Pre-Course Study

Material
Operating S ystems

Basic Principles of Operating Systems

An operating system is a collection of software that

coordinates the working of the different components of the
system and gets the users job done. The operating
system provides the user with all the basic things
necessary to do his job.
Is it enough to have microsoft word to write letters?
No.
Surprised?

1.
2.
3.

What if there is no interface to the key board?

What if there is nothing that will control the output to VGA card?
What if there is no interface to the human user so that he can
switch on MS Word ?
Yes the answers to all these questions is operating system.
Technical Definition: An OS is a collection of system software that
coordinates between the hardware, provides a platform for
softwares to run on and provides the user with an interface for
command inputs.
EG. DOS, Linux, Unix, Windows, MAC, OS/2, Minix, and many more.
The governmental systems like Postal system, Railway System are
analogous to Operating Systems.

What does an Operating

System do?
An Operating System exploits the hardware
resources of one or more processors to provide a
set of services to system users.
An Operating System also manages secondary
memory and input/output devices on behalf of its
users.

Structural Elements of a Computer

Processor: Controls the operation of the computer and its
Data Processing functions.. A single processor is often termed as
the Central Processing Unit.
Main memory: Stores data and programs. This memory is
typically volatile. Contents of this memory are not retained even
when the computer is shut down.
I/O modules: Moves data between the computer and its external
environment, such as disks, data communication equipments,
and terminals.
System bus: Provides for communication between processors,
main memory, and I/O modules.

Schematic Diagram of a Computer

System
MEMORY
INPUT

CONTROL UNIT

OUTPUT

ALU
INPUT: Input devices (Keyboard, Mouse etc.) (RAW MATERIALS)
OUTPUT: Output devices (VDU, Printers etc. ) (FINISHED PRODUCTS)
MEMORY: Main memory (Volatile commonly known as RAM)
(GODOWN / INVENTORY)
CONTROL UNIT: A device that generates Signals to command other units that what to do
and what not to. (TOP MANAGEMENT)
ALU: Arithmetic Logic Unit The unit that performs the computations. (MACHINES)

Registers
GROWING SPEED AND COST

Cache
Main Memory

Magnetic disk, CD-ROM, CD-RW

DVD-RW, DVD-RAM

Magnetic tape

GROWING SIZE AND DATA RETAINABILITY

Memory Hierarchy

Objectives of an OS

It is a program that

controls the execution of application programs

acts as an interface between applications and computer hardware
manages the resources associated with a computer

Objectives of an O.S.
Convenience of use of the computer

Efficient use of the computing resources

Should be such that it can permit effective development, testing and
introduction of new system functions without affecting the service.

Thus the basic functions of an OS are

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Process Management Managing the programs that are

running.
Memory Management Managing and rationing the
memory between processes and data.
Storage Management Managing the permanent Storage
of data on disks or other media
I/O Management Managing the input and output
Device / Resource Management Managing devices and
resources and allowing the users to share the resources
Security and Protection Securing the system against
possible unauthorized access to data or any other entity.
Protecting the parts of the system against damage.
Booting the System and getting it ready to work.
Data communications Providing interface to connect to
other computers or allowing others to connect

Operating System as an Interface

Application Programs

End user

Utilities
Programmer

Operating System

Computer Hardware

OS System
Designer

Operating System Services

Program Development variety of services and utilities such as
Editors and debuggers. They are usually referred to as application program
development tools.

Program Execution involves a number of steps, such as loading

Instruction and data in the main memory, initialization of I/O devices and files,
and other resources to be allocated. OS handles the scheduling.

Access to I/O devices Each I/O device has its own set of
Instructions and control signals. O.S. hides these details to provide a
common interface to the user/programmer.

Operating System Services

Controlled access to files- nature of I/O device (disk drive, tape drive) and
structure of the data stored in the files in the storage medium. In the case of
multiple users accessing the processor concurrently, proper protection
mechanisms have to be used.
System access- For shared or public systems, the O.S. controls access to
the system as a whole and to specific system resources. Access system provides
protection of resources, and data from unauthorized users, and resolves resource
conflicts
Error detection and response Variety of errors may occur in computer
system. Responses may range from program termination, retrial of the same
operation, or reporting error to the application.
Accounting collecting usage statistics, CPU usages, monitor
performance, etc.

What is the OS made of?

