Sibgha Zia Department of Computer Science UAF Sub Campus Burewala 06/10/2021 Interrupts (stop the continuous progress of activity) “Interrupts are signals sent to the CPU by external devices, normally I/O devices.” They tell the CPU to stop its current activities and execute the appropriate part of the operating system. “Interrupt is a hardware generated change of flow within the system”
Common functions of interrupts:
i. When an interrupt occurs, the control is transferred to the interrupt service routine. ii. The interrupt service routine is generally accessed through an interrupt vector. iii. The interrupt architecture must save the address of instruction that has been interrupted(The program counter) iv. Hardware Interrupts are generated by hardware devices to signal that they need some attention from the OS. They may have just received some data (e.g., keystrokes on the keyboard or an data on the Ethernet card.
v. Trap is a software generated interrupt that is either caused by an error or by a user
request for an I/O operation.
vi. An OS is interrupt driven. This means that if there is no interrupt ,then the system will be idle.
vii. The operating system must determine which type of interrupt has occurred. This can be done by polling or by using vectored interrupt system.(direction)
Polling is a systematic checking of each device to see if it was the device responsible for generating the interrupt. If the operating system has vectored interrupt system, then the identity of the device and the type of interrupt will be easily identifiable without checking each device. An interrupt handler deal with the cause of the interrupts.
It is a kind of special block of code when interrupt occur control directly jumps to the interrupt handler and execute that code which is placed in the handler. Classes of Interrupts Supervisor call interrupts SVC: interrupts are initiated by a running process that executes SVA )
I/O interrupts :Are initiated by I/O hardware.
External interrupts: Are caused by different events.
Restart interrupts: Are occur when the restart button of console is pressed
Program check interrupts: caused by different problems during execution of
machine language instruction.
Machine check interrupts: are caused by the hardware that does not function properly. Kernel The kernel provides the most basic interface between the computer itself and the rest of operating system. The kernel is responsible for the management of central processor.
The kernel includes the dispatcher to allocate the central processor, to determine the cause of an interrupt and initiate its processing, some provision for communication among the various system user task currently active in system. Structure of kernel based operating system
hardware
kernel
Operating system Functions of kernel Kernel is the core of Operating system. The main function are: i. Provides mechanism for creation and deletion of process. ii. Provide CPU scheduling ,memory management and device management for these processes. iii. Provide synchronization tools so processes can synchronize their action. iv. Provide a communication tool so process can communicate with each other.
Kernel security and protection
The kernel also protects the hardware. If there is no protection, any program will be able to carry out any task on the computer, including crashing your computer, corrupting data, etc. What are the types of Kernel 1) Monolithic Kernel: the OS and Kernel both run in the same memory space and suitable where security is not a significant concern. It results in faster access, but if there is a bug in the device driver, the entire system crashes.
2) Microkernel: Its a stripped-down version of Monolithic Kernel where the Kernel itself can do most of the job done, and there is no need of an extra GUI. They should be used where security and the crashing system isn’t or will not happen.
3) Hybrid Kernel: This Kernel is what we see most. Windows, Apple’s macOS. They are a mix of Monolithic Kernel and Microkernel. It moves out drivers but keeps system services inside the Kernel – similar to how drivers are loaded when Windows Starts the bootup process.
4) Nano Kernel: If you need to have a kernel, but its majority of function is set up outside, then this comes into the picture.
5) Exo Kernel: This kernel only offers process protection and resource handling. However it is mostly used when you are testing out an in house project, and you upgrade to a better Kernel type. System Calls Provide an interface between a user program and operating system. It is a programmatic method in which a computer program requests a service from the kernel of the OS. System call offers the services of the operating system to the user programs via API (Application Programming Interface). Many system calls are written in Assembly language and are machine dependent. Why do you need System Calls in OS?
Following are situations which need system calls in OS:
Reading and writing from files demand system calls. If a file system wants to create or delete files, system calls are required. System calls are used for the creation and management of new processes. Network connections need system calls for sending and receiving packets. Access to hardware devices like scanner, printer, need a system call. Main Types of System Calls Process Control : e.g end, load, execute, create, terminate process, File Management : e.g create file,delete file,open file,close,read,write etc Device Management: e.g request, release, get device etc. Information Maintenance: e.g set time or date, get system data etc. Communications: e.g create,delete communication connection, send and receive messages etc.
