Process and Inter-Process Communication

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By : Amir Hossein Payberah

Contents

What is a Process? Process Control Process Relationship Inter- Process Communication

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What is a Process?

Program

An executable file An instance of a program that is being executed by the OS. Every process has a unique ID (PID).

Process

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Process Management

The Unix OS is a time-sharing system. Each process is represented by a task_struct data structure. The task_vector is an array of pointers to every task_struct data structure in the system.

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Process Statuses

Running

The process is either running or it is ready to run. The process is waiting for an event or for a resource. The process has been stopped, usually by receiving a signal. This is a halted process which, for some reason, still has a task_struct data structure in 5 the task vector.

Waiting

Stopped

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Zombie

Type of Processes

Interactive Process

Initiated from (and controlled by) a shell Run in the background until required

Daemon Process

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Related Commands

ps

Report process status. Display a tree of processes. Run a program with modified scheduling priority. Alter priority of running process. Send signal to a process.
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pstree

nice

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renice

kill

Related Commands
(Cont.)

top

Display top CPU processes. List the active jobs. Place a job in background (similar to &); Place a job in foreground. Stopped a process. Terminate a process.
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jobs

bg

fg

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Ctrl+z

Ctrl+c

Contents

What is a Process? Process Control Process Relationship Inter- Process Communication

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Process Control

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fork and vfork exit wait and waitpid exec signal kill

fork
PID1 PID2

Parent

fork

Child

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fork (cont.)

int fork(); The only way a new process is created by the Unix kernel.

The new process created is called the child process. The child gets a copy of the parents data space, heap and stack. The parent and child dont share these portions of memory.
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The child is a copy of the parent.

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fork (cont.)

This function is called once, but return twice.

The process ID of the new child (to the parent).

A process can have more than one child.

0 (to the child).

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fork Sample
main() { int pid; pid = fork(); if (pid < 0) // error else if (pid == 0) //child else //parent }
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fork (cont.)

We never know if the child starts executing before the parent or vice versa.

This depends on the scheduling algorithm used by the kernel.

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vfork

int = vfork(); It has the same calling sequence and same return values as fork. The child doesnt copy the parent data space.

The child runs in the address space of the parent.

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With vfork, child runs first, then parent runs.

exit

Normal termination

Executing a return from the main function. Calling the exit function. Calling the _exit function. Calling abort. Receives certain signals.

Abnormal termination

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exit (cont.)

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int exit (int state); Sometimes we want the terminating process to be able to notify its parent how it terminated. For the exit and _exit function this is done by passing an exit status as the argument to these two functions. The parent of the process can obtain the termination status from either the wait or waitpid function.
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Termination Conditions

Parent terminate before the child

The init process becomes the parent process of any process whose parent terminated.

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Termination Conditions

Child terminate before the parent

The child is completely disappeared, but the parent wouldnt be able to fetch its termination status. The kernel has to keep a certain amount of information for every terminating process. The process that has terminated, but whose parent has not waited for it, is called zombie.

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wait

When a process terminates, the parent is notified by the kernel sending the parent the SIGCHLD signal. The parent of the process can obtain the termination status from either the wait or waitpid function.

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wait (cont.)

The process that calls wait or waitpid can:

Block (if all of its children are still running) Return immediately with the termination status of a child (if a child has terminated) Return immediately with an error (if it doesnt have any child process)

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wait and waitpid

int wait (int *statloc); int waitpid (int pid, int *statloc, int options);

If statloc is not a null pointer, the termination status of the terminated process is stored in this location.

The difference between these two function:

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wait can block, while waitpid has an option that prevents it from blocking. waitpid doesnt wait for the first child to terminate (it can control which process it waits for)
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exec

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A process cause another program to be executed by calling one of the exec functions. When a process calls one of the exec functions, that process is completely replaced by the new program. The process ID doesnt change across an exec.

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exec functions

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int execl (char *path, char *arg0, /*(char *) 0 */); int execle (char *path, char *arg0, /*(char *) 0, char *envp[] */); int execlp (char *filename, char *arg0, /*(char *) 0 */); int execv (char *pathname, char *argv0[]); int execve (char *pathname, char *argv0[], char *envp[]); int execvp (char *filename, char *envp[]);
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signal

Signals are software interrupts. The name of signals all begin with the three character SIG : SIGABRT

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signal (cont.)

void (*signal (int signo, void (*func) (int))) (int); Kernel do when a signal occurs:

Ignore the signal

Can not ignore : SIGKILL, SIGSTOP

Catch the signal Let the default action apply

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signal Sample
main() { signal (SIGUSER, sig_user); while (1); } //--------------------------------void sig_user (int signo) { if (signo == SIGUSER) printf (receive signal\n); return; }

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kill

int kill (int pid, int signo); Send a signal to a process or group of the processes.