The architecture shown below is applicable for

Unix and its family Including Linux
Hardware

Shell

Kernel and
system software
Users
Other Applications

What the hell are these..

User The system representation of the human operator who
requests for services.
Application Software Special software to help the user do
his task (E.g.. MS Word)
Shell The program that interprets the commands or
requests given by the user and gets the job done by the
kernel.
Kernel The core of the operating system. It uses the
hardware to do the jobs required by the user or the system. It
coordinates among the hardware and interfaces it with the
above layers.
System Software Software that can access the hardware
directly and generally provides various system services. (E.g..
The kernel itself, device drivers etc.).
Hardware The set of electronic devices that work together
to ultimately do the job required by all the upper levels.

Why Unix or Linux?

How the hell are they different from others?

Types of Operating Systems
Access based
1.
Single User Only one user can access the OS at a time. E.g. DOS,
Windows 9x
2.
Multi User Multiple users can access the OS at the same time. E.g.
Unix, Windows NT, Linux
Processing Based
1.
Single processing Only one process (job) has control of the whole
system at a time. E.g. DOS
2.
Multi Processing Multiple processes (jobs) control defined domain
of their own. E.g. Windows (All versions), Unix, Linux
Environment Based
1.
Stand alone Does not support connection from other systems. E.g.
DOS, Windows 9x, Workstation versions of Windows NT
2.
Networking Supports connection from other systems. E.g. Unix,
Linux, Server versions of Windows NT

My God

One OS! One Machine!

Multiple jobs?

Techniques of Multiprocessing
Multiprogramming
Timesharing
Note that Multiuser is maintained using multiprocessing techniques especially
timesharing technique.

Multiprogramming: When one process waits to get some

job done which does not requires the CPU, instead of
sitting idle the CPU picks up another process to work on.
Timesharing: The CPU time is equally divided among the
processes in small slots. Small equal sized time slots
are defined and allocated to the processes.

Closer look to the above techniques

P1, P2, P3 are three different processes
Multiprogramming

P1

Run

P2

Wait

P3

P1, P2, P3

Wait

Run

Wait

Run

Wait

Run

Run

Run

Run

Wait

Run

Wait

Wait

Run

Wait

Run

Run

Any Advantage?

Run

Wait

Wait

So what is timesharing?
P1

P2

P3

Normal Time interval

I/O Started by P1

P1 Completed

So which is better?

Multiprogramming or Timesharing

Multiprogramming maximizes CPU utilization

Time-sharing minimizes user response rime

What about the Throughput?

Processes
A process is
Normal: A program in state of execution
Waste of words: An instance of a program running on a computer
Fundoo: The entity that can be assigned to and executed on a
processor
More fundoo?... A unit of activity characterized by a single
sequential thread of execution, a current state, and an associated
set of system resources

Parts of a Process
Components of a process
An executable program
Associated data required by the program (variable, work space, buffer,
etc.)
Execution context: internal data used by O.S. to supervise a process =
process state.
Process list

Main memory
Program code

data

context

Program code

data

context

Process Control Block

A data structure by which the system identifies a process.

Identifier: A unique integer associated with a process
It contains State : A currently executing process is in running state
Priority : Priority level relative to other processes
Program counter : Address of the next instruction of the

program to be executed.
Memory pointers: pointers to the program code and data
associated with the process, and any shared memory blocks
Context data: Data in the registers in the processor during
process execution.
I/O status information: outstanding I/O requests, I/O devices
allocated to the process, a list of files is use by the process, etc.
Accounting information: amount of processor time, etc.

Other fundas

Resource Management
Responsibilities of the OS in Resource Management
Scheduling The management of the queue of processes so as to make
the decisions of when to execute which process.
O.S. manages the resources of a computer system and rations them
among the processes.
Factors for scheduling policy:
Fairness: processes competing for a resource should be given fair chance
of resource access
Differential responsiveness: O.S. should make allocation and scheduling
decisions to meet total set of requirements, and in a dynamic manner. E.g., if
a process is waiting for an I/O device, O.S. may schedule that process as
soon as the device is free.
Efficiency: Maximize throughput, minimize response time, and
accommodate as many concurrent users as possible.

