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Operating System Concepts (Deadlock)

When two or more processes are interacting, they can sometimes get themselves into a
stalemate situation they cannot get out of. Such a situation is called a deadlock.

(a) A potential deadlock. (b) an actual deadlock.

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Operating Systems Concepts

• Files
• OS presents programmer with nice, clean abstract model of device-
independent files
• system calls needed to create, remove, read, and write files
• file system - hierarchy of directories and files
• directory - way of grouping files together
• file within hierarchy is specified by path name from root directory
• opening file returns integer called file descriptor or handle
• OS allows some I/O devices to be handled like files
• standard input file (keyboard) and standard output file (monitor)

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Operating System Concepts

File system for a university department

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Operating System Concepts

Each process has a working directory

Relative vs. absolute path names

What is the absolute path name for CS101?

/Faculty/Prof.Brown/Courses/CS101

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Some System Calls For File Management

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Some System Calls For Directory Management

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Operating System Concepts

(Mounted file system)

• Before mounting,
• files on floppy are inaccessible
• After mounting floppy on b,
• files on floppy are part of file hierarchy

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Operating System Concepts

(Security)
• Security is BIG issue!
• Files in UNIX are protected by assigning each one a 9-bit binary
protection code.
• Three 3-bit fields: owner, other members of owner’s group, and
one for everyone else.
• Each field has a bit for read access, a bit for write access, and a
bit for execute access (rwx bits).
• E.g: rwxr-x--x

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System Calls

Some Win32 API calls

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Operating Systems Concepts

• Shell
• Command interpreter
• acts as a user-interface program for operating system
• not part of OS but uses many OS features
• when user logs in, shell is started up automatically
• uses terminal as standard input and output
• starts by typing prompt and waits for user commands
• extracts first word from command line & assumes it is name of
program
• creates child process and runs program
• suspends itself until child process terminates
• waits to read next command

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System Calls

A stripped down shell:

while (TRUE) { /* repeat forever */

type_prompt( ); /* display prompt */
read_command (command, parameters) /* input from terminal */

if (fork() != 0) { /* fork off child process */

/* Parent code */
waitpid( -1, &status, 0); /* wait for child to exit */
} else {
/* Child code */
execve (command, parameters, 0); /* execute command */
}
}

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Operating System Structure

• 4 ways of structuring OS
• Monolithic systems
• Layered systems
• Virtual machines
• Client-server models

Monolithic systems - ex: DOS, Unix

• No specific structure
• OS is collection of procedures
• all procedures can call any of the other ones whenever it needs to.
• Consist of
• main program - invokes requested service procedure
• set of service procedures - carry out system calls
• set of utility procedures - help service procedures

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Operating System Structure

Simple structuring model for a monolithic system

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Operating System Structure

Structure of a layered operating system

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Operating System Structure

Virtual Machines - ex: IBM VM

timesharing system with 2 layers of distinct functions
• layer 1: virtual machine monitor
• does multiprogramming by providing several virtual machines to next
layer
• runs on bare hardware
• not extended machines but exact copies of hardware
• layer 2: conversational monitor system (CMS)
• provides multiple extended machines
• each virtual machine can run different OS

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Operating System Structure

Structure of VM/370 with CMS

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Operating System Structure

Client-Server Model
• OS is divided into two parts: kernel and servers
• kernel handles communication between user processes (called clients) and
servers
• each server only handles one facet of system
• runs in user mode (no direct access to hardware)
• file service, process service, memory service, terminal service etc.
• each part is small and manageable
• if an error occurs - server crash and not entire system
• facilitates distributed systems

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Operating System Structure

Client-server model

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Operating System Structure (5)

The client-server model in a distributed system

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