MEDIA AND STORAGE

Today
 Operating systems
 What are they for
 What do they do
Not really
 I wouldn’t use that OS
 But what does that mean and why?
 Is there something I’m looking for?

 Youwill be able to answer these questions

and many more
Today
 Operating systems
 What are they for
 What do they do
Operating Systems
 Group discussion
 What is an operating system ?
 What are its key functions ?
 How many OS can you name
Versions of OS
 There is over 600 main stream OS’s
 Windows Is not the only OS
 MicroSoft are not the only OS makers
 Just a Few of them #
Operating System
 They all have the same basics in
common
 What are they ?
 Manages the resources of the hardware
 Attempts to optimise use of available
resources by enabling and controlling
application access.
O/S functions
 Scheduling
 Memory Management
 File System
 Device Management
Typical O/S structure
User

Applications
Librarie
s
System Function
Calls
Kernel

Hardware Abstraction
Device Device
driver driver
O/S structure
 Applications : programs used by users
or other programs
 Libraries : re-usable code implementing
useful functions
 System calls : points of interaction with
the kernel
O/S structure

 Kernel - the main part of the O/S

 kernel implements the critical
functions and is, usually, the only
program which is guaranteed to get
access to all resources.
 responsible for starting, managing
and ending ALL other programs in
the system
 CANNOT be interrupted/terminated
by anything except itself.
O/S structure

 Hardware Abstraction Layer

 found in modern portable O/S
 capable of running on different
architectures
 Provides a standardised view of the
underlying hardware through a
virtual machine implementation
 O/S need not know much/anything
about the real hardware
Device drivers
 Plug into H.A.L. to allow access to real
hardware.
 Translate from O/S command to real
device commands
 e.g. allow O/S to work with ANY storage
device (ATA, SATA, USB) transparently
 e.g. allow O/S to use ANY graphics
device
Example

 Unix streams model of I/O

 Unix treats ALL Input/Output
devices as streams
 a sequence of bits which can be
read/written
 File system is implemented on top
of the device stream
 filesystem is ALSO a stream
 so are files...
So...
 what does this mean for DE examiners ?
Examining devices
 Applying ACPO principles means that
we usually have to produce a verifiably
accurate copy of the device to be
examined
 How ?
Old method
 When HAL was less-common
 Device to device copy using an
IDENTICAL target device
 Not always successful
 subtle difference between devices (bad
block positions etc.)
Current Method
 Apply streams concept and perform a
bitwise copy
 Contents of device copied to some
medium
 file, partition etc.
Why is this valid ?
 Interpretation of data is independent of
hardware
 Bitwise copy can be shown to be
equivalent to the device at all levels
above device driver
 stream is already an abstract view of the
device
Verifying equivalence
 Compute “hashes’
 a mathemetical operation using all
data in the input
 provides a near-unique “signature”
for the stream
 very low probability that any two
different streams will generate the
same hash
 e.g. MD5 gives 128 bit = 1 in 2^128
chance of collision
Proposition
 hash(device)=hash(copied stream) =>
copied stream can be used as if it is the
device for investigation

 Is this acceptable ?
Operating System
 Performs system management
 Scheduling
 Resource access control
 Resource allocation
Share fairly
 In groups work out the best method for
 Sharing a cake when
2 people love the cake and what to have more
than the other
 3 people love the cake and what to have more
than the other
O/S Critical functions :
Scheduling
 Scheduling - deciding which program
(process) should be running now

Running Waiting

Blocked
Scheduling
 Only one process can be running at any
time
 O/S “timeslices” to create appearance
of parallelism
 Data for waiting or blocked processes is
held in RAM or swapped to disk
O/S Critical functions :
Filesystem
 File-system management
 Managing storage devices
 Deciding where to write data on
 disk, memory devices, etc.
 Detecting device errors
 Tracking used (allocated) space
 Tracking unused (unallocated) space
 Dealing with file deletion
Filesystems
 There are more file systems than
O/S
 Most O/S support multiple file
systems
 File systems have their own
strengths, weaknesses
What does this mean and
idiosyncrasies
 All have the same 4 basic
operations
C RUD
 Create,
 read,
O/S
 is “god” in the system
 ALL programs MUST request access to
resources via the O/S
 Programs only run if the O/S allows
them to
 => understanding of O/S is crucial