Unix Q&A's
Unix Q&A's
Unix Q&A's
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UNIX Concepts
SECTION - I
FILE MANAGEMENT IN UNIX
1. How are devices represented in UNIX?
All devices are represented by files called special files that are located in/dev directory.
Thus, device files and other files are named and accessed in the same way. A 'regular file' is just an
ordinary data file in the disk. A 'block special file' represents a device with characteristics similar to a
disk (data transfer in terms of blocks). A 'character special file' represents a device with characteristics
similar to a keyboard (data transfer is by stream of bits in sequential order).
2. What is 'inode'?
All UNIX files have its description stored in a structure called 'inode'. The inode contains info
about the file-size, its location, time of last access, time of last modification, permission and so on.
Directories are also represented as files and have an associated inode. In addition to descriptions about
the file, the inode contains pointers to the data blocks of the file. If the file is large, inode has indirect
pointer to a block of pointers to additional data blocks (this further aggregates for larger files). A block
is typically 8k.
Inode consists of the following fields:
File owner identifier
File type
File access permissions
File access times
Number of links
File size
Location of the file data
3. Brief about the directory representation in UNIX
A Unix directory is a file containing a correspondence between filenames and inodes. A
directory is a special file that the kernel maintains. Only kernel modifies directories, but processes can
read directories. The contents of a directory are a list of filename and inode number pairs. When new
directories are created, kernel makes two entries named '.' (refers to the directory itself) and '..' (refers
to parent directory).
System call for creating directory is mkdir (pathname, mode).
4. What are the Unix system calls for I/O?
open(pathname,flag,mode) - open file
creat(pathname,mode) - create file
close(filedes) - close an open file
read(filedes,buffer,bytes) - read data from an open file
write(filedes,buffer,bytes) - write data to an open file
lseek(filedes,offset,from) - position an open file
dup(filedes) - duplicate an existing file descriptor
dup2(oldfd,newfd) - duplicate to a desired file descriptor
fcntl(filedes,cmd,arg) - change properties of an open file
ioctl(filedes,request,arg) - change the behaviour of an open file
The difference between fcntl anf ioctl is that the former is intended for any open file, while the latter is
for device-specific operations.
5. How do you change File Access Permissions?
Every file has following attributes:
owner's user ID ( 16 bit integer )
owner's group ID ( 16 bit integer )
File access mode word
'r w x -r w x- r w x'
(user permission-group permission-others permission)
r-read, w-write, x-execute
To change the access mode, we use chmod(filename,mode).
Example 1: To change mode of myfile to 'rw-rw-r--' (ie. read, write permission for user - read,write
permission for group - only read permission for others) we give the args as:
chmod(myfile,0664) .
Each operation is represented by discrete values 'r' is 4 'w' is 2 'x' is 1 Therefore, for 'rw' the value is
6(4+2). Example 2: To change mode of myfile to 'rwxr--r--' we give the args as: chmod(myfile,0744).
6. What are links and symbolic links in UNIX file system?
A link is a second name (not a file) for a file. Links can be used to assign more than one name
to a file, but cannot be used to assign a directory more than one name or link filenames on different
computers.
Symbolic link 'is' a file that only contains the name of another file.Operation on the symbolic
link is directed to the file pointed by the it.Both the limitations of links are eliminated in symbolic
links.
Commands for linking files are:
Link ln filename1 filename2
Symbolic link ln -s filename1 filename2
7. What is a FIFO?
FIFO are otherwise called as 'named pipes'. FIFO (first-in-first-out) is a special file which is
said to be data transient. Once data is read from named pipe, it cannot be read again. Also, data can be
read only in the order written. It is used in interprocess communication where a process writes to one
end of the pipe (producer) and the other reads from the other end (consumer).
8. How do you create special files like named pipes and device files?
The system call mknod creates special files in the following sequence.
1. kernel assigns new inode,
2. sets the file type to indicate that the file is a pipe, directory or special file,
3. If it is a device file, it makes the other entries like major, minor device numbers.
For example:
If the device is a disk, major device number refers to the disk controller and minor device
number is the disk.
Discuss the mount and unmount system calls
The privileged mount system call is used to attach a file system to a directory of another file
system; the unmount system call detaches a file system. When you mount another file system on to
your directory, you are essentially splicing one directory tree onto a branch in another directory tree.
