Università degli Studi di Messina

CdL in Informatica

Operating Systems
Basis on Operating Systems
Professor: Maria Fazio
Computer system

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 Von Neumann architecture

PC Memoria di Video/tastiera
massa (terminale)
ALU
Registri

CPU Memoria Interfaccia di I/O Interfaccia di I/O

dati
BUS indirizzi
controllo

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Computer System Structure
• Computer system can be divided into four
components:
• Users
• People, machines, other computers who need
computing resources
• Application programs – define the ways in which
the system resources are used to solve the computing
problems of the users
• Word processors, compilers, web browsers,
database systems, video games
• Operating system
• Controls and coordinates use of hardware
among various applications and users
• Hardware – provides basic computing resources
• CPU, memory, I/O devices

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What is an Operating System?

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What is an Operating System?
• A program that acts as an intermediary between a
user of a computer and the computer hardware
• Operating system goals:
• Execute user programs and make solving user problems
easier
• Make the computer system convenient to use
• Use the computer hardware in an efficient manner

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What Operating Systems Do
• Depends on the point of view
• Users want convenience, ease of use and good performance
• Donʼt care about resource utilization

• But shared computer such as mainframe or minicomputer must keep all users happy
• Operating system is a resource allocator and control program making efficient use of HW and managing
execution of user programs

• Users of dedicate systems such as workstations have dedicated resources but frequently use
shared resources from servers
• Mobile devices like smartphones and tables are resource poor, optimized for usability and
battery life
• Mobile user interfaces such as touch screens, voice recognition

• Some computers have little or no user interface, such as embedded computers in devices and
automobiles
• Run primarily without user intervention

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Defining Operating Systems

• Term OS covers many roles

• Because of myriad designs and uses of OSes
• Present in toasters through ships, spacecraft, game
machines, TVs and industrial control systems
• Born when fixed use computers for military became
more general purpose and needed resource
management and program control

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 Different Operating Systems

Source: https://medium.com/@VijayBala_/important-topics-in-operating-systems-c961afb68187

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Evolution of Operating Systems

Network - based

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Operating System Definition
An Operating System is the set of basic programs and utilities that make
your computer run

• The one program running at all times on the computer is

the kernel, part of the operating system
• Everything else is either:
• A system program (ships with the operating system, but not part of the
kernel) , or
• An application program, all programs not associated with the operating
system

• Today’s OSs for general purpose and mobile computing

also include middleware – a set of software frameworks
that provide additional services to application developers
such as databases, multimedia, graphics

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Overview of Computer System
Structure

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 Computer System Organization
• Computer-system operation
• One or more CPUs, device controllers connect through common bus providing
access to shared memory
• Memory to store both data and instructions.
• Concurrent execution of CPUs and devices competing for memory cycles

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Computer-System Operation
• I/O devices and the CPU can execute concurrently
• Each device controller is in charge of a particular device type
• Each device controller has a local buffer
• Each device controller type has an operating system device
driver to manage it
• CPU moves data from/to main memory to/from local buffers
• I/O is from the device to local buffer of controller
• Device controller informs CPU that it has finished its
operation by causing an interrupt

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Common Functions of Interrupts
• Interrupt transfers control to the interrupt service
routine generally, through the interrupt vector,
which contains the addresses of all the service
routines
• Interrupt architecture must save the address of the
interrupted instruction
• A trap or exception is a software-generated
interrupt caused either by an error or a user
request
• An operating system is interrupt driven
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Storage Structure
• Main memory – only large storage media that the CPU can
access directly
• Random access
• Typically volatile
• Typically random-access memory in the form of
Dynamic Random-access Memory (DRAM)
• Secondary storage – extension of main memory that
provides large nonvolatile storage capacity

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Storage Structure (Cont.)
• Hard Disk Drives (HDD) – rigid metal or glass platters
covered with magnetic recording material
• Disk surface is logically divided into tracks, which are
subdivided into sectors
• The disk controller determines the logical interaction
between the device and the computer
• Non-volatile memory (NVM) devices– faster than hard
disks, nonvolatile
• Various technologies
• Becoming more popular as capacity and performance
increases, price drops
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Storage Definitions and Notation Review
• The basic unit of computer storage is the bit.
• A bit can contain one of two values, 0 and 1. All other storage in a computer is based on
collections of bits.
• Given enough bits, it is amazing how many things a computer can represent:
• numbers, letters, images, movies, sounds, documents, programs...
• A byte is 8 bits, and on most computers it is the smallest convenient chunk of storage.
• A less common term is word, which is a given computer architecture’s native unit of data.
• A word is made up of one or more bytes.
• For example, a computer that has 64-bit registers and 64-bit memory addressing
typically has 64-bit (8-byte) words.
• A computer executes many operations in its native word size rather than a byte at a time.

