Theory of Operating Systems, ICS 612

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Instructor: Edo Biagioni, esb@hawaii.edu. See here for office hours.

The administrative information for this course is here.

If you have any questions, please contact the instructor.

Schedule

Presentation outlines are in pdf. I usually post these no later than the day before the lecture.

This schedule is loosely based on the same course taught in the Spring 2021. If you wish to look ahead, please refer to that courses, since many of the same subjects will be covered, although details may vary.

• Mon, Jan 9. Course introductions.
  Overview
  • course overview
  • why study operating systems?
  • theory and implementation
  • a range of operating systems
  • historical background
• Wed, Jan 11. Shells and Processes.
  Overview
  • shells and window systems
  • what is and what isn't part of the operating system?
  • starting programs
  • processes
  • pipes
  • scripting languages
  Project 1 assigned, due February 1st.
• Wed, Jan 18. Install Minix, and maybe Linux and/or seL4 -- come to class, but no lecture. If possible, please bring your device, and if possible, please install a virtual machine such as qemu or vmware before coming to class.
  Please see the administrative page for details, under the heading "System".
• Mon, Jan 23. Processes and Schedulers.
  Overview
  • project 1 (review)
  • scripting languages
  • processes and threads
  Assignment (not graded): write small test programs to become comfortable with pthreads and mutexes.
• Wed, Jan 25. The seL4 kernel.
  Overview
  • thread synchronization
  • process table
  • schedulers
  • interrupts and context switch
  • layered operating system
  • layered operating system
  Read, understand, and run thread_example.c and ThreadExample.java.
• Mon, Jan 30. SeL4 and System Calls. Chapter 1.3 and 1.4 of the textbook
  Overview
  • seL4
  • capabilities
  • seL4 API and Objects
  • seL4 threads
  • seL4 scheduler
  • Posix system calls
  • Minix system calls
  Links:
  • the seL4 main page and publications page.
  Assignment: read Chapter 1 of the textbook, with particular emphasis on Section 1.3. Also read Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of the seL4 Reference Manual, by February 4th.
• Wed, Feb 1. System Calls, Virtual Machines, introduction to Scheduling. Chapter 1.5
  Overview
  • Posix system calls
  • Minix system calls
  • virtual machines
  • scheduling:
    • round-robin scheduling
    • priority scheduling
    • modified priority scheduling
    • real-time scheduling
  Links:
  • /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/asm/unistd_64.h from a recent (2021) Linux
  • servers/vfs/table.c list of system calls to the file system server in Minix 3
  • servers/pm/table.c list of system calls to process manager server
  • instructions for how to add a system call to Minix 3 (originally at http://www.cis.syr.edu/~wedu/seed/Documentation/Minix3/How_to_add_system_call.pdf)
  • exercise to add a system call to Minix 3
  • A list of Posix calls can be found here under System Interfaces.
  Project 2 assigned, due February 13th.
• Mon, Feb 6. Scheduling. Chapter 2.4. Chapters 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 (2.6 is long). Also study and understand the Minix code in kernel/proc.c, with particular attention to sched, mini_send, and mini_receive.
  Overview
  • scheduling: round-robin, priority (and modified priority), real-time
  • seL4 and Minix scheduling
  • Interprocess communication
  • Race conditions
  • Locks
  • Pipes
  • Message passing, including in Minix
  • Monitors
  Links:
  • seL4/src/kernel/thread.c
  • seL4 scheduling model
• Wed, Feb 8.
  Presentation
  • Special kinds of locks
  • Pipes
  • Message passing, including in Minix
  • Minix context switch and interrupt handling
  • seL4 interrupt handling
  Links:
  • Current Minix source code
  • mpx.S
  • interrupt.c
  • Current seL4 source code
  • Fifty Years of Operating Systems and Lessons learned from 30 years of Minix
• Mon, Feb 13. Minix context switch.
  Presentation
  • Minix interrupt handling
  • seL4 interrupt handling
  • Minix system call handling
  • Minix kernel synchronization
  • Minix process suspension and reactivation
  • a.out and kernel executable formats
  • booting
• Wed, Feb 15. Minix system calls, synchronization, and process suspension and reactivation.
  Presentation
  • a.out and kernel executable formats
• Wed, Feb 22. Exam review. Textbook chapters 1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, seL4 manual chapters 2 and 3.
  Presentation
