Chapter 4: Threads

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Chapter 4: Threads
 Overview
 Multithreading Models
 Thread Libraries
 Operating System Examples
 Windows XP Threads
 Linux Threads

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Objectives
 To introduce the notion of a thread — a fundamental unit of CPU
utilization that forms the basis of multithreaded computer systems

 To discuss the APIs for the Pthreads, Win32, and Java thread libraries

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Single and Multithreaded Processes

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Benefits
 Responsiveness
 Multithreading an interactive application may allow a program to
continue running even if part of it is blocked or is performing a lengthy
operation
 Resource Sharing
 Processes can only share resources through techniques such as shared
memory and message passing.
 The benefit of sharing code and data is that it allows an application to
have several different threads of activity within the same address space.
 Economy
 Allocating memory and resources for process creation is costly.
Because threads share the resources of the process to which they
belong, it is more economical to create and context-switch threads.
 Scalability
 In a multiprocessor architecture, threads may be running in parallel on
different processing cores. A single-threaded process can run on only
one processor, regardless how many are available.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Multicore Programming
 Multicore systems putting pressure on programmers, challenges
include:
 Dividing activities
 Balance
 Data splitting
 Data dependency
 Testing and debugging

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Multithreaded Server Architecture

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Concurrent Execution on a
Single-core System

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Parallel Execution on a
Multicore System

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 User Threads
 Thread management done by user-level threads library

 Three primary thread libraries:

 POSIX Pthreads
 Win32 threads
 Java threads

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Kernel Threads
 Supported by the Kernel

 Examples
 Windows XP/2000
 Solaris
 Linux
 Tru64 UNIX
 Mac OS X

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Multithreading Models
 Many-to-One

 One-to-One

 Many-to-Many

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Many-to-One
 Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread

 Examples:
 Solaris Green Threads
 GNU Portable Threads

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Many-to-One Model

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 One-to-One
 Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread

 Examples
 Windows NT/XP/2000
 Linux
 Solaris 9 and later

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 One-to-one Model

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Many-to-Many Model

 Allows many user level threads to be mapped to many kernel threads

 Allows the operating system to create a sufficient number of kernel

threads

 Solaris prior to version 9

 Windows NT/2000 with the ThreadFiber package

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Many-to-Many Model

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Two-level Model

 Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be bound to

kernel thread

 Examples
 IRIX
 HP-UX
 Tru64 UNIX
 Solaris 8 and earlier

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Two-level Model

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Thread Libraries
 Thread library provides programmer with API for creating and
managing threads

 Two primary ways of implementing

 Library entirely in user space
 Kernel-level library supported by the OS

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Pthreads
 May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

 A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and

synchronization

 API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is up to

development of the library

 Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Java Threads
 Java threads are managed by the JVM

 Typically implemented using the threads model provided by

underlying OS

 Java threads may be created by:

 Extending Thread class

 Implementing the Runnable interface

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Operating System Examples
 Windows XP Threads

 Linux Thread

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Windows XP Threads

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Linux Threads

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Windows XP Threads
 Implements the one-to-one mapping, kernel-level

 Each thread contains

 A thread id
 Register set
 Separate user and kernel stacks
 Private data storage area

 The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known as the
context of the threads

 The primary data structures of a thread include:

 ETHREAD (executive thread block)
 KTHREAD (kernel thread block)
 TEB (thread environment block)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Linux Threads

 Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads

 Thread creation is done through clone() system call

 clone() allows a child task to share the address space of the parent
task (process)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 ‫سؤالك ق د يفتح آفاق ًا جدي دة لم‬
‫ أو يط رق أبواب ًا مغلق ة لم‬.. ‫ُتْس َبر‬
‫تأمالت_حياة‬# .. ‫ُتفتح‬
29

Operating Systems

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 4.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009