• Computer storage, along with most computer throughput, is generally measured and
manipulated in bytes and collections of bytes.
• a kilobyte, or KB , is 1,024 bytes;
• a megabyte, or MB, is 1,0242 bytes;
• a gigabyte, or GB, is 1,0243 bytes;
• a terabyte, or TB, is 1,0244 bytes;
• a petabyte, or PB, is 1,0245 bytes.

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Storage Hierarchy
• Storage systems organized in hierarchy
• Speed
• Cost
• Volatility
• Caching – copying information into faster storage
system; main memory can be viewed as a cache for
secondary storage
• Device Driver for each device controller to manage I/O
• Provides uniform interface between controller and kernel

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Storage-Device Hierarchy

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Computer System Architecture

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Computer-System Architecture
• Most systems use a single general-purpose processor
• Most systems have special-purpose processors as well
• Multiprocessors systems growing in use and importance
• Also known as parallel systems, tightly-coupled systems
• Advantages include:
1. Increased throughput
2. Economy of scale
3. Increased reliability – graceful degradation or fault tolerance
• Two types:
1. Asymmetric Multiprocessing – each processor is assigned a specie task.
2. Symmetric Multiprocessing – each processor performs all tasks

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Symmetric Multiprocessing Architecture

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Dual-Core Design
• Multi-chip and multicore
• Systems containing all chips
• Chassis containing
multiple separate
systems

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Non-Uniform Memory Access
System

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Clustered Systems
• Like multiprocessor systems, but multiple systems
working together
• Usually sharing storage via a storage-area network (SAN)
• Provides a high-availability service which survives failures
• Asymmetric clustering has one machine in hot-standby mode
• Symmetric clustering has multiple nodes running applications,
monitoring each other
• Some clusters are for high-performance computing (HPC)
• Applications must be written to use parallelization
• Some have distributed lock manager (DLM) to avoid
conflicting operations

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Clustered Systems

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PC Motherboard

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Operating Systems features

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Computer Startup
• Bootstrap program is loaded at power-up or reboot
• Typically stored in ROM or EPROM, generally known as
firmware
• Initializes all aspects of system
• Loads operating system kernel in the RAM and starts
execution

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How a Modern Computer Works

A von Neumann architecture

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Direct Memory Access Structure
• Used for high-speed I/O devices able to transmit
information at close to memory speeds
• Device controller transfers blocks of data from
buffer storage directly to main memory without
CPU intervention
• Only one interrupt is generated per block, rather
than the one interrupt per byte

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Multiprogramming (Batch system)

• Single user cannot always keep CPU and I/O devices

busy
• Multiprogramming organizes jobs (code and data) so
CPU always has one to execute
• A subset of total jobs in system is kept in memory
• One job selected and run via job scheduling
• When job has to wait (for I/O for example), OS switches
to another job

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Multitasking (Timesharing)
• A logical extension of Batch systems: the CPU switches jobs
so frequently that users can interact with each job while it is
running, creating interactive computing
• Response time should be < 1 second
• Each user has at least one program executing in memory
[ process
• If several jobs ready to run at the same time [ CPU
scheduling
• If processes donʼt fit in memory, swapping moves them
in and out to run
• Virtual memory allows execution of processes not
completely in memory
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Memory Layout for Multiprogrammed System

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Process Management
• A process is a program in execution.
• It is a unit of work within the system. Program is
a passive entity; process is an active entity.
• Process needs resources to accomplish its task
• CPU, memory, I/O, files
• Initialization data
• Process termination requires reclaim of any
reusable resources

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Dual-mode Operation
• Dual-mode operation allows OS to protect itself and other
system components
• User mode and kernel mode

• Some instructions designated as privileged, only executable

in kernel mode

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How an operating system works

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 Process Management Activities

