Chapter 2: Operating-System

Structures

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

 Chapter 2: Operating-System Structures

 Operating System Services

 User Operating System Interface
 System Calls
 Types of System Calls
 System Programs
 Operating System Design and Implementation
 Operating System Structure
 Operating System Debugging
 System Boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Objectives
 To describe the services an operating system
provides to users, processes, and other systems
 To discuss the various ways of structuring an
operating system
 To explain how operating systems are installed
and customized and how they boot

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.1 Operating System Services
 Operating systems provide an environment for execution
of programs and services to programs and users
 One set of operating-system services provides functions
that are helpful to the user:
 User interface - Almost all operating systems have a
user interface (UI).
 Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics
User Interface (GUI), Batch
 Program execution - The system must be able to load
a program into memory and to run that program, end
execution, either normally or abnormally (indicating
error)
 I/O operations - A running program may require I/O,
which may involve a file or an I/O device

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 One set of operating-system services provides functions that
are helpful to the user (Cont.):
 File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular
interest. Programs need to read and write files and
directories, create and delete them, search them, list file
Information, permission management.
 Communications – Processes may exchange information,
on the same computer or between computers over a
network
 Communications may be via shared memory or through
message passing (packets moved by the OS)
 Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of
possible errors
 May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O
devices, in user program
 For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate
action to ensure correct and consistent computing
 Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient
operation of the system itself via resource sharing
 Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple
jobs running concurrently, resources must be allocated to
each of them
 Many types of resources - CPU cycles, main memory,
file storage, I/O devices.
 Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much
and what kinds of computer resources
 Protection and security - The owners of information
stored in a multiuser or networked computer system may
want to control use of that information, concurrent
processes should not interfere with each other
 Protection involves ensuring that all access to system
resources is controlled
 Security of the system from outsiders requires user
authentication, extends to defending external I/O
devices from invalid access attempts

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.2 User Operating System Interface

Command Interpreter (CLI)

CLI allows direct command entry
 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by
systems program
 Sometimes multiple CLI implemented – shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and executes
it
 Sometimes CLI contains the code to execute the
command, sometimes through system programs
 If the latter, adding new features doesn’t require
shell modification

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Bourne Shell Command Interpreter

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System Interface

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

User-friendly desktop metaphor interface
 Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
 Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
 Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface
cause various actions (provide information, options,
execute function, open directory (known as a folder)
 Invented at Xerox PARC
Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces
 Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell
 Apple Mac OS X is “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX
kernel underneath and shells available
 Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI interfaces
(CDE, KDE, GNOME)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Touchscreen Interfaces

 Touchscreen devices
require new interfaces
 Mouse not possible or not
desired
 Actions and selection based
on gestures
 Virtual keyboard for text
entry
 Voice commands.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.3 System Calls
 Programming interface to the services provided by the
OS
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application
Programming Interface (API) rather than direct system
call use
 API specifies a set of functions that are available to an
application programmer, including the parameters that
are passed to each function and the return values the
programmer can expect.
 Three most common APIs are Windows API for Windows,
POSIX API for POSIX-based systems (including virtually
all versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X), and Java API
for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

Note that the system-call names used throughout this

text are generic

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to
another file

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of Standard API

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Implementation
 Typically, a number associated with each system call
 System-call interface maintains a table indexed
according to these numbers
 The system call interface invokes the intended
system call in OS kernel and returns status of the
system call and any return values
 The caller need know nothing about how the system
call is implemented
 Just needs to obey API and understand what OS
will do as a result call
 Most details of OS interface hidden from
programmer by API
 Managed by run-time support library (set of
functions built into libraries included with
compiler)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Call Parameter Passing
 Often, more information is required than simply identity of
desired system call
 Exact type and amount of information vary according
to OS and call
 Three general methods used to pass parameters to the OS
 Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
 In some cases, may be more parameters than
registers
 Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory, and
address of block passed as a parameter in a register
 This approach taken by Linux and Solaris
 Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the
program and popped off the stack by the operating
system
 Block and stack methods do not limit the number or
length of parameters being passed

