Experiment 3 – Inter-process Communication
Learning Objective: Demonstrate a program for Inter-process communication
Tools :Java
Theory:
Inter-process Communication
A process is a program in execution. When we say that two computers of a distributed system are
communicating with each other, we mean that two processes, one running on each computer, are in
communication with each other. In a distributed system, processes executing on different computers
often need to communicate with each other to achieve some common goal. For example, each
computer of a distributed system may have a resource manager process to monitor the current status
of usage of its local resources, and the resource managers of all the computers might communicate
with each other from time to time to dynamically balance the system load among all the computers.
Therefore, a distributed operating system needs to provide inter-process communication (lPC)
mechanisms to facilitate such communication activities.
Inter-process communication basically requires information sharing among two or more processes.
The two basic methods for information sharing are as follows:
1. Original sharing, or shared-data approach
2. Copy sharing, or message-passing approach
In the shared-data approach, the information to be shared is placed in a common memory area that is
accessible to all the processes involved in an IPC. The shared-data paradigm gives the conceptual
communication pattern illustrated in Figure 3.1(a). On the other hand, in the message-passing
approach, the information to be shared is physically copied from the sender process's address space to
the address spaces of all the receiver processes, and this is done by transmitting the data to be copied
in the form of messages (a message is a block of information). The message-passing paradigm gives
the conceptual communication pattern illustrated in Figure 3.1(b). That is, the communicating
processes interact directly with each other.
Since computers in a network do not share memory, processes in a distributed system normally
communicate by exchanging messages rather than through shared data. Therefore, message passing is
the basic IPe mechanism in distributed systems.
A message-passing system is a subsystem of a distributed operating system that provides a set of
message-based IPe protocols and does so by shielding the details of complex network protocols and
multiple heterogeneous platforms from programmers. It enables processes to communicate by
exchanging messages and allows programs to be written by using simple communication primitives,
such as send and receive. It serves as a suitable infrastructure for building other higher level lPC
systems, such as remote procedure call and distributed shared memory
Model of interprocess communication
The models of interprocess communication are as follows:
Shared Memory Model
Shared memory is the memory that can be simultaneously accessed by multiple processes. This is done so that
the processes can communicate with each other. All POSIX systems, as well as Windows operating systems use
shared memory.
1. Advantage of Shared Memory Model
Memory communication is faster on the shared memory model as compared to the message passing
model on the same machine.
1. Disadvantages of Shared Memory Model
Some of the disadvantages of shared memory model are as follows:
❖ All the processes that use the shared memory model need to make sure that they are not
writing to the same memory location.
❖ Shared memory model may create problems such as synchronization and memory protection
that need to be addressed.
Message Passing Model
Multiple processes can read and write data to the message queue without being connected to each other.
Messages are stored on queue until their recipient retrieves them. Message queues are quite useful for
interprocess communication and are used by most operating systems.
1. Advantage of Messaging Passing Model
The message passing model is much easier to implement than the shared memory model.
2. Disadvantage of Messaging Passing Model
The message passing model has slower communication than the shared memory model because the
connection setup takes time.
Characteristics Of Inter-process Communication
There are mainly five characteristics of inter-process communication in a distributed environment/system.
1. Synchronous System Calls:
In the synchronous system calls both sender and receiver use blocking system calls to transmit
the data which means the sender will wait until the acknowledgment is received from the
receiver and receiver waits until the message arrives.
2. Asynchronous System Calls:
In the asynchronous system calls, both sender and receiver use non-blocking system calls to
transmit the data which means the sender doesn’t wait from the receiver acknowledgment.
3. Message Destination:
A local port is a message destination within a computer, specified as an integer. Aport has
exactly one receiver but many senders. Processes may use multiple ports from which to receive
messages. Any process that knows the number of a port can send the message to it.
4. Reliability:
It is defined as validity and integrity.
5. Integrity:
Messages must arrive without corruption and duplication to the destination.
6. Validity:
Point to point message services are defined as reliable, If the messages are guaranteed to be
delivered without being lost is called validity.
7. Ordering:
It is the process of delivering messages to the receiver in a particular order. Some applications
require messages to be delivered in the sender order i.e the order in which they were transmitted
by the sender
Result and Discussion:
Learning Outcomes: The student should have the ability to
LO1: Describe the protocol for Inter process communication.
LO 2: justify that client server are managed properly by the Inter process communication
Course Outcomes:Upon completion of the course students will be able to understand interprocess
communication.
Conclusion:……………………………………………………………………………………
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Viva Questions:
1. What is Inter-process communication?
2. What are the models of IPC?
3. What do you mean by “unicast” and “multicast” IPC?
4. Write operations provided in IPC?
5. Which transport protocol is used by remote procedure call (RPC)?
For Faculty Use
Correction Formative Timely completion of Attendance /
Parameters Assessment Practical [ 40%] Learning Attitude
[40%] [20%]
Marks
Obtained