The operating system is responsible for the following

activities in connection with process management:
• Creating and deleting both user and system processes
• Suspending and resuming processes
• Providing mechanisms for process synchronization
• Providing mechanisms for process communication
• Providing mechanisms for deadlock handling

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Process Management
• Single-threaded process has one program counter
specifying location of next instruction to execute
• Process executes instructions sequentially, one at a time,
until completion
• Multi-threaded process has one program counter per thread
• Typically system has many processes, some user, some
operating system running concurrently on one or more CPUs
• Concurrency by multiplexing the CPUs among the
processes / threads

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Memory Management
• To execute a program all (or part) of the instructions must
be in memory
• All (or part) of the data that is needed by the program must
be in memory
• Memory management determines what is in memory and
when
• Optimizing CPU utilization and computer response to users
• Memory management activities
• Keeping track of which parts of memory are currently being used
and by whom
• Deciding which processes (or parts thereof) and data to move into
and out of memory
• Allocating and deallocating memory space as needed

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Mass-Storage Management
• Usually disks used to store data that does not fit in main memory
or data that must be kept for a “long” period of time
• Proper management is of central importance
• Entire speed of computer operation hinges on disk subsystem and
its algorithms
• OS activities
• Mounting and unmounting
• Free-space management
• Storage allocation
• Disk scheduling
• Partitioning
• Protection

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Caching
• Important principle, performed at many levels in a
computer (in hardware, operating system, software)
• Information in use copied from slower to faster storage
temporarily
• Faster storage (cache) checked first to determine if
information is there
• If it is, information used directly from the cache (fast)
• If not, data copied to cache and used there
• Cache smaller than storage being cached
• Cache management important design problem
• Cache size and replacement policy

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Characteristics of Various Types of Storage

Movement between levels of storage hierarchy can be explicit or

implicit

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Migration of data “A” from Disk to Register

• Multitasking environments must be careful to use most

recent value, no matter where it is stored in the storage
hierarchy

• Multiprocessor environment must provide cache coherency

in hardware such that all CPUs have the most recent value in
their cache
• Distributed environment situation even more complex
• Several copies of a datum can exist
• Various solutions covered in Chapter 19

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I/O Subsystem
• One purpose of OS is to hide peculiarities of
hardware devices from the user
• I/O subsystem responsible for
• Memory management of I/O including buffering (storing
data temporarily while it is being transferred), caching
(storing parts of data in faster storage for performance),
spooling (the overlapping of output of one job with
input of other jobs)
• General device-driver interface
• Drivers for specific hardware devices
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File-system Management
• OS provides uniform, logical view of information storage
• Abstracts physical properties to logical storage unit - file
• Each medium is controlled by device (i.e., disk drive, tape drive)
• Varying properties include access speed, capacity, data-transfer rate,
access method (sequential or random)

• File-System management
• Files usually organized into directories
• Access control on most systems to determine who can access what
• OS activities include
• Creating and deleting files and directories
• Primitives to manipulate files and directories
• Mapping files onto secondary storage
• Backup files onto stable (non-volatile) storage media

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Protection and Security
• Protection – any mechanism for controlling access of processes or users to
resources defined by the OS

• Security – defense of the system against internal and external attacks

• Huge range, including denial-of-service, worms, viruses, identity theft, theft of service

• Systems generally first distinguish among users, to determine who can do

what
• User identities (user IDs, security IDs) include name and associated number, one per user
• User ID then associated with all files, processes of that user to determine access control
• Group identifier (group ID) allows set of users to be defined and controls managed, then
also associated with each process, file
• Privilege escalation allows user to change to effective ID with more rights

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Virtualization
• Allows operating systems to run applications within other OSes
• Vast and growing industry
• Emulation used when source CPU type different from target type
(i.e. PowerPC to Intel x86)
• Generally slowest method
• When computer language not compiled to native code – Interpretation
• Virtualization – OS natively compiled for CPU, running guest OSes
also natively compiled
• Consider VMware running WinXP guests, each running applications, all
on native WinXP host OS
• VMM (virtual machine Manager) provides virtualization services

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Virtualization (cont.)
• Use cases involve laptops and desktops running
multiple OSes for exploration or compatibility
• Apple laptop running Mac OS X host, Windows as a guest
• Developing apps for multiple OSes without having multiple
systems
• Quality assurance testing applications without having
multiple systems
• Executing and managing compute environments within data
centers
• VMM can run natively, in which case they are also the
host
• There is no general-purpose host then (VMware ESX and
Citrix XenServer)