Memory Management
The OS manages the computers memory and allocates
memory to processes and data.
Out of various memory management schemes the mot used
nowadays is Virtual Memory. The fundas for Virtual
Memory are given below
1. A facility that allows programs to address memory from a logical viewpoint
2. Disregards the amount of physical memory actually available
3. Meets the requirements of multiple user processes to reside
simultaneously in main memory without any interference
4. (Demand) Paging system and Page faults
5. Address of a word of a program = page number + offset within page
6. Pages vs. Blocks mapping


Physical memory is not alone now !!!
It uses a fast disk (Backing store) to keep the parts of the
processes not in use at the moment of time.
The process's memory (also called logical memory) is
divided into pages of equal size and kept in the backing
store. The pages are brought in t the physical memory as
and when required.
The pages are kept in blocks created in the physical
memory called frames. The sizes of frames and pages are
equal. The allocation of block to a page depends upon the
allocation policy used by the system.

Then how does it manage the disk?

Storage Management

Auxiliary Memory (Secondary Memory/Non-Volatile Memory Mainly Disks)

are used to store data permanently.
The unit of data storage on the Disk is called a File.
A File is a logical structure that stores a chunk of data in the memory
(specially auxiliary memory).
A Directory is a logical group of files which is used to manage the manage the
files on the disk.
File Management
The way the OS stores the files on the disk and keeps track of each of
the files is called File Management.
File System The logical arrangement of files and metadata (Data about
data) on a disk is known as the file system
File System By File System we also mean the tree of directories and files
that is logically created in the memory.

How does the tree look?

Shown below is typically a part of the Unix/Linux file system

/

root

bin

donkey

home

monkey

dev

etc

yankee

usr

bin

sbin

america schedule

washington
I am a
directory

texas

california
I am a file

The above diagram is only a part of the file system. The tree can be
bigger and any number of nodes can exist under another.

Typical example of a
DOS/Windows file system.

The names of common directories have been left to the reader to fill up.

C:

D:

Directory Structure of Linux File

System
Directory

Content

/bin

Common programs, shared by the system, the system administrator and

the users.

/boot

The startup files and the kernel, vmlinuz. In recent distributions also grub
data. Grub is the GRand Unified Boot loader and is an attempt to get rid
of the many different boot-loaders we know today.

/dev

Contains references to all the CPU peripheral hardware, which are

represented as files with special properties.

/etc

Most important system configuration files are in /etc, this directory

contains data similar to those in the Control Panel in Windows

/home

Home directories of the common users.

/initrd

(on some distributions) Information for booting. Do not remove!

/lib

Library files, includes files for all kinds of programs needed by the system
and the users.

Directory

Content

/lost+found

Every partition has a lost+found in its upper directory. Files that were saved during
failures are here.

/misc

For miscellaneous purposes.

/mnt

Standard mount point for external file systems, e.g. a CD-ROM or a digital camera.

/net

Standard mount point for entire remote file systems

/opt

Typically contains extra and third party software.

/proc

A virtual file system containing information about system resources. More

information about the meaning of the files in proc is obtained by entering the
command man proc in a terminal window.

/root

The administrative user's home directory. Mind the difference between /, the root
directory and /root, the home directory of the root user.

/sbin

Programs for use by the system and the system administrator.

/tmp

Temporary space for use by the system.

/usr

Programs, libraries, documentation etc. for all user-related programs.

/var

Storage for all variable files and temporary files created by users, such as log files,
the mail queue, the print spooler area, space for temporary storage of files
downloaded from the Internet, or to keep an image of a CD before burning it.

Some important concepts

Data Communication

Data Communication is an important function of the Operating System.

Communication always takes place between two processes. This is
because processes are the only active entity inside a computer
system. The punch word in Data Communication is IPC (Inter
Process Communication). IPC is the communication of data
between two processes.
Different Techniques of IPC are
1. Message Passing Data is sent from one process to another via
the kernel and other subsystems.
2. Shared Memory A location of the memory is shared between
two processes one process writes data to the location and
another process reads the data.

Some technologies to
implement the IPC concepts
Pipes A virtual data flow is established between two
processes. The shared memory concept is implemented using
pipes.
Sockets A logical connection point is opened for a process.
The kernel an network subsystems take responsibility to
efficiently manage the sending and receiving of data. The
message passing concept is implemented in this way.
Memory Mapped Files A portion of the memory is mapped to
a file. Whatever is written to the file gets written to the memory
an vice versa. The shared memory concept is implemented in
this way.

Security and Protection

The system may be vulnerable to attacks

More the functionalities in the system more the loop
holes and more vulnerable to external or internal
attacks
Are they the same things?
No.
Security is protecting a system against unauthorized
attacks (Mostly external).
Protection is protecting the components of the system
from damage, blocking and unavailability of resource.

