocation (Java)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Sockets
 A socket is defined as an endpoint for communication

 Concatenation of IP address and port – a number included at start of

message packet to differentiate network services on a host

 The socket 161.25.19.8:1625 refers to port 1625 on host 161.25.19.8

 Communication consists between a pair of sockets

 All ports below 1024 are well known, used for standard services

 Special IP address 127.0.0.1 (loopback) to refer to system on which

process is running

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 Socket Communication

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 Sockets in Java
 Three types of sockets
 Connection-oriented (TCP)
 Connectionless (UDP)
 MulticastSocket class– data
can be sent to multiple recipients

 Consider this “Date” server

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Remote Procedure Calls
 Remote procedure call (RPC) abstracts procedure calls between processes on
networked systems
 Again uses ports for service differentiation
 Stubs – client-side proxy for the actual procedure on the server
 The client-side stub locates the server and marshalls the parameters
 The server-side stub receives this message, unpacks the marshalled
parameters, and performs the procedure on the server
 On Windows, stub code compile from specification written in Microsoft
Interface Definition Language (MIDL)
 Data representation handled via External Data Representation (XDL) format
to account for different architectures
 Big-endian and little-endian
 Remote communication has more failure scenarios than local
 Messages can be delivered exactly once rather than at most once
 OS typically provides a rendezvous (or matchmaker) service to connect client
and server

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 Execution of RPC

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 Pipes
 Acts as a conduit allowing two processes to communicate

 Issues
 Is communication unidirectional or bidirectional?
 In the case of two-way communication, is it half or full-duplex?
 Must there exist a relationship (i.e. parent-child) between the
communicating processes?
 Can the pipes be used over a network?

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Ordinary Pipes
 Ordinary Pipes allow communication in standard producer-consumer style
 Producer writes to one end (the write-end of the pipe)
 Consumer reads from the other end (the read-end of the pipe)
 Ordinary pipes are therefore unidirectional
 Require parent-child relationship between communicating processes

 Windows calls these anonymous pipes

 See Unix and Windows code samples in textbook

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 Named Pipes
 Named Pipes are more powerful than ordinary pipes
 Communication is bidirectional
 No parent-child relationship is necessary between the communicating
processes
 Several processes can use the named pipe for communication
 Provided on both UNIX and Windows systems

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