Operating System Services

• Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs and services to

programs and users
• One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to the user:
• User interface - Almost all operating systems have a user interface (UI).
• Varies between Command-Line (CLI), Graphics User Interface (GUI), Batch
• Program execution - The system must be able to load a program into memory and to
run that program, end execution, either normally or abnormally (indicating error)
• I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which may involve a file or an
I/O device
• File-system manipulation - The file system is of particular interest. Programs need to
read and write files and directories, create and delete them, search them, list file
Information, permission management.
Operating System Services (Cont.)
• Communications – Processes may exchange information, on the same
computer or between computers over a network
• Communications may be via shared memory or through message passing (packets
moved by the OS)
• Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of possible errors
• May occur in the CPU and memory hardware, in I/O devices, in user program
• For each type of error, OS should take the appropriate action to ensure correct and
consistent computing
• Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and programmer’s abilities to
efficiently use the system
 Operating System Services (Cont.)

• Another set of OS functions exists for ensuring the efficient operation of the system itself
via resource sharing
• Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running concurrently,
resources must be allocated to each of them
• Many types of resources - Some (such as CPU cycles, main memory, and file
storage) may have special allocation code, others (such as I/O devices) may have
general request and release code
• Accounting - To keep track of which users use how much and what kinds of
computer resources
• Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a multiuser or
networked computer system may want to control use of that information,
concurrent processes should not interfere with each other
• Protection involves ensuring that all access to system resources is controlled
• Security of the system from outsiders requires user authentication, extends to
defending external I/O devices from invalid access attempts
• If a system is to be protected and secure, precautions must be instituted
throughout it. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
A View of Operating System Services
System Calls
• Programming interface to the services provided by the OS

• Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)

• Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application Program

Interface (API) rather than direct system call use

• Three most common APIs are Win32 API for Windows, POSIX API
for POSIX-based systems (including virtually all versions of UNIX,
Linux, and Mac OS X), and Java API for the Java virtual machine
(JVM)

• Why use APIs rather than system calls?

(Note that the system-call names used throughout this text are
generic)
Example of System Calls

• System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file
Example of Standard API

• Consider the ReadFile() function in the

• Win32 API—a function for reading from a file

• A description of the parameters passed to ReadFile()

• HANDLE file—the file to be read
• LPVOID buffer—a buffer where the data will be read into and written from
• DWORD bytesToRead—the number of bytes to be read into the buffer
• LPDWORD bytesRead—the number of bytes read during the last read
• LPOVERLAPPED ovl—indicates if overlapped I/O is being used
System Call Implementation
• Typically, a number associated with each system call
• System-call interface maintains a table indexed according to these
numbers

• The system call interface invokes intended system call in OS kernel

and returns status of the system call and any return values

• The caller need know nothing about how the system call is
implemented
• Just needs to obey API and understand what OS will do as a result call
• Most details of OS interface hidden from programmer by API
• Managed by run-time support library (set of functions built into libraries included
with compiler)
API – System Call – OS Relationship
Standard C Library Example
• C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system
call
 System Call Parameter Passing
• Often, more information is required than simply identity of desired
system call
• Exact type and amount of information vary according to OS and call

• Three general methods used to pass parameters to the OS

• Simplest: pass the parameters in registers
• In some cases, may be more parameters than registers
• Parameters stored in a block, or table, in memory, and address of block
passed as a parameter in a register
• This approach taken by Linux and Solaris
• Parameters placed, or pushed, onto the stack by the program and popped
off the stack by the operating system
• Block and stack methods do not limit the number or length of parameters
being passed
Types of System Calls

• Process control
• end, abort
• load, execute
• create process, terminate process
• get process attributes, set process attributes
• wait for time
• wait event, signal event
• allocate and free memory
• File management
• create file, delete file
• open, close file
• read, write, reposition
• get and set file attributes
Types of System Calls (Cont.)

• Device management
• request device, release device
• read, write, reposition
• get device attributes, set device attributes
• logically attach or detach devices
• Information maintenance
• get time or date, set time or date
• get system data, set system data
• get and set process, file, or device attributes
• Communications
• create, delete communication connection
• send, receive messages
• transfer status information
• attach and detach remote devices
Examples of Windows and
Unix System Calls
System Programs
• System programs provide a convenient environment for
program development and execution. They can be divided into:
• File manipulation
• Status information
• File modification
• Programming language support
• Program loading and execution
• Communications
• Application programs

• Most users’ view of the operation system is defined by system

programs, not the actual system calls
System Programs
• Provide a convenient environment for program development and
execution
• Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others are
considerably more complex

• File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, dump, list,

and generally manipulate files and directories

• Status information
• Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available memory,
disk space, number of users
• Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging information
• Typically, these programs format and print the output to the terminal or
other output devices
• Some systems implement a registry - used to store and retrieve
configuration information
 System Programs (Cont.)
• File modification
• Text editors to create and modify files
• Special commands to search contents of files or perform transformations
of the text

• Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,

debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided

• Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable

loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems for
higher-level and machine language

• Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual

connections among processes, users, and computer systems
• Allow users to send messages to one another’s screens, browse web
pages, send electronic-mail messages, log in remotely, transfer files from
one machine to another
 UNIX

• UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the original UNIX

operating system had limited structuring. The UNIX OS consists of
two separable parts
• Systems programs
• The kernel
• Consists of everything below the system-call interface and above the physical
hardware
• Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory management, and other operating-
system functions; a large number of functions for one level
Microkernel System Structure
• Moves as much from the kernel into “user” space

• Communication takes place between user modules using message

passing

• Benefits:
• Easier to extend a microkernel
• Easier to port the operating system to new architectures
• More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode)
• More secure

• Detriments:
• Performance overhead of user space to kernel space communication
Para-virtualization
• Presents guest with system similar but not identical to hardware

• Guest must be modified to run on paravirtualized hardware

• Guest can be an OS, or in the case of Solaris 10 applications running

in containers
System Boot
• Operating system must be made available to hardware so
hardware can start it
• Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, locates the kernel, loads it into
memory, and starts it
• Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location loads
bootstrap loader
• When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed memory
location
• Firmware used to hold initial boot code