Lecture 3

Processes&

Threads
24 August, 2010

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what is a process?

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resource + execution

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typical content of a process control block:

registers, state, priority, pid, parent

program counters, program status word
CPU time used
pointers to memory segments
working directory
opened files
user ID, group ID

etc.
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OS maintains
process table
(one PCB / process)

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 OS saves and
restores PCBs to
context switch
between processes
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when to context switch?

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 blocked I/O
e.g. Java InputStreamʼs read( )

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 interrupt
( I/O or Timer )
e.g. time allocated to a process is used up
or when data arrives over the network

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 ready running

new blocked exit

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which ready process to
run next ?

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 what causes a new
process to be created?

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system initialization
(e.g, Linux init process)

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explicit creation through
system call
(e.g, fork( ), CreateProcess( ))

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 upon user requests
(e.g., double click an icon, typing a command)

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what causes a process
to terminate ?

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finish running
(with or without error)

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 fatal error
(an example from Lab 1)

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killed by another
process
(e.g., kill( ) , TerminateProcess( ))

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recall: process-related
system calls

fork, exec, wait, exit

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fork wait

exec exit

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 consider a
Web browser

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consider a
Web server

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 concurrent multi-process server

while (1)
block until new connection
fork( )
if (is child process)
handle new connection
exit( )

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fork( ) is expensive
(do we really need to duplicate all the
resources ?)

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 threads
same resource, different executions

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a multi-threaded process

global variables, files,

children, address space

stack stack stack

state state state
registers registers registers

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advantages of
multi-threading

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 vs single-threaded
improved responsiveness
exploits parallelism
abstraction for “independent”
sequence of execution
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 vs multi-process

cheaper
allows sharing of resources

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 POSIX Threads API
   pthread_create(  )
   pthread_exit(  )
   pthread_join(  )
   pthread_yield(  )

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thread scheduling
done by either
process or kernel

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