Chapter 4: Processes
Process Concept
Process Scheduling
Operations on Processes
Cooperating Processes
Interprocess Communication
Communication in Client-Server Systems
Operating System Concepts 4.1 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Process a program in execution; process execution
must progress in sequential fashion.
A process includes:
program counter
stack
data section
Operating System Concepts 4.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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
processor.
terminated: The process has finished execution.
Operating System Concepts 4.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Process Life Cycle
State Transition Diagram
Operating System Concepts 4.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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
Operating System Concepts 4.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Process Control Block (PCB)
Operating System Concepts 4.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
CPU Switch From Process to Process
Operating System Concepts 4.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Process Scheduling Queues
Job queue set of all processes in the system.
Ready queue set of all processes residing in main
memory, ready and waiting to execute.
Device queues set of processes waiting for an I/O
device.
Process migration between the various queues.
Operating System Concepts 4.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues
Operating System Concepts 4.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Representation of Process Scheduling
Operating System Concepts 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
Operating System Concepts 4.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Threads
It is flow of execution through process code with thread
id, program counter, register set and a stack.
Thread is light weight process.
Improves application performance through parallelism.
suitable foundation for parallel execution of applications
on shared memory multiprocessors.
Operating System Concepts 4.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Thread Vs Process
S. Process Thread
N.
1 Process is heavy weight or resource Thread is light weight taking lesser resources
intensive. than a process.
2 Process switching needs interaction Thread switching does not need to interact with
with operating system. operating system.
3 In multiple processing environments All threads can share same set of open files,
each process executes the same code child processes.
but has its own memory and file
resources.
4 If one process is blocked then no other While one thread is blocked and waiting, second
process can execute until the first thread in the same task can run.
process is unblocked.
5 Multiple processes without using Multiple threaded processes use fewer
threads use more resources. resources.
6 In multiple processes each process One thread can read, write or change another
operates independently of the others. thread's data.
Operating System Concepts 4.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Advantages-Threads
Thread minimize context switching time.
Use of threads provides concurrency within
a process.
Efficient communication.
Economy- It is more economical to create
and context switch threads.
Utilization of multiprocessor architectures to
a greater scale and efficiency.
Operating System Concepts 4.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Process Creation
Parent process create 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.
Operating System Concepts 4.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Process Creation (Cont.)
Address space
Child duplicate of parent.
Child has a program loaded into it.
UNIX examples
fork system call creates new process
exec system call used after a fork to replace the process
memory space with a new program.
Operating System Concepts 4.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Processes Tree on a UNIX System
Operating System Concepts 4.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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
Operating System Concepts 4.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Bounded-Buffer Shared-Memory Solution
Shared data
#define BUFFER_SIZE 10
Typedef struct {
...
} item;
item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0;
Solution is correct, but can only use BUFFER_SIZE-1
elements
Operating System Concepts 4.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Bounded-Buffer Producer Process
item nextProduced;
while (1) {
while (((in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE) == out)
; /* do nothing */
buffer[in] = nextProduced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
}
Operating System Concepts 4.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Bounded-Buffer Consumer Process
item nextConsumed;
while (1) {
while (in == out)
; /* do nothing */
nextConsumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
}
Operating System Concepts 4.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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)
Operating System Concepts 4.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Indirect Communication
Operations
create a new mailbox
send and receive messages through mailbox
destroy a mailbox
Primitives are defined as:
send(A, message) send a message to mailbox A
receive(A, message) receive a message from mailbox A
Operating System Concepts 4.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Indirect Communication
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Synchronization
Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking.
Blocking is considered synchronous
Non-blocking is considered asynchronous
send and receive primitives may be either blocking or
non-blocking.
Operating System Concepts 4.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Operating System Concepts 4.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
