Module 4: Processes

Process Concept
Process Scheduling
Operation on Processes
Cooperating Processes
Interprocess Communication

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Process Concept

An operating system executes a variety of programs:

Batch system jobs
Time-shared systems user programs or tasks

Textbook uses the terms job and process almost interchangeably.

A process includes:
program counter
stack
data section

Process a program in execution; process execution must

progress in sequential fashion.

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Process State

As a process executes, it changes state

new: The process is being created.
running: Instructions are being executed.
waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur.
ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a process.
terminated: The process has finished execution.

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Diagram of Process State

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Process Control Block (PCB)

Information associated with each process.

Process state
Program counter
CPU registers
CPU scheduling information
Memory-management information
Accounting information
I/O status information

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Process Control Block (PCB)

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CPU Switch From Process to Process

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Process Scheduling Queues

Job queue set of all processes in the system.

Device queues set of processes waiting for an I/O device.

Ready queue set of all processes residing in main memory,

ready and waiting to execute.
Process migration between the various queues.

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Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues

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Representation of Process Scheduling

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Schedulers

Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) selects which

processes should be brought into the ready queue.

Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) selects which process

should be executed next and allocates CPU.

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Addition of Medium Term Scheduling

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Schedulers (Cont.)

Short-term scheduler is invoked very frequently (milliseconds)

(must be fast).

Long-term scheduler is invoked very infrequently (seconds,

minutes) (may be slow).

The long-term scheduler controls the degree of

multiprogramming.

Processes can be described as either:

I/O-bound process spends more time doing I/O than
computations, many short CPU bursts.
CPU-bound process spends more time doing
computations; few very long CPU bursts.

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Context Switch

When CPU switches to another process, the system must save

the state of the old process and load the saved state for the new
process.

Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful work

while switching.

Time dependent on hardware support.

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Process Creation

Parent process creates children processes, which, in turn create

other processes, forming a tree of processes.

Resource sharing
Parent and children share all resources.
Children share subset of parents resources.
Parent and child share no resources.

Execution
Parent and children execute concurrently.
Parent waits until children terminate.

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Process Creation (Cont.)

Address space
Child duplicate of parent.
Child has a program loaded into it.

UNIX examples
fork system call creates new process
execve system call used after a fork to replace the process
memory space with a new program.

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A Tree of Processes On A Typical UNIX System

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Process Termination

Process executes last statement and asks the operating system

to decide it (exit).
Output data from child to parent (via wait).
Process resources are deallocated by operating system.

Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort).

Child has exceeded allocated resources.
Task assigned to child is no longer required.
Parent is exiting.
Operating system does not allow child to continue if its
parent terminates.
Cascading termination.

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Cooperating Processes

Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the

execution of another process.

Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of

another process

Advantages of process cooperation

Information sharing
Computation speed-up
Modularity
Convenience

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Producer-Consumer Problem

Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer process produces

information that is consumed by a consumer process.
unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of the
buffer.
bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size.

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Bounded-Buffer Shared-Memory Solution

Shared data
var n;
type item = ;
var buffer. array [0..n1] of item;
in, out: 0..n1;

Producer process
repeat

produce an item in nextp

while in+1 mod n = out do no-op;

buffer [in] :=nextp;
in :=in+1 mod n;
until false;

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Bounded-Buffer (Cont.)

Consumer process
repeat
while in = out do no-op;
nextc := buffer [out];
out := out+1 mod n;

consume the item in nextc

until false;

Solution is correct, but can only fill up n1 buffer.

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Threads

A thread (or lightweight process) is a basic unit of CPU utilization;

it consists of:
program counter
register set
stack space

A thread shares with its peer threads its:

code section
data section
operating-system resources
collectively know as a task.

A traditional or heavyweight process is equal to a task with one

thread

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Threads (Cont.)

In a multiple threaded task, while one server thread is blocked and

waiting, a second thread in the same task can run.
Cooperation of multiple threads in same job confers higher
throughput and improved performance.
Applications that require sharing a common buffer (i.e.,
producer-consumer) benefit from thread utilization.

Threads provide a mechanism that allows sequential processes to

make blocking system calls while also achieving parallelism.

Kernel-supported threads (Mach and OS/2).

Hybrid approach implements both user-level and kernel-supported

threads (Solaris 2).

User-level threads; supported above the kernel, via a set of library

calls at the user level (Project Andrew from CMU).

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Multiple Threads within a Task

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Threads Support in Solaris 2

Solaris 2 is a version of UNIX with support for threads at the kernel

and user levels, symmetric multiprocessing, and
real-time scheduling.

LWP intermediate level between user-level threads and kernellevel threads.

Resource needs of thread types:

Kernel thread: small data structure and a stack; thread
switching does not require changing memory access
information relatively fast.
LWP: PCB with register data, accounting and memory
information,; switching between LWPs is relatively slow.
User-level thread: only ned stack and program counter; no
kernel involvement means fast switching. Kernel only sees
the LWPs that support user-level threads.

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Solaris 2 Threads

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Interprocess Communication (IPC)

Mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize their

actions.

Message system processes communicate with each other without

resorting to shared variables.

IPC facility provides two operations:

send(message) message size fixed or variable
receive(message)

If P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:

establish a communication link between them
exchange messages via send/receive

Implementation of communication link

physical (e.g., shared memory, hardware bus)
logical (e.g., logical properties)

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Implementation Questions

How are links established?

What is the capacity of a link?

Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?

Can a link be associated with more than two processes?

How many links can there be between every pair of
communicating processes?
Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or
variable?

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Direct Communication

Processes must name each other explicitly:

send (P, message) send a message to process P
receive(Q, message) receive a message from process Q

Properties of communication link

Links are established automatically.
A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating
processes.
Between each pair there exists exactly one link.
The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional.

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Indirect Communication

Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred to as

ports).
Each mailbox has a unique id.
Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox.

Properties of communication link

Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
A link may be associated with many processes.
Each pair of processes may share several communication links.
Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional.

Operations
create a new mailbox
send and receive messages through mailbox
destroy a mailbox

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Indirect Communication (Continued)

Mailbox sharing
P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A.
P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive.
Who gets the message?

Solutions
Allow a link to be associated with at most two processes.
Allow only one process at a time to execute a receive
operation.
Allow the system to select arbitrarily the receiver. Sender is
notified who the receiver was.

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Buffering

Queue of messages attached to the link; implemented in one of

three ways.
1. Zero capacity 0 messages
Sender must wait for receiver (rendezvous).
2. Bounded capacity finite length of n messages
Sender must wait if link full.
3. Unbounded capacity infinite length
Sender never waits.

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Exception Conditions Error Recovery

Process terminates
Lost messages
Scrambled Messages

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