This document provides an overview of the CSC 539 Operating Systems Structure and Design course. It discusses influential early operating systems like Atlas, CTSS, MULTICS, OS/360, UNIX, Alto and Mach. It then focuses on case studies of the Linux and Windows XP operating systems, describing their histories, design principles, process management, memory management, virtual memory, file systems and more.
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1. CSC 539: Operating Systems Structure and Design
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Spring 2006
Influential operating systems
Atlas, CTSS, MULTICS, IBM OS/360, UNIX, Alto, Mach
Case studies
Linux
Windows XP
Course overview
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Influential operating systems
Atlas (1961), University of Manchester
batch system with spooling (uses disk as buffer for reading ahead or storing output)
introduced many OS features: device drivers, demand paging, reference bit
CTSS (1962), MIT
first practical timesharing system, supported up to 32 users at terminals
CPU scheduling involved priorities, multilevel feedback queue to age programs
swapped entire program out to fast drum
MULTICS (1965), MIT (+ GE + Bell Labs)
designed as a general-purpose extension to CTSS (~300,000 lines of code)
utilized paged segments, multilevel feedback queue
hierarchical directory structure, protection via access lists
not fully functional until 1969
OS/360 (1966), IBM
designed as a common OS for all IBM computers
reduced development & maintenance costs, allowed migration of users & programs
suffered from bloated code, too many complex & interleaved features
3. first portable OS, written entirely in C (developed by Thompson & Ritchie)
open source for academic use, led to BSD UNIX & other variants
introduced modern GUI interface, WIMP
viewed by Jobs, co-opted for Apple Mac OS (and eventually Windows)
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Influential operating systems
UNIX (1972), Bell Labs
Alto (1978), Xerox PARC
Mach (1986), CMU
built upon the BSD UNIX kernel
goals: emulate BSD, support memory models & parallel/distributed, microkernel
provided support for multiprocessing, threads
versions of Mach underlie the NeXT OS, Mac OS X
4. Linux history
Linux is a modern, free operating system based on UNIX standards
first developed as a small but self-contained kernel in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, with
the major design goal of UNIX compatibility.
its history has been one of collaboration by many users from all around the world,
corresponding almost exclusively over the Internet
it has been designed to run efficiently and reliably on common PC hardware, but
also runs on a variety of other platforms (68000-series, Sun SPARC, PowerMac, )
Linux kernel is original, but full system incorporates existing UNIX software
uses many tools developed as part of Berkeleys BSD operating system, MITs X
Window System, and the Free Software Foundation's GNU project
Linux kernel is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL): free to
modify code but cannot make proprietary; also must distribute source code
many companies (e.g., Slackware, Red Hat, Debian/GNU, Mandrake) market Linux
distributions: precompiled Linux packages with installation and management utilities
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5. Linux design principles
Linux is a multiuser, multitasking system with UNIX-compatible tools
its file system adheres to traditional UNIX semantics, and it fully implements the
standard UNIX networking model
main design goals are speed, efficiency, and standardization
Linux is designed to be compliant with the relevant POSIX documents
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like most UNIX implementations, Linux is
composed of 3 main bodies of code:
1. system utilities perform individual
specialized management tasks
2. system libraries define standard set of
functions through which apps interact with
the kernel
3. kernel is responsible for maintaining the
important abstractions of the OS
executes in unrestricted kernel mode
all kernel code & data in one address space
6. Process management
UNIX process management separates the creation/execution of processes
fork system call creates a new process, inherits environment from parent
a new program is run after a call to execve
a thread is a process that happens to share the same address spaces as its parent
(uses clone system call instead of execve)
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a request for kernel-mode execution can occur in 2 ways
1. program can request OS service (e.g., system call, page fault)
2. device driver may deliver hardware interrupt that triggers interrupt handler
starting with Linux 2.6, kernel is fully preemptible
provides spinlocks and semaphores for synchronization
utilizes 2 different process scheduling algorithms
time-sharing algorithm for preemptive scheduling between multiple processes
priority based, gives high priority jobs longer time quanta, dynamic priorities
real-time algorithm for tasks where priorities are more important than fairness
within priority classes, can use FIFO or round-robin
7. Memory management
Linuxs physical memory-management system deals with allocating and
freeing pages, groups of pages, and small blocks of memory
has additional mechanisms for handling virtual memory, memory mapped into the
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address space of running processes
page allocator allocates & frees all physical pages
uses buddy-heap algorithm to keep track of physical
pages
each allocatable memory region is paired with an
adjacent partner
whenever buddies are both freed, are combined
large region may be divided for smaller requests
memory allocations in the kernel occur either
statically (drivers reserve contiguous space during
system boot) or dynamically (via page allocator)
8. Virtual memory
the VM system maintains the address space visible to each process
creates pages of virtual memory on demand, and manages the loading of those
pages from disk or their swapping back out to disk as required
the VM manager maintains 2 separate views of a processs address space:
a logical view describing instructions concerning the layout of the address space
(address space consists of a set of nonoverlapping regions, each representing a
continuous, page-aligned subset of the address space)
a physical view of each address space which is stored in hardware page tables
page replacement algorithm is modified version of second-chance
each page has age associated with it, measures amount of recent activity
in effect, implements Least Frequently Used (LFU) approximation of LRU
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9. File & I/O management
to the user, Linuxs file system appears as a hierarchical directory tree
internally, the kernel hides implementation details and manages the multiple
different file systems via an abstraction layer -- the virtual file system (VFS).