  • shell, fork, and exec
  • Posix system calls
  • kernel structure: monolithic, microkernel, layered
  • processes, threads, scheduling, context switch
  • virtual machines
  • IPC, races, locks, deadlocks, monitors, pipes, and message passing
  • Minix
  • seL4
• Mon, Feb 27. Midterm Exam 1.
• Wed, Mar 1. I/O. Textbook sections 3.1 and 3.2.
  Presentation
  • booting
  • I/O hardware
  • DMA
  • structure of I/O software
  Links:
  • Datasheet for the PIC 12F675. The description of the A/D converter is in section 7, beginning on page 41.
  Project 3 assigned. Part 1 is due March 8th, Part 2 is due March 20th.
• Mon, Mar 6. I/O. Textbook sections 3.1 and 3.2. Virtual Memory. Textbook sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3.
  Presentation
  • structure of I/O software
  • device drivers
  • daemons
  • Virtual Memory: Minix, Linux, seL4
• Wed, Mar 8. Virtual Memory. Textbook sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3.
  Presentation
  • Virtual Memory
  • Virtual Memory in Minix
  • Virtual Memory in Linux
  • Virtual Memory in seL4
  • Minix device drivers
  • Minix block driver and block I/O
  • Minix RAM disk driver
  Links:
  • seL4 Reference Manual, Chapter 7.
  • include/linux/mm_types.h
  • include/linux/mm.h
• Mon, Mar 20. Textbook sections 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6
  Presentation
  • Virtual Memory in Linux
  • Virtual Memory in seL4
  • Minix device drivers
  • Minix block driver and block I/O
  • Minix RAM disk driver
• Wed, Mar 22. Textbook sections 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
  Presentation
  • Minix device drivers
  • Minix block driver and block I/O
  • Minix RAM disk driver
  Project 4 assigned, due April 10th.
• Mon, Mar 27. Holiday, Prince Kuhio day.
• Wed, Mar 29. Textbook sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6
  Presentation
  • Minix block driver and block I/O
  • Minix RAM disk driver
  • Minix hard disk driver
  • Minix terminal driver
  • Memory management
  Links:
  • servers/vm/alloc.c
  • drivers/storage/memory/memory.c
  Links for Linux memory management (generally for Linux version 2, which seems better documented than any later version):
  • The Linux Documentation Project has a detailed description of memory management in Linux, mostly focused on the implementation of virtual memory.
  • Mel Gorman posted (in 2007) a very detailed description of the internals of Linux virtual memory.
  • There is an entire website devoted to Linux memory management, including both how a system administrator might optimize the virtual memory, and how the memory management works internally
• Mon, Apr 3. Exam Review. Textbook sections 3.1-3.6, 4.1-4.6 seL4 Reference Manual, Chapter 7.
  Presentation
  • booting
  • I/O hardware, DMA, I/O software
  • device drivers
  • virtual memory
• Wed, Apr 5. Midterm Exam 2.
• Mon, Apr 10. Textbook sections 4.7 and 4.8.
  Presentation
  • Minix hard disk driver
  • Minix terminal driver
  • Memory management
  • Minix Exec
  • Linux Modules
  • Signals
• Wed, Apr 12.
  Presentation
  • Memory management
  • Minix Exec
  • Linux Modules
  • Signals
  Links:
  • minix/lib/libc/sys/execve.c
  • signal(7)
  Project 5 assigned, due April 14th (first draft) and April 18th (final version).
• Mon, Apr 17. Textbook sections 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5
  Presentation
  • File Systems
  • File System implementation
  Project 6 assigned, due May 1st.
• Wed, Apr 19.
  Presentation
  • file system implementation
  • file system reliability
  • file system performance
• Mon, Apr 24. Textbook sections 5.6, 5.7.
  Presentation
  • file system reliability
  • file system performance
  • Minix FS in-memory data structures
• Wed, Apr 26. Distributed computing and security overview.
  Presentation
  • distributed computing
  • security overview
  • more Minix FS
  Links:
  • Multics Security Evaluation: Vulnerability Analysis (1974)
  • Thirty Years Later: Lessons from the Multics Security Evaluation (2002)
  • Reflections on Trusting Trust (1984)
• Mon, May 1. Course Review.
  Presentation
  • operating systems overview
  • interfaces: APIs, shells, window systems
  • processes and threads, scheduling, interrupts, IPC and synchronization, context switches
  • exec, fork, memory management, signals
  • I/O and device drivers
  • file systems
  • security
  • operating system structure: distributed, cluster, and grid computing
  • projects
  • discussion
• Wed, May 3. Student Presentations on project 6 or other topic.

The final exam may be taken early -- if interested, please speak with the instructor.