OS course –

lecture 1
Nezer J. Zaidenberg
 Announcements

 Lecturer : Prof. Amir Averbuch

 Tuturing assistant :Mr. Nezer Zaidenberg

 Ex. Grader : TBD

 The course form has changed since previous

years. It is recommended that you will
attend lectures even if you taken this
course previously
 Grades

 40% exercises

 70% exam

 The exam will include multiple choice

questions. Most of which will be based on
the homework!
 References

 The main books for this course is

 Understand the Linux kernel 3rd edition (For

kernel space)
 Advanced programming for the UNIX
environment 3rd edition by Richard W.
Stevens (For user space)

 Additional books (that will be noted on

specific lectures)
 UNIX filesystems

 Beej Manual for network programming

 Course goals

 The goal of this course is to gain practical

understanding of the OS
 The course is very practical with lots of
homework and exam based on the
homework
 The course will focus on UNIX OS and
particular Linux
 The exercises will be mainly coding work or
reviewing kernel and low-level user code.
What this course is not
about
 Coding (to the extent of coding standards,
best coding practices or efficiency)
 MPP (beyond simple algorithms)

 Network algorithms

 Encryption

 Etc.

 This code is on OS and OS related

programming only
 What is OS

 Once upon a time there was no Operating systems

 Developers used to develop hardware and software,

together with everything needed to make the
application run

 As computers become more standard and tasks

become common several tasks stood out as needed
by all (or practically all) software.

 Those common tasks became “OS” and were

supplied by 3rd party vendors

 Commercial software used to require specific OS.

This became one of the first usages of “code
reusability”
 Common tasks
 Memory management

 Hardware (driver) support

 Task scheduling on multi process environments

 File management

 User management (on multi-user systems)

Software providers developed a single software for all

those components (and more) – the OS

This software became the base for all further software

development
 What the OS includes
 Core OS function
 Process management
 User management
 File management
 Memory management
 Hardware management
 Network management

 Additional functions are added and removed according to political and marketing
scenarios
 Initial UNIX implementation had built in C compiler (sold separately with
almost all modern OS)
 Most UNIX OS comes with full range of servers not really part of “OS” such as
ftp server, telnet server, daytime server, printing server and even HTTP server,
J2EE platform, etc.
 Many OS also come with GUI (windows, OSX aqua, X Windows) and other user
tools (calculator, Text processor etc.)
 Microsoft wished to add Internet Explorer, Windows media player etc. as part
of the OS
 The European union prevented the inclusion of ms media player in all windows
sold in europe… (anti trust reasons)

 The course will deal with “CORE OS” functions only. Those services are usually
managed by the OS “Kernel”
 What is UNIX
 UNIX is a general term for lots of things

 UNIX may refer to standards such as POSIX that defines OS interface

that many OS follow

 UNIX is also general name for a family of many proprietary OS that

were tested for standard completion. (however, even most modern OS
does not fully implement all aspects of the standard)

 Open source OS (such as Linux) that were not tested by standard

committee (but tend to have the save API often referred to as UNIX-
like

 Most modern UNIX OS are brunched from either system V revision 4 or

BSD 4.4 (both ancient versions of UNIX)

 Today, for most people, UNIX means an OS with specific set of API and
applications regardless of standards. So UNIX and UNIX-like OS’s are
considered UNIX. (at least for this course)
 UNIX history
 UNIX (acr. for uniplexed information) was initially pun on multics (OS
that is virtually extinct) and was the name of OS that was developed at
bell labs The OS was initially distributed in source form so that
anybody can modify and customize it.

 UNIX was developed by Bell labs for their PDP11 computers.

 The source was later brunched into two main trunks SYS-V and BSD
code (with both brunches often borrowing code from each other)

 Most modern Unices are usually based on either of those brunches.

 Commercial UNIX today exist only in high end server and desktop
market. (for example 2/3 of PC’s sold for over 1000$ are Macintosh – a
UNIX brand)

 Open source UNIX tends to rule several market segments (Linux and
apache rule the http serving and Linux practically runs on all Wireless
routers.) and is heavy favorite on several others (running database
servers)
 UNIX OS in the wild
SVR4 Unices

 Solaris – Unix by SUN Microsystems

 HP-UX – Unix by HP

 Tru64 – old unix by Digital and later Compaq, still maintained by HP

 Linux – The most popular open source OS (sponsered by RedHat, IBM, Silicon graphics,
Novell and more)

BSD Unices

 OS X and Darwin – Apple OS (OS X is the proprietary version and darwin is the open
source version)

 AIX – Unix by IBM

 FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD – Open source BSD distributions

