Operating Systems

Processes

Lecture 3

Michael O’Boyle

1
 Overview

•  Process
•  Process control block
•  Process state
•  Context switch
•  Process creation and termination

2
 What is a “process”?

•  The process is the OS’s abstraction for execution

–  A process is a program in execution
•  Simplest (classic) case: a sequential process
–  An address space (an abstraction of memory)
–  A single thread of execution (an abstraction of the CPU)
•  A sequential process is:
thread
–  The unit of execution
–  The unit of scheduling
–  The dynamic (active) execution context
•  vs. the program – static, just a bunch of bytes

address space

3
 What’s “in” a process?

•  A process consists of (at least):

–  An address space, containing
•  the code (instructions) for the running program
•  the data for the running program (static data, heap data, stack)
–  CPU state, consisting of
•  The program counter (PC), indicating the next instruction
•  The stack pointer
•  Other general purpose register values
–  A set of OS resources
•  open files, network connections, sound channels, …
•  In other words, everything needed to run the program
–  or to re-start, if interrupted

4
A process’s address space (idealized)

0xFFFFFFFF
stack
(dynamic allocated mem)
SP

address space heap

(dynamic allocated mem)

static data
(data segment)

code PC
(text segment)
0x00000000

5
 The OS process namespace

•  The particulars depend on the specific OS, but the

principles are general
•  The name for a process is called a process ID (PID)
–  An integer
•  The PID namespace is global to the system
–  Only one process at a time has a particular PID
•  Operations that create processes return a PID
–  E.g., fork()
•  Operations on processes take PIDs as an argument
–  E.g., kill(), wait(), nice()

6
 Representation of processes by the OS

•  The OS maintains a data structure to keep track of a

process’s state
–  Called the process control block (PCB) or process descriptor
–  Identified by the PID

•  OS keeps all of a process’s execution state in (or linked

from) the PCB when the process isn’t running
–  PC, SP, registers, etc.
–  when a process is unscheduled, the state is transferred out of the
hardware into the PCB
–  (when a process is running, its state is spread between the PCB and
the CPU)

7
 The PCB

•  The PCB is a data structure with many, many fields:

–  process ID (PID)
–  parent process ID
–  execution state
–  program counter, stack pointer, registers
–  address space info
–  UNIX user id, group id
–  scheduling priority
–  accounting info
–  pointers for state queues
•  In Linux:
–  defined in task_struct (include/linux/sched.h)
–  over 95 fields!!!

8
 This is (a
Process ID
simplification of)
Pointer to parent what each of
those PCBs looks
List of children like inside
Process state

Pointer to address space descriptor

Program counter
stack pointer
(all) register values

uid (user id)

gid (group id)
euid (effective user id)

Open file list

Scheduling priority

Accounting info

Pointers for state queues

Exit (“return”) code value

9
 PCBs and CPU state

•  When a process is running, its CPU state is inside the CPU

–  PC, SP, registers
–  CPU contains current values
•  When the OS gets control because of a …
–  Trap: Program executes a syscall
–  Exception: Program does something unexpected (e.g., page fault)
–  Interrupt: A hardware device requests service
the OS saves the CPU state of the running process in that
process’s PCB

10
 PCBs and CPU state

•  When the OS returns the process to the running state

–  it loads the hardware registers with values from that process’s PCB
–  eg general purpose registers, stack pointer, instruction pointer
•  The act of switching the CPU from one process to another
is called a context switch
–  systems may do 100s or 1000s of switches/sec.
–  takes a few microseconds on today’s hardware
–  Still expensive relative to thread based context switches
•  Choosing which process to run next is called scheduling

11
Process context switch

12
 Process execution states

•  Each process has an execution state, which indicates what

it’s currently doing
–  ready: waiting to be assigned to a CPU
•  could run, but another process has the CPU
–  running: executing on a CPU
•  it’s the process that currently controls the CPU
–  waiting (aka “blocked”): waiting for an event, e.g., I/O completion, or
a message from (or the completion of) another process
•  cannot make progress until the event happens
•  As a process executes, it moves from state to state
–  UNIX: run top, STAT column shows current state
–  which state is a process in most of the time?

13
 Process states and state transitions

terminate
running

dispatch / interrupt
schedule (unschedule)

create ready trap or exception

(I/O, page fault,
etc.)
interrupt
(I/O complete)
You can create
blocked and destroy
processes

14
 State queues

•  The OS maintains a collection of queues that represent the

state of all processes in the system
–  typically one queue for each state
•  e.g., ready, waiting, …
–  each PCB is queued onto a state queue according to the current
state of the process it represents
–  as a process changes state, its PCB is unlinked from one queue,
and linked onto another
•  The PCBs are moved between queues, which are
represented as linked lists

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 State queues
These are PCBs

Ready queue header

head ptr firefox (1365) emacs (948) ls (1470)

tail ptr

Wait queue header

head ptr cat (1468) firefox (1207)

tail ptr

•  There may be many wait queues, one for each type of wait
(particular device, timer, message, …)
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 PCBs and state queues

•  PCBs are data structures

–  dynamically allocated inside OS memory
•  When a process is created:
–  OS allocates a PCB for it
–  OS initializes PCB
–  (OS does other things not related to the PCB)
–  OS puts PCB on the correct queue
•  As a process computes:
–  OS moves its PCB from queue to queue
•  When a process is terminated:
–  PCB may be retained for a while (to receive signals, etc.)
–  eventually, OS deallocates the PCB

17
 Process creation

•  New processes are created by existing processes

–  creator is called the parent
–  created process is called the child
•  UNIX: do ps -ef, look for PPID field
–  what creates the first process, and when?