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.4 Types of System Calls

 Process control
 create process, terminate process
 end, abort
 load, execute
 get process attributes, set process attributes
 wait for time
 wait event, signal event
 allocate and free memory
 Dump memory if error, written to log
 Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
 Locks for managing access to shared data between
processes

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (cont)

 File management
 create file, delete file
 open, close file
 read, write, reposition
 get and set file attributes
 Device management
 request device, release device
 read, write, reposition
 get device attributes, set device attributes
 logically attach or detach devices

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Information maintenance
 get time or date, set time or date
 get system data, set system data
 get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
 create, delete communication connection
 send, receive messages if message passing
model to host name or process name
 From client to server
 Shared-memory model create and gain access to
memory regions
 transfer status information
 attach and detach remote devices

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Protection
 Control access to resources
 Get and set permissions
 Allow and deny user access

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls
write() system call

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.5 System Programs/Services
 Provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution
 Some of them are simply user interfaces to system
calls; others are considerably more complex

 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print,

dump, list, and generally manipulate files and
directories

 Status information
 Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount
of available memory, disk space, number of users
 Others provide detailed performance, logging, and
debugging information
 Typically, these programs format and print the
output to the terminal or other output devices
 Some systems implement a registry - used to
store and retrieve configuration information

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs (Cont.)
 File modification
 Text editors to create and modify files
 Special commands to search contents of files or
perform transformations of the text
 Programming-language support - Compilers,
assemblers, debuggers and interpreters sometimes
provided
 Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders,
relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-
loaders, debugging systems for higher-level and
machine language
 Communications - Provide the mechanism for
creating virtual connections among processes,
users, and computer systems
 Allow users to send messages to one another’s
screens, browse web pages, send electronic-mail
messages, log in remotely, transfer files from
one machine to another

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs (Cont.)
 Background Services
 Launch at boot time
 Some for system startup, then terminate
 Some from system boot to shutdown
 Provide facilities like disk checking, process
scheduling, error logging, printing
 Run in user context not kernel context
 Known as services, subsystems, daemons

APPLICATION PROGRAMS
 Don’t pertain to system
 Run by users
 Not typically considered part of OS
 Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.6 Operating System Structure
 General-purpose OS is very large program
 Various ways to structure ones
 Simple structure – MS-DOS
 More complex -- UNIX
 Layered – an abstraction
 Microkernel –Mach
 Hybrid

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Simple Structure -- MS-DOS

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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example: UNIX

UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the

original UNIX operating system had limited
structuring. The UNIX OS consists of two
separable parts
 Systems programs
 The kernel
 Consists of everything below the system-call
interface and above the physical hardware
 Provides the file system, CPU scheduling,
memory management, and other operating-
system functions; a large number of
functions for one level

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Layered Approach
 With proper hardware
support, operating systems
can be broken into smaller
pieces
 The operating system is
divided into a number of
layers (levels), each built
on top of lower layers. The
bottom layer (layer 0), is
the hardware; the highest
(layer N) is the user
interface.
 With modularity, layers are
selected such that each
uses functions (operations)
and services of only lower-
level layers

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure
 Moves as much nonessential components from the kernel into
user space
 Minimal process and memory management
 Mach example of microkernel
 Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) partly based on Mach
 Communication takes place between user modules using
message passing
 Benefits:
 Easier to extend a microkernel
 Easier to port the operating system to new architectures
 More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode)
 More secure
 Detriments:
 Performance overhead of user space to kernel space
communication, more communication between user program
and services

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Microkernel System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Modules
 Many modern operating systems implement
loadable kernel modules
 Uses object-oriented approach
 Kernel have links to additional services via
modules
 Each core component is separate
 Each talks to the others over known interfaces
 Each is loadable as needed within the kernel
 Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible
 Linux, Solaris, etc
 Less changes to kernel, kernel doesn’t need to be
recompiled each time function is added.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Solaris Modular Approach