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Contents

What is a Process? Process Control Process Relationship Inter- Process Communication

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Process Relationship
fork fork exec exec fork & exec exec
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fork

fork exec

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Contents

What is a Process? Process Control Process Relationship Inter- Process Communication

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IPC

Pipe FIFO Message queue Shared memory socket

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pipe

It provides a one-way flow of data. It is in the kernel It can only be used between processes that have a parent process in common. Parent Child

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pipe
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pipe (cont.)

int pipe (int *filedes); filedes[0] : open for reading filedes[1] : open for writing pipe command :

who | sort | lpr

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FIFO

It is similar to a pipe. Unlike pipes, a FIFO has a name associated with it (named pipe). It uses a file as a communication way. int mknod (char *path, int mode, int dev)

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mode is ored with S_IFIFO dev is equal 0 for FIFO.

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Name Space

The set of possible names for a given type of IPC is called its name space. The name is how the client and server connect to exchange messages. key_t ftok (char *path, char proj);

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Message Queue

Message queues are a linked list of messages stored within the kernel. We dont have to fetch messages in a first-int, first-out order.

We can fetch messages based on their type field.

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A process wants to impose some structure on the data being transferred.

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Message Queue (cont.)

int msgget (key_t key, int msgflag); A new queue is created, or an existing queue is open by msgget.

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Message Queue (cont.)

int msgsnd(int msgid, void *ptr, size_t len, int flag); Data is placed onto a message queue by calling msgsnd; ptr points to a long integer that contains the positive integer message type, and it is immediately followed by the message data.

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Struct my_msg { long type; char data[SIZE]; }

Message Queue (cont.)

int msgrcv (int msgid, void *ptr, sizet len, long mtype, int flag); The type argument lets us specify which message we want:

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mtype == 0, the first message on the queue mtype > 0, the first message on the queue whose type equals mtype. mtype < 0, the first message on the queue whose type is the lowest value less or equal to the absolute value of mtype.
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Message Queue (cont.)

int msgctl (int msgid, int cmd, struct msgid_ds *buf); The msgctl function performs various operations in a queue.

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Shared memory
Client Server

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Output file

Pipe, FIFO, message

Input file

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Shared memory (cont.)

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Output file

Kernel

Input file

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Shared memory (cont.)

int shmget (key_t key, int size, int flag); A shared memory segment is created, or an existing one is accessed with the shmget system call.

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Shared memory (cont.)

Char *shmat (int shmid, char *shmaddr, int shmfalg); The shmget dose not provide access to the segment for the calling process. We must attach the shared memory segment by calling the shmat system call.

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Shared memory (cont.)

int shmdt (char *shmaddr); When a process is finished with a shared memory segment, it detaches the segment by calling the shmdt system call. This call dose not delete the shared memory segment.

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Shared memory (cont.)

int shmctl (int shmid, int cmd, struct shmid_ds *buf); The msgctl function performs various operations in a shared memory segment.

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Semaphore

Semaphores are a synchronization primitive. To obtain a shared resource:

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Test the semaphore that controls the resource. If the value is positive the process can use the resource. The process decrements the value by 1. If the value is 0, the process goes to sleep until the value is greater than 0.
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Semaphore (cont.)

int semget (key_t key, int nsems, int flag); This function get a semaphore ID. int semctl (int semid, int semnum, int cmd, union semun arg); The semctl function performs various operations in a semaphore.

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Semaphore (cont.)

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int semop (int semid, struct sembuf *semop, size_t nops); Struct sembuf { ushort sem_num; short sem_op; shoet sem_flag; }
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Semaphore (cont.)

Each particular operation is specified by a sem_op value:

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sem_op > 0, this correspond to the release of resources. The sem_op value is added to the current value; sem_op == 0, the caller wants to wait until the semaphores value become zero. sem_op < 0, this correspond to the allocation od resources. The caller wants to wait until the value become greater or equal the absolute value of sem_op. then the absolute value of sem_op is subtracted from the current value.
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Question?
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