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 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

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20
 Process creation semantics

•  (Depending on the OS) child processes inherit certain

attributes of the parent
–  Examples:
•  Open file table: implies stdin/stdout/stderr
•  On some systems, resource allocation to parent may be divided
among children
•  (In Unix) when a child is created, the parent may either wait
for the child to finish, or continue in parallel

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 UNIX process creation details

•  UNIX process creation through fork() system call

–  creates and initializes a new PCB
•  initializes kernel resources of new process with resources of
parent (e.g., open files)
•  initializes PC, SP to be same as parent
–  creates a new address space
•  initializes new address space with a copy of the entire contents
of the address space of the parent
–  places new PCB on the ready queue
•  the fork() system call “returns twice”
–  once into the parent, and once into the child
•  returns the child’s PID to the parent
•  returns 0 to the child
•  fork() = “clone me”
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Parent
PCB

Parent
address space
(code, static
data, heap,
stack)

23
Parent similar, but different Child
PCB in key ways PCB

Parent Child address

address space space
identical
(code, static (code, static
copy
data, heap, (with sole data, heap,
stack) exception stack)
of PID
argument
on the top
of the
stack)

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 testparent – use of fork( )

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)

{
char *name = argv[0];
int pid = fork();
if (pid == 0) {
printf(“Child of %s is %d\n”, name, pid);
return 0;
} else {
printf(“My child is %d\n”, pid);
return 0;
}
}
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 testparent output

spinlock% gcc -o testparent testparent.c

spinlock% ./testparent
My child is 486
Child of testparent is 0
spinlock% ./testparent
Child of testparent is 0
My child is 571

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 exec() vs. fork()

•  Q: So how do we start a new program, instead of just

forking the old program?
•  A: First fork, then exec
–  int exec(char * prog, char * argv[])
•  exec()
–  stops the current process
–  loads program ‘prog’ into the address space
•  i.e., over-writes the existing process image
–  initializes hardware context, args for new program
–  places PCB onto ready queue
–  note: does not create a new process!

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exec() and fork()

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Parent similar, but different Child
PCB in key ways PCB

Parent Child address

address space space
identical
(code, static (code, static
copy
data, heap, (with sole data, heap,
stack) exception stack)
of PID
argument
on the top
of the
stack)

29
Parent Child
PCB PCB

Parent Child address

address space space
(code, static (code, static
data, heap, data, heap,
stack) stack)

30
 Making process creation faster

•  The semantics of fork() say the child’s address space is a

copy of the parent’s
•  Implementing fork() that way is slow
–  Have to allocate physical memory for the new address space
–  Have to set up child’s page tables to map new address space
–  Have to copy parent’s address space contents into child’s address
space
•  Which you are likely to destroy with an exec()

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 Method 1: vfork()

•  vfork() is the older (now uncommon) of the two approaches

we’ll discuss
•  Instead of “child’s address space is a copy of the parent’s,”
the semantics are “child’s address space is the parent’s”
–  With a “promise” that the child won’t modify the address space
before doing an execve()
•  Unenforced! You use vfork() at your own peril
–  When execve() is called, a new address space is created and it’s
loaded with the new executable
–  Parent is blocked until execve() is executed by child
–  Saves wasted effort of duplicating parent’s address space

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Parent similar, but different Child
PCB in key ways PCB

Parent
address space
(code, static
data, heap,
stack)

Vfork()

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 Method 2: copy-on-write

•  Retains the original semantics, but copies “only what is

necessary” rather than the entire address space
•  On fork():
–  Create a new address space
–  Initialize page tables with same mappings as the parent’s (i.e., they
both point to the same physical memory)
•  No copying of address space contents have occurred at this
point – with the sole exception of the top page of the stack
–  Set both parent and child page tables to make all pages read-only
–  If either parent or child writes to memory, an exception occurs
–  When exception occurs, OS copies the page, adjusts page tables,
etc.

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 UNIX shells

int main(int argc, char **argv)

{
while (1) {
printf (“$ “);
char *cmd = get_next_command();
int pid = fork();
if (pid == 0) {
exec(cmd);
panic(“exec failed!”);
} else {
wait(pid);
}
}
} 35
 Summary

•  Process
•  Process control blocck
•  Process state
•  Context switch
•  Process creation and termination
•  Next time
–  threads

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