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Computing Environments - Virtualization

processes

processes

processes processes

programming
kernel kernel kernel
interface
VM1 VM2 VM3
kernel
virtual machine
manager
hardware
hardware

(a) (b)

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Distributed Systems
• Collection of separate, possibly heterogeneous, systems
networked together
• Network is a communications path, TCP/IP most common
• Local Area Network (LAN )
• Wide Area Network (WAN )
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN )
• Personal Area Network (PAN )
• Network Operating System provides features between
systems across network
• Communication scheme allows systems to exchange
messages
• Illusion of a single system
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Computer System Environments

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Computing Environments
• Basic
• Mobile
• Client Server
• Peer-to-Peer
• Cloud computing
• Real-time Embedded

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Basic approach
• Stand-alone general-purpose machines
• But blurred as most systems interconnect with others
(i.e., the Internet)
• Portals provide web access to internal systems
• Network computers (thin clients) are like Web
terminals
• Mobile computers interconnect via wireless networks
• Networking becoming ubiquitous – even home systems
use firewalls to protect home computers from Internet
attacks
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Mobile
• Handheld smartphones, tablets, etc.
• What is the functional difference between them
and a “traditional” laptop?
• Extra feature – more OS features (GPS, gyroscope)
• Allows new types of apps like augmented reality
• Use IEEE 802.11 wireless, or cellular data networks
for connectivity
• Leaders are Apple iOS and Google Android
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Client-Server Computing
• Dumb terminals supplanted by smart PCs
• Many systems now servers, responding to requests generated by
clients
4 Compute-server system provides an interface to client to
request services (i.e., database)
4 File-server system provides interface for clients to store and
retrieve files
client
desktop

Server client
Network
laptop

client
smartphone

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Peer to Peer
client

client client

• Another model of distributed system client client

• P2P does not distinguish clients and servers

• Instead all nodes are considered peers
• May each act as client, server or both
• Node must join P2P network
• Registers its service with central lookup service on network, or
• Broadcast request for service and respond to requests for
service via discovery protocol
• Examples include Napster and Gnutella, Voice over IP
(VoIP) such as Skype
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Cloud Computing (cont.)

• Delivers computing, storage, even apps as a service

across a network
• Logical extension of virtualization because it uses
virtualization as the base for it functionality.
• Amazon EC2 has thousands of servers, millions of
virtual machines, petabytes of storage available across
the Internet, pay based on usage

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Cloud Computing (cont.)

• Many types
• Public cloud – available via Internet to anyone willing to pay
• Private cloud – run by a company for the company’s own use
• Hybrid cloud – includes both public and private cloud
components
• Software as a Service (SaaS) – one or more applications
available via the Internet (i.e., word processor)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) – software stack ready for
application use via the Internet (i.e., a database server)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – servers or storage available
over Internet (i.e., storage available for backup use)

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Cloud Computing (cont.)

• Cloud computing
environments composed
of traditional OSes, plus
VMMs, plus cloud
Internet
customer
requests
management tools cloud
firewall
• Internet connectivity
customer
interface

requires security like load balancer cloud

management
commands
firewalls
cloud
• Load balancers spread
virtual virtual storage
machines machines managment
services
traffic across multiple
applications servers servers

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Real-Time Embedded Systems
• Real-time embedded systems most prevalent form of
computers
• Vary considerable, special purpose, limited purpose OS, real-
time OS
• Use expanding
• Many other special computing environments as well
• Some have OSes, some perform tasks without an OS
• Real-time OS has well-defined fixed time constraints
• Processing must be done within constraint
• Correct operation only if constraints met
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Kernel Data Structure

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Kernel Data Structures
• Many similar to standard programming data structures
• Singly linked list
data data data null
• • •

• Doubly linked list

data null data data data null

• • •

• Circular linked list

data data data data
• • •

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Kernel Data Structures
• Binary search tree
left <= right
• Search performance is O(n)
• Balanced binary search tree is O(lg n)

17

12 35

6 14 32 40

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Kernel Data Structures
• Hash function can create a hash map

hash_function(key)

hash map
0 1 . . n

value

• Bitmap – string of n binary digits representing the status of n items

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