The first argument to mount call is the mount point, that is , a directory in the current file naming
system. The second argument is the file system to mount to that point. When you insert a cdrom to
your unix system's drive, the file system in the cdrom automatically mounts to /dev/cdrom in your
system.
9. How does the inode map to data block of a file?
Inode has 13 block addresses. The first 10 are direct block addresses of the first 10 data blocks
in the file. The 11th address points to a one-level index block. The 12th address points to a two-level
(double in-direction) index block. The 13th address points to a three-level(triple in-direction)index
block. This provides a very large maximum file size with efficient access to large files, but also small
files are accessed directly in one disk read.
10. What is a shell?
A shell is an interactive user interface to an operating system services that allows an user to enter
commands as character strings or through a graphical user interface. The shell converts them to system
calls to the OS or forks off a process to execute the command. System call results and other
information from the OS are presented to the user through an interactive interface. Commonly used
shells are sh,csh,ks etc.
SECTION - II
PROCESS MODEL and IPC
1. Brief about the initial process sequence while the system boots up.
While booting, special process called the 'swapper' or 'scheduler' is created with Process-ID 0.
The swapper manages memory allocation for processes and influences CPU allocation. The swapper
9. What is a zombie?
When a program forks and the child finishes before the parent, the kernel still keeps some of
its information about the child in case the parent might need it - for example, the parent may need to
check the child's exit status. To be able to get this information, the parent calls `wait()'; In the interval
between the child terminating and the parent calling `wait()', the child is said to be a `zombie' (If you
do `ps', the child will have a `Z' in its status field to indicate this.)
daemons, including the sendmail daemon, which handles mail, and the NNTP daemon, which handles
USENET news. Many other daemons may exist. Some of the most common daemons are:
init: Takes over the basic running of the system when the kernel has finished the boot process.
inetd: Responsible for starting network services that do not have their own stand-alone daemons.
For example, inetd usually takes care of incoming rlogin, telnet, and ftp connections.
cron: Responsible for running repetitive tasks on a regular schedule.
Message Queues :
Message queues can be used between related and unrelated processes running on a
machine.
Shared Memory:
This is the fastest of all IPC schemes. The memory to be shared is mapped into the
address space of the processes (that are sharing). The speed achieved is attributed to the fact
that there is no kernel involvement. But this scheme needs synchronization.
SECTION - III
MEMORY MANAGEMENT
machine. Allows more number of processes to fit in the main memory simultaneously. Allows the
greater process size than the available physical memory. Demand paging systems handle the
2. What is major difference between the Historic Unix and the new BSD release of Unix System V in
terms of Memory Management?
Historic Unix uses Swapping – entire process is transferred to the main memory from the
swap device, whereas the Unix System V uses Demand Paging – only the part of the process is moved
to the main memory. Historic Unix uses one Swap Device and Unix System V allow multiple Swap
Devices.
4. What is a Map?
A Map is an Array, which contains the addresses of the free space in the swap device that are
allocatable resources, and the number of the resource units available there.
Address Units
1 10,000
This allows First-Fit allocation of contiguous blocks of a resource. Initially the Map contains
one entry – address (block offset from the starting of the swap area) and the total number of resources.
Kernel treats each unit of Map as a group of disk blocks. On the allocation and freeing of the
resources Kernel updates the Map for accurate information.
5. What scheme does the Kernel in Unix System V follow while choosing a swap device among the
multiple swap devices?
Kernel follows Round Robin scheme choosing a swap device among the multiple swap
devices in Unix System V.
6. What is a Region?
A Region is a continuous area of a process’s address space (such as text, data and stack). The
kernel in a ‘Region Table’ that is local to the process maintains region. Regions are sharable among the
process.
7. What are the events done by the Kernel after a process is being swapped out from the main
memory?
When Kernel swaps the process out of the primary memory, it performs the following:
Kernel decrements the Reference Count of each region of the process. If the reference
count becomes zero, swaps the region out of the main memory,
Kernel allocates the space for the swapping process in the swap device,
Kernel locks the other swapping process while the current swapping operation is going
on,
The Kernel saves the swap address of the region in the region table.