the Linux VFS is designed around object-oriented principles and is composed of
two components:
1. a set of definitions that define what a file object is allowed to look like (inode-object
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and file-object structures represent individual files)
2. a layer of software to manipulate those objects
Linux device drivers appear as objects within the file system
block devices allow random access to independent, fixed size blocks of data
character devices include most other devices; dont need to support the
functionality of regular files.
network devices are interfaced via the kernels networking subsystem
10. Windows XP history & goals
Microsoft Windows XP is a 32/64-bit preemptive multitasking OS
successor of Windows NT/2000, replaces Windows 95/98
released in October 2001, server version in 2002
introduced "better" visual design, simpler menus, easier HCI
multiuser support through multiple instances of GUI via Windows terminal server
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design goals
security: strict adherence to design standards, extensive code review & testing
utilizes sophisticated automatic analysis tools to identify security vulnerabilities
reliability: most reliable, stable version of Windows
extensive manual and automatic code review, driver verification & error-checking
compatibility: introduces compatibility layer to ensure execution of older software
also provides POSIX support, so can compile and run most UNIX software
performance: uses a variety of techniques to build on performance of 2000/NT
extensibility: uses a layered architecture to allow for changes/updates
portability: mostly written in C/C++
CPU-dependent code isolated in hardware-abstraction layer (HAL)
international support: uses UNICODE, provides support for local languages/formats
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XP layered architecture
hardware abstraction layer
(HAL) hides hardware
differences from the OS
kernel provides the foundation
for the executive and the
subsystems
executive provides services,
including process manager,
VM manager, I/O manager
environmental subsystems
are user-mode processes
that enable XP to run
processes developed for
other OS's (Win32 is base)
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Process management
a process is an executing instance of an application
a thread is a unit of code that can be scheduled by the OS
like NT/2000, XP uses a 32-level priority scheme to determine the order of
thread execution
real-time class contains threads with priorities ranging from 16 to 32
variable class contains threads having priorities from 0 to 15
kernel automatically adjusts priorities based on CPU utilization (I/O-bound )
enables I/O-bound threads to keep the I/O devices busy
CPU-bound threads soak up the spare CPU cycles in the background
13. Hyper-threading
since 2002, Intel Xeon & Pentium 4 processors have supported Hyper-
Threading Technology (HT)
two architectural states (registers, IC, ) are available on the same processor
each state can execute an instruction stream (virtually) concurrently
a single physical processor behaves as two logical processors
while it looks like two processors, the execution engine, on-board cache, and
system bus interface are shared
Intel claims 10-30% gain in performance on standard test suites
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(depends upon how much resource sharing goes on between
threads)
14. Dual cores
with the new Intel Core Duo processor, two separate execution cores are
with hyper-threading, will appear to the OS as 4 logical processors
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embedded in the same chip
can achieve true parallelism
have two threads running concurrently
P1
L1 L2
P2
L3 L4
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OS support for hyper-threading
Windows XP & Server 2003 support hyper-threading
BIOS reports all logical processors to the OS upon booting
each logical processor is treated as a separate physical processor by the OS
threads are scheduled by the OS, which attempts to balance load across
processors
e.g., put slow background job on one logical processor & interactive
foreground job on another
in a dual processor system, will try to balance loads across physical processors
e.g., if L1 is active, then favor L3 or L4 over L2
P1
L1 L2
P2
L3 L4
HT-enabled applications can set processor affinities for threads to help
16. Memory management
the VM manager assumes that the underlying hardware supports:
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virtual to physical mapping a paging mechanism
transparent cache coherence on multiprocessor systems, and
virtual addressing aliasing
VM manager uses
a page-based management scheme with
a page size of 4 KB
multilevel page table, utilizes TLB
uses per-process FIFO replacement policy
adjusts number of frames per process by monitoring working-set
performs prefetching to try to swap in pages before needed
for performance, allows privileged process to lock select pages in physical memory
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File & I/O management
utilizes the NT File System (NTFS)
provides many modern features: data recovery, fault tolerance, large files,
UNICODE names, encryption, compression,
a file in NTFS is a structured object consisting of attributes (not a simple byte
stream, as in MS-DOS or UNIX)
a directory is stored in a B+ tree structure to provide consistent access time
NT supports FAT16 to read floppies, FAT32 for Windows 95/98 media
I/O manager is responsible for file systems, cache management , device
drivers, network drivers
keeps track of which installable file systems are loaded, and manages buffers for
I/O requests.
works with VM Manager to provide memory-mapped file I/O.
controls the 2000 cache manager, which handles caching for the entire I/O system.
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FINAL EXAM
TThhuurrssddaayy,, MMaayy 44 88::0000 99::4400
format similar to previous tests
factual knowledge: TRUE/FALSE
conceptual understanding: short answer, discussion
synthesis and application: process scheduling, paging, C++ simulation,
study advice
review online lecture notes
review text
reference other sources for examples, different perspectives
look over tests, homeworks, quizzes, online review sheet