Who is going to attack?

There are various types of intruders
Nave Users These are kind of people who have a long
nose and have nothing to do. They know less but keep on
checking out places for other peoples data (Mails etc.).
Skilled Users These are people like inquisitive students
who are more or less skilled and try out ways to access
things they are not meant to just for fun or to learn.
Purposeful Intruders These people do nasty jobs on
purpose e.g. Hacking the Military Data of enemy nation,
Hacking confidential data of the rival company, etc.

Some well known security threats

Viruses These are malicious codes that believe in infecting some data
and spread. They generally come from infected removable storage media
(floppies, CDs) or recently they are also coming with mails on the internet.
The viral code is generally executed by the user unknowingly. They reside
as a part of some important program, file or metadata (Partition Table,
Boot Sector etc.) and are activated whenever the innocent infected data is
read or executed. When active it tries to search for other such files or data
where it can copy itself.
Trojans These are sent to a person by an intruder on purpose. The
program is sent with some innocent looking program or file and the user
runs it unknowingly. The program when active acts as a server. The
intruder can connect to it from the remote machine and command it to do
malicious jobs in the recipient's computer.
Worms These consist of two parts one is called the loader and the other
is the worm itself. The loader is rather innocent program which is sent to
somebody on the network. This loader later on loads the worm onto this
computer. Whenever the worm finds that the network is on it sends the
loader to the connected machines and thus it spreads.

Continued
Spoofing This is a method to access a system one is not
meant to access. The intruder takes form of a valid user or
process and enters the system.
Phising This is a hacking method very much in use nowadays.
The intruder creates a login screen similar to some well known
site or system (Yahoo/ Google/ Unix or Linux login screen) and
puts in online. Some way the fake login screen is run when the
user needs to login. The user delivers the username and
password without the knowledge of what is actually happening
and this data is stored to a database accessible by the intruder.

Some ways to tackle intruders

Passwords
Good passwords Mixture of numbers, letters of different case is a
good security measure. Passwords ideally should not carry any
personal information. These steps make it difficult to guess
passwords.
Periodically changing passwords Some systems allow us to
specify passwords and specify some period within which the
password will have to be changed.
Recursive Passwords This is a technology in which each time a
password is used, it is re-encrypted or changed automatically. The
user is given a list of passwords for a period of time. If that list is
secured, the users data is secured.

Continued
Encryption However good a password is, it is of no use without a good
encryption algorithm protecting it. Encryption is a technique of generating a
new text by applying some functions on the original text. The new text is
called Cipher text. Some encryption algorithms allow the Cipher text to be
Decrypted to the original text and some dont.
Encryption Key

Plaintext
P
A

Encryption
Algorithm

Decryption Key

Ciphertext C

Decryption
Algorithm

Plaintext
P
B

Continued
Antiviruses These are programs which catch Viruses
(Nowadays they detect all malicious programs Trojans,
Worms etc.) either when they are resident on the disk in some
form or when trying to enter the system from some source.
Firewalls Firewall blocks access of the system by any
means from some specified external machines. So we create a
firewall against some machine if we distrust it.
However inspite of all these security measures, 100%
security can never be ensured as any functionality in the
system adds to the loopholes.

Protection
The components in a system can also be vulnerable to internal
malfunctioning. Just consider the situation that normal users are
allowed to add new users. So any body can be bribed or made
to create a new user which makes intrusion so easy. Lets take
another situation. Just suppose that a normal user can modify
the configuration file that contains information for the network
configuration. As he does not have the knowledge of the full
network, his modifications may lead to a situation that the next
day the network doesnt work. Securing the components of the
system against these kinds of problems is known as Protection.

Ways to ensure protection

The most widely used technique for ensuring protection is maintaining an
access matrix. The components of the system are called entities. A matrix
is maintained with the entities to protect on one axis and entities to
protect from on the other. The cell corresponding to these two contain the
access rights (Who can access what).

file1

CD Writer

user1

Write
Read
execute

Read

user2

read

Read
Write

That ends our discussion on Operating

Systems
Books suggested
Process Management , Memory Management, Storage Management Fundamentals of
Operating Systems, Silbershatz, Galvin
Security, Encryption Modern Operating Systems, Tanenbaum

Happy Studying!!!!