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
 Operating System Generation
 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
 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
 User Operating System Interface - CLI

CLI or command interpreter allows direct command

entry
 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by
systems program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and
executes it
 Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes just
names of programs

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 User Operating System 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 2.9 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 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 The Mac OS X GUI

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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
 Three most common APIs are Win32 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 2.12 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 2.13 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 2.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls
write() system call

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 System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment
for program development and execution. They can be
divided into:
 File manipulation
 Status information sometimes stored in a File
modification
 Programming language support
 Program loading and execution
 Communications
 Background services
 Application programs
 Most users’ view of the operation system is defined
by system programs, not the actual system calls

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Programs
 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 2.19 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 2.20 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 2.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Design and Implementation

 Operating System Design Goals

 It is quite complicated to define all the goals and specifications of
the operating system while designing it. The design changes
depending on the type of the operating system i.e. if it is batch
system, time shared system, single user system, multi user system,
distributed system etc.
 There are basically two types of goals while designing an operating
system. These are:
 User Goals
 The operating system should be convenient, easy to use, reliable,
safe and fast according to the users. However, these specifications
are not very useful as there is no set method to achieve these
goals.
 System Goals
 The operating system should be easy to design, implement and
maintain. These are specifications required by those who create,
maintain and operate the operating system. But there is not
specific method to achieve these goals as well.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Internal structure of different
Operating Systems can vary widely
Start the design by defining goals and
specifications
Affected by choice of hardware, type
of system

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Design and Implementation (Cont.)

 Operating System Mechanisms and Policies

 There is no specific way to design an operating system as it
is a highly creative task. However, there are general software
principles that are applicable to all operating systems.
 A subtle difference between mechanism and policy is that
mechanism shows how to do something and policy shows
what to do. Policies may change over time and this would
lead to changes in mechanism. So, it is better to have a
general mechanism that would require few changes even
when a policy change occurs.
 For example - If the mechanism and policy are independent,
then few changes are required in mechanism if policy
changes. If a policy favors I/O intensive processes over CPU
intensive processes, then a policy change to preference of
CPU intensive processes will not change the mechanism.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Implementation
 Much variation
 Early OSes in assembly language
 Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
 Now C, C++
 Actually usually a mix of languages
 Lowest levels in assembly
 Main body in C
 Systems programs in C, C++, scripting languages like
PERL, Python, shell scripts
 More high-level language easier to port to other hardware
 But slower
 Emulation can allow an OS to run on non-native hardware

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating System Structure
 General-purpose OS is very large program
 Various ways to structure ones
 Simple structure – MS-DOS
 More complex -- UNIX
 Layered – an abstrcation
 Microkernel -Mach

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.26 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 personalities
 Apple Mac OS X hybrid, layered, Aqua UI plus Cocoa
programming environment
 Below is kernel consisting of Mach microkernel
and BSD Unix parts, plus I/O kit and dynamically
loadable modules (called kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Operating-System Debugging
 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs
 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
 Sometimes using 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 2.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Performance Tuning

 Improve performance
by removing
bottlenecks
 OS must provide
means of computing
and displaying
measures of system
behavior
 For example, “top”
program or Windows
Task Manager

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 System Boot
 When power initialized on system, execution starts at
a fixed memory location
 Firmware ROM used to hold initial boot code
 Operating system must be made available to hardware
so hardware can start it
 Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, stored in
ROM or EEPROM locates the kernel, loads it into
memory, and starts it
 Sometimes two-step process where boot block at
fixed location loaded by ROM code, which loads
bootstrap loader from 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 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 End of Chapter 2

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