8. Is the Process before and after the swap are the same? Give reason.
Process before swapping is residing in the primary memory in its original form. The regions
(text, data and stack) may not be occupied fully by the process, there may be few empty slots in any of
the regions and while swapping Kernel do not bother about the empty slots while swapping the process
out.
After swapping the process resides in the swap (secondary memory) device. The regions
swapped out will be present but only the occupied region slots but not the empty slots that were present
before assigning.
While swapping the process once again into the main memory, the Kernel referring to the
Process Memory Map, it assigns the main memory accordingly taking care of the empty slots in the
regions.
10. What are the entities that are swapped out of the main memory while swapping the process out of
the main memory?
All memory space occupied by the process, process’s u-area, and Kernel stack are swapped
out, theoretically.
Practically, if the process’s u-area contains the Address Translation Tables for the process then
Kernel implementations do not swap the u-area.
14. What are the processes that are not bothered by the swapper? Give Reason.
Zombie process: They do not take any up physical memory.
Processes locked in memories that are updating the region of the process.
Kernel swaps only the sleeping processes rather than the ‘ready-to-run’ processes, as they
have the higher probability of being scheduled than the Sleeping processes.
16. What are the criteria for choosing a process for swapping into memory from the swap device?
The resident time of the processes in the swap device, the priority of the processes and the
amount of time the processes had been swapped out.
17. What are the criteria for choosing a process for swapping out of the memory to the swap device?
The process’s memory resident time,
Priority of the process and
The nice value.
19. What are conditions on which deadlock can occur while swapping the processes?
All processes in the main memory are asleep.
All ‘ready-to-run’ processes are swapped out.
There is no space in the swap device for the new incoming process that are swapped out
of the main memory.
There is no space in the main memory for the new incoming process.
25. What are data structures that are used for Demand Paging?
Kernel contains 4 data structures for Demand paging. They are,
Page table entries,
Disk block descriptors,
Page frame data table (pfdata),
Swap-use table.
27.How the Kernel handles the fork() system call in traditional Unix and in the System V Unix, while
swapping?
Kernel in traditional Unix, makes the duplicate copy of the parent’s address space and
attaches it to the child’s process, while swapping. Kernel in System V Unix, manipulates the region
tables, page table, and pfdata table entries, by incrementing the reference count of the region table of
shared regions.
34.In what way the Fault Handlers and the Interrupt handlers are different?
Fault handlers are also an interrupt handler with an exception that the interrupt handlers
cannot sleep. Fault handlers sleep in the context of the process that caused the memory fault. The fault
refers to the running process and no arbitrary processes are put to sleep.
36.What does the swapping system do if it identifies the illegal page for swapping?
If the disk block descriptor does not contain any record of the faulted page, then this causes
the attempted memory reference is invalid and the kernel sends a “Segmentation violation” signal to
the offending process. This happens when the swapping system identifies any invalid memory
reference.
37.What are states that the page can be in, after causing a page fault?
On a swap device and not in memory,
On the free page list in the main memory,
In an executable file,
Marked “demand zero”,
Marked “demand fill”.
41.How the Kernel handles the copy on write bit of a page, when the bit is set?
In situations like, where the copy on write bit of a page is set and that page is shared by more
than one process, the Kernel allocates new page and copies the content to the new page and the other
processes retain their references to the old page. After copying the Kernel updates the page table entry
with the new page number. Then Kernel decrements the reference count of the old pfdata table entry.
In cases like, where the copy on write bit is set and no processes are sharing the page, the
Kernel allows the physical page to be reused by the processes. By doing so, it clears the copy on write
bit and disassociates the page from its disk copy (if one exists), because other process may share the
disk copy. Then it removes the pfdata table entry from the page-queue as the new copy of the virtual
page is not on the swap device. It decrements the swap-use count for the page and if count drops to 0,
frees the swap space.
44.How the Kernel handles both the page stealer and the fault handler?
The page stealer and the fault handler thrash because of the shortage of the memory. If the
sum of the working sets of all processes is greater that the physical memory then the fault handler will
usually sleep because it cannot allocate pages for a process. This results in the reduction of the system
throughput because Kernel spends too much time in overhead, rearranging the memory in the frantic
pace.