21CS56 – Operating systems

Chapter 3- (ModulE2) Processes

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 Chapter 3: Processes
Process Concept
Process Scheduling
Operations on Processes
Interprocess Communication

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 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

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 Process Concept
● An operating system executes a variety of programs:
● Batch system – jobs
● Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks
● Process – a program in execution; process execution must progress in
sequential fashion. No parallel execution of a single process.
● Multiple parts
● The program code, also called text section
● Current activity including program counter, processor registers
● Stack containing temporary data
4 Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
● Data section containing global variables
● Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time

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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 have several processes
● Consider multiple users executing the same program

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Process in Memory

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Memory Layout of a C Program

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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

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 Threads
● So far, process has a single thread of execution
● Consider having multiple program counters per process
● Multiple locations can execute at once
4 Multiple threads of control -> threads
● Must then have storage for thread details, multiple
program counters in PCB

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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
● Typically it takes few milliseconds.

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 CPU Switch From Process to Process
A context switch occurs when the CPU switches from one process to
another.

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 Process Scheduling
● The objective of the multiprogramming is to have some process running
at all times.
● Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU for time sharing
systems.
● Process scheduler selects among available processes for next
execution on CPU
● For a single-processor system, there will never be more than one
running process.
● 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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Ready Queue And Various I/O Device 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, processes that are in ready queue.
● 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 🡺 selects from job pool and loads into memory.
● 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

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Short-term Scheduler:
• must select a new process for the CPU
frequently.
• Process may execute only for a few ms
• Executes atleast once every 100ms
• Must be fast
• If it takes 10ms to decide to execute a
process for 100ms then 10/(100+10)=9% of
CPU is being used for scheduling the work.

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Long term scheduler
• Executes less frequently
• Controls the degree of multiprogramming.
(number of processes in the memory)
• Avg rate of process creation=avg departure rate of
processes leaving the system
• Invoked only when a process leaves the system.

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Addition of Medium Term Scheduling (time-sharing systems)
●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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 Operations on Processes
● System must provide mechanisms for:
● process creation,
● process termination

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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) an integer
● Resource sharing options
● Parent and children share all resources
● Children share subset of parent’s resources
● Parent and child share no resources
● Execution options (2 possibilities)
● Parent continues to execute concurrently with its children
● Parent waits until some or all of the children have terminated
● Address space (2 possibilities)
The child process is a duplicate of the parent process (it has the same program and
data as parent)
The child process has a new program loaded into it.

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A Tree of Processes in Linux

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C Program Forking Separate Process (UNIX fork() system call)

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 Process Creation (Cont.)
● 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

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 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.
▪ The parent process may wait for termination of a child process by
using the wait() system call. The call returns status information and
the pid of the terminated process.
pid= wait (&status);
▪ If no parent waiting (did not invoke wait()) process is a zombie.
▪ If parent terminated without invoking wait(), process is an orphan

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 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 its usage of allocated resources.
● Task assigned to child is no longer required.
● The parent is exiting and the operating system does not allow a
child to continue if its parent terminates.

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 Interprocess Communication
● Processes executing concurrently within a system may be independent or
cooperating
● Independent processes🡺 cannot affect or be affected by other processes &
no sharing of data
● Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes, including
sharing data
● Reasons for cooperating processes:
● Information sharing🡺 shared files or information
● Computation speedup🡺 break into subtasks & execute in parallel
● Modularity🡺 divide system functions into multiple processes or threads
● Convenience🡺 user may work on multiple tasks at the same time
● Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
● Two models of IPC
● Shared memory
● Message passing

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 Communications Models
(a) shared memory (b) Message passing.

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Producer-Consumer Problem : Example of Shared memory model
● 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
● Producer never waits🡺 can always produce new items
● Consumer waits if there is no item to consume
● bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer
size
● Producer must wait if all buffers are full
● Consumer waits if the buffer is empty

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 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

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 Producer Process – Shared Memory
item next_produced;
while (true) {
/* produce an item in next produced */
while (((in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE) == out)
; /* do nothing */
buffer[in] = next_produced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
}

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 Consumer Process – Shared Memory
item next_consumed;
while (true) {
while (in == out)
; /* do nothing */
next_consumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;

/* consume the item in next consumed */

}

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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.

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 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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 Message Passing (Cont.)
● If processes P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:
● Establish a communication link between them
● Exchange messages via send/receive
● Implementation issues:
● How are links established?
● Can a link be associated with more than two processes?
● How many links can there be between every pair of communicating
processes?
● What is the capacity of a link?
● Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or
variable?
● Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?

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 Message Passing (Cont.)
● Implementation of communication link
● Physical:
4 Shared memory
4 Hardware bus
4 Network
● Logical:
4 Direct or indirect
4 Synchronous or asynchronous
4 Automatic or explicit buffering

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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

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 Indirect Communication
● Operations
● create a new mailbox (port)
● 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

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 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.
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 Synchronization
● Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking
● Blocking is considered synchronous
● Blocking send -- the sender is blocked until the message is received
● Blocking receive -- the receiver is blocked until a message is available
● Non-blocking is considered asynchronous
● Non-blocking send -- the sender sends the message and continue
● Non-blocking receive -- the receiver receives:
● A valid message, or
● Null message
● Different combinations possible
● If both send and receive are blocking, we have a rendezvous

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 Buffering
● Queue of messages attached to the link.
● implemented in one of three ways
1. Zero capacity – no messages are queued on a link.
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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End of Chapter 3

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