NOT UNIX per-se

 VxWorks – embedded OS, follows Posix standard. (but usually UNIX doesn’t refer to
embedded system though it can)
 GNU source and the
FSF
 GNU – acr. For “GNU’s not UNIX”
 GNU – a public license granting permission to use,
modify and redistribute code provided it remains
GNU
 FSF – acr. For “free software foundation”
 FSF – distribute the source for most of the free UNIX
applications (The unix look and feel). Promote the
GNU license
 Linux kernel – the “main functionality” of the OS
developed by volunteers (not the FSF, but the group
is connected) under the the GNU license
The many types of free
 MIT license – allow you to do what ever you want
with the code
 BSD license – allow modification and redistribution
(modification may not be free). You must keep
credits to original author
 GNU GPL – modifications must be free
 GNU LGPL – modification must be free, but linking
with GNU source is not modification (license used by
GNU libraries)
 Other free licenses - check on FSF website
 Commercial Open source – you may view the source
but not use it commercially or you may view the
source, but modification belong to specific company
or modifications may not be redistributed. Are not
considered “free” (such as Apple public license, Sun
Public license, Netscape public license, MySQL)
 Free as in beer – free as
in speech
 Beer – when you get a free beer – you can drink it.
But not order the entire bar for a round of free beer!
 Speech – when you hear an idea you can repeat it
and incorporate it in your own speeches.
 In neither case – free does not refer to distribution
and support fees which may apply.

 The open source community looks for “free as in

speech” software. And only “free as in speech” is
considered free. (GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT are all “free”
while commercial free licenses are not considered
“free”.)
 What is Linux
distribution
 Linux distribution is a gathering of software
from several sources, compiling them and
branding them by single company
 All Linux distribution include the Linux kernel
and most GNU sources (thereby Linux
distribution….)
 Linux distributions by Red hat SuSe, debian,
Ubunto, slack ware have been popularized
some gained commercial support.
 Some Linux distribution include only free
content some include open source (but not free)
as well and some include commercial content
 On this course we will focus on fedora core 9
OS code and User code

 OS code – usually invoked in “the kernel” is

the code that “makes the computer work”.
Including drivers, memory management etc.
 User code – most code we write

 In this code we will use the terms Userland

and kernelspace to distinguish between
them.
 We will write both kinds of code in the
exercises
 UNIX OS internals

 UNIX OS is built on top of two basic

principals
 Process
 File

 All OS services are implemented as either

process or file. (for example the system
logger is a “process” while a socket is a
file.)
 This is one of the first implementations of
the interface design pattern
 Some unix file
handling code
 Open(2)

 Close(2)

 Read(2)

 Write(2)

To learn about those file type “man 2 open”

to get the function C info.
Library code relation with
OS code
 Library functions, such as printf, are
invoking OS code to complete their work
 For example printf

 Printf(3) (short for print formatted) parses

the input and format the text. Then it calls
for write.
 Printf is library function (and not OS
function)
 The difference between
system and library
function
OS function
Lowest level interface
Section 2 of man
System dependent and may not
exist on different systems (or
used with different name or
(parameters
Almost always bug free
Almost always efficient
Usually – kernel space code
Library function
Usually calls OS function
Section 3 of man
Programming language
dependent (but not system
(dependent
Almost always bugfree
Almost always efficient
Usually user space code
 fopen(3)
implementation
  FILE *fopen(char *name, char *mode)
{
       int fd;
       FILE *fp;
 if (*mode != ‘r’ && *mode != ‘w’ && *mode != ‘a’)
           return NULL;
       for (fp = _iob; fp < _iob + OPEN_MAX; fp++)
           if ((fp->flag & (_READ | _WRITE)) == 0)
               break;        /* found free slot */
       if (fp >= _iob + OPEN_MAX)   /* no free slots */
           return NULL;
       if (*mode == ‘w’)
           fd = creat(name, PERMS);
       else if (*mode == ‘a’) {
           if ((fd = open(name, O_WRONLY, 0)) == -1)
               fd = creat(name, PERMS);
           lseek(fd, 0L, 2);
       } else
           fd = open(name, O_RDONLY, 0);
       if (fd == -1)         /* couldn’t access name */
           return NULL;
       fp->fd = fd;
       fp->cnt = 0;
       fp->base = NULL;
       fp->flag = (*mode == ‘r’) ? _READ : _WRITE;
       return fp;
}
 Conclusion

 So OS code is the underlying layer of the

library function
 Homework – (not for submission)
 Examine printf(3) code – find the OS function
call references.
 Follow all functions printf calls!