Threads Monday, July 25, 2005
2:14 PM
Threads Section Outline
• Overview
• Multithreading Models
• Threading Issues
• Pthreads
• Windows XP Threads
• Linux Threads
• Java Threads
Single and Multithreaded Processes
Benefits
• Responsiveness
• Resource Sharing
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• Economy
• Utilization of MP Architectures
User Threads
• Thread management done by user-level threads library
• Three primary thread libraries:
• POSIX Pthreads
• Win32 threads
• Java threads
Kernel Threads
• Supported by the Kernel
• Examples
• Windows XP/2000
• Solaris
• Linux
• Tru64 UNIX
• Mac OS X
Multithreading Models
• Many-to-One
• One-to-One
• Many-to-Many
Many-to-One
• Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread
• Examples:
• Solaris Green Threads
• GNU Portable Threads
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One-to-One
• Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
• Examples
• Windows NT/XP/2000
• Linux
• Solaris 9 and later
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
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• Solaris prior to version 9
• Windows NT/2000 with the ThreadFiber package
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
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Threading Issues
• Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
a. Does fork() duplicate only the calling thread or all threads?
• Thread cancellation
○ Terminating a thread before it has finished
○ Two general approaches:
Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread immediately
Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically check if it
should be cancelled
• Signal handling
○ Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a particular event has
occurred
○ A signal handler is used to process signals
i. Signal is generated by particular event
ii. Signal is delivered to a process
iii. Signal is handled
○ Options:
Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the process
• Thread pools
○ Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
○ Advantages:
Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing thread than
create a new thread
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Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be bound to the size
of the pool
• Thread specific data
○ Allows each thread to have its own copy of data
○ Useful when you do not have control over the thread creation process (i.e., when
using a thread pool)
• Scheduler activations
○ Both M:M and Two-level models require communication to maintain the
appropriate number of kernel threads allocated to the application
○ Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a communication mechanism from the
kernel to the thread library
○ This communication allows an application to maintain the correct number kernel
threads
Pthreads
• 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)
Windows XP Threads
• Implements the one-to-one mapping
• 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)
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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)
Java Threads
• Java threads are managed by the JVM
• Java threads may be created by:
• Extending Thread class
• Implementing the Runnable interface
• States:
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