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Hybrid Systems

 Most modern operating systems are actually not one

pure model
 Hybrid combines multiple approaches to address
performance, security, usability needs
 Linux and Solaris kernels in kernel address space,
so monolithic, plus modular for dynamic loading of
functionality
 Windows mostly monolithic, plus microkernel for
different subsystem running in user mode
 Apple Mac OS X hybrid, layered, Aqua UI plus Cocoa
programming environment
 kernel consists of Mach microkernel and BSD
Unix parts, plus I/O kit and dynamically loadable
modules (called kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Apple MacOS & iOS
 User experience layer
 software interface that allows
users to interact with the
computing devices.
 macOS : Aqua (Mouse, trackpad)
 iOS : Springboard (touch)
 Application frameworks layer
 API for the Objective-C and Swift
programming languages.
 macOS: Cocoa Framework
 iOS: Cocoa Touch frameworks
 Core frameworks
 support graphics and media
 Kernel environment
 also known as Darwin,
 includes the Mach microkernel
and the BSD UNIX kernel

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Mac OS X Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 iOS

 Apple mobile OS for iPhone, iPad

 Structured on Mac OS X, added
functionality
 Does not run OS X applications
natively
 Also runs on different CPU
architecture (ARM vs. Intel)
 Cocoa Touch Objective-C API for
developing apps , suited for mobile
hardware features
 Media services layer for graphics,
audio, video
 Core services provides cloud
computing, databases
 Core operating system, based on
Mac OS X kernel

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Android
 Developed by Open Handset Alliance (mostly Google)
 Open Source
 Similar stack to IOS
 Based on Linux kernel but modified
 Provides process, memory, device-driver
management
 Adds power management
 Runtime environment includes core set of libraries and
Android RunTime (ART) virtual machine
 Apps developed in Java plus Android API
 Java class files compiled to Java bytecode then
translated to executable than runs in ART VM
 Optimised for mobile environment with limited
memory and processing power
 Libraries include frameworks for web browser (webkit),
database (SQLite), multimedia, smaller libc
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Android
Architecture

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.7 System Boot
 When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed
memory location
 Firmware ROM used to hold initial boot code
 Initializes all aspects of system
 Operating system must be made available to hardware so
hardware can start it
 Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, stored in ROM or
EPROM locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
 kernel initializes hardware, mount root file system
 Sometimes two-step process
 Small boot loader (BIOS) is loaded from ROM
 Loads second bootstrap loader from the boot block at
fixed location on disk
 Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of kernel
from multiple disks, versions, kernel options
 Kernel loads and system is then running

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 2.8 Operating-System Debugging
 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs + performance
tuning
 In case of Failure analysis, OS generate log files containing error
information
 Failure of an application can generate core dump file capturing
memory of the process
 Operating system failure can generate crash dump file containing
kernel memory
 Beyond crashes, performance tuning can optimize system
performance
 Counters of various statistics (# of system calls, processes)
 trace listings of activities, recorded for analysis
 Profiling is periodic sampling of instruction pointer to look for
statistical trends
Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in
the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as
possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Performance Tuning

 Improve performance by removing bottlenecks

 OS must provide means of computing and displaying
measures of system behavior to detect bottlenecks
 For example, “top” program or Windows Task Manager, that
captures state of system components
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 DTrace

 DTrace tool in Solaris,

FreeBSD, Mac OS X
allows live
instrumentation on
production systems
 Probes fire when code
is executed within a
provider, capturing
state data and sending
it to consumers of
those probes

 Example of following
XEventsQueued
system call move from
libc library to kernel
and back

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 2

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

 OS Lab

C Compiler:
Dev C++
Code blocks
Microsoft Visual C++
xcode

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne