Chapter 3: Processes
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Chapter 3: Processes
Process Concept
Process Scheduling
Operations on Processes
Interprocess Communication
Examples of IPC Systems
Communication in Client-Server Systems
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Objectives
To introduce the notion of a process -- a program in
execution, which forms the basis of all computation
To describe the various features of processes, including
scheduling, creation and termination, and communication
To explore interprocess communication using shared memory
and message passing
To describe communication in client-server systems
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
When a program is loaded into the memory and it becomes a
process,
It can be divided into four sections ─
stack, heap, text and data.
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Process Concept (Cont.)
Program is passive entity stored on disk (executable file),
process is active
Program becomes process when executable file loaded into
memory
Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks, command
line entry of its name, etc
One program can be several processes
Consider multiple users executing the same program
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Process in Memory
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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 processor
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
(also called task control block)
Process state – running, waiting, etc
Program counter – location of
instruction to next execute
CPU registers – contents of all process-
centric registers
CPU scheduling information- priorities,
scheduling queue pointers
Memory-management information –
memory allocated to the process
Accounting information – CPU used,
clock time elapsed since start, time
limits
I/O status information – I/O devices
allocated to process, list of open files
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Process Scheduling
Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU for
time sharing
Process scheduler selects among available processes for
next execution on CPU
Maintains scheduling queues of processes
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
Processes migrate among the various queues
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Representation of Process Scheduling
Queueing diagram represents queues, resources, flows
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Schedulers
Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should
be executed next and allocates CPU
Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
Short-term scheduler is invoked frequently (milliseconds) (must be
fast)
Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should
be brought into the ready queue
Long-term scheduler is invoked 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
Long-term scheduler strives for good process mix
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of multiple
programming needs to decrease
Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in
from disk to continue execution: swapping
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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 via a context switch
Context of a process represented in the PCB
Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful
work while switching
The more complex the OS and the PCB the longer the
context switch
Time dependent on hardware support
Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per CPU
multiple contexts loaded at once
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CPU Switch From Process to Process
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Operations on Processes
System must provide mechanisms for:
process creation,
process termination,
and so on as detailed next
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Process Creation
Parent process create children processes, which, in turn
create other processes, forming a tree of processes
Generally, process identified and managed via a process
identifier (pid)
Resource sharing options
Parent and children share all resources
Children share subset of parent’s resources
Parent and child share no resources
Execution options
Parent and children execute concurrently
Parent waits until children terminate
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Example
Why create a new process?
Scenario 1: Program wants to run an additional instance of itself
E.g., web server receives request; creates additional instance of itself to
handle the request; original instance continues listening for requests
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A Tree of Processes in Linux
init
pid = 1
login kthreadd sshd
pid = 8415 pid = 2 pid = 3028
bash khelper pdflush sshd
pid = 8416 pid = 6 pid = 200 pid = 3610
emacs tcsch
ps
pid = 9204 pid = 4005
pid = 9298
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Process Termination
Process executes last statement and then asks the operating
system to delete it using the exit() system call.
Returns status data from child to parent (via wait())
Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
Parent may terminate the execution of children processes using
the abort() system call. Some reasons for doing so:
Child has exceeded allocated resources
Task assigned to child is no longer required
The parent is exiting and the operating systems does not
allow a child to continue if its parent terminates
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Process Termination
Some operating systems do not allow child to exists if its parent
has terminated. If a process terminates, then all its children must
also be terminated.
cascading termination. All children, grandchildren, etc. are
terminated.
The termination is initiated by the operating system.
A process that has terminated, but whose parent has not yet called
wait(),is known as Zombie
If a parent did not invoke wait() and instead terminated, thereby
leaving its child processes as orphans.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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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Interprocess Communication
Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
that will allow them to exchange data and information.
Two models of IPC
Shared memory
Message passing
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Communications Models
(a) Message passing. (b) shared memory.
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Interprocess Communication – Shared Memory
An area of memory shared among the processes that wish
to communicate
The communication is under the control of the users
processes not the operating system.
Major issues is to provide mechanism that will allow the
user processes to synchronize their actions when they
access shared memory.
Synchronization is discussed in great details in Chapter 5.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 3.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Interprocess Communication – Message Passing
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)
receive(message)
The message size is either fixed or variable
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Assignmnet#1
Explain working of Communication Models with the help of
example
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End of Chapter 3
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
