Operating Systems:

Internals and Design Principles.

CCS3203/
Operating Systems

Threads

[Link] Ibrahim
Introduction
 Processes and Threads
 Multithreading
 Thread Functionality
 Types of Threads
 Windows 7 Thread and SMP Management.

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Processes and Threads
 Processes have two characteristics:
 Resource ownership - process includes a virtual address
space to hold the process image.
 Scheduling/execution path - follows an execution path
that may be interleaved with other processes.
 The unit of resource ownership is referred to as a process or
task.
 The unit of dispatching is referred to as a thread or lightweight
process.
 Multithreading: The ability of an OS to support multiple,
concurrent paths of execution within a single process.

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Single Thread Approaches

 MS-DOS supports a
single user process
and a single thread.
 Some UNIX, support
multiple user
processes but only
support one thread
per process.

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Multithreading

 Java run-time
environment is a
single process with
multiple threads.
 Multiple processes
and threads are
found in Windows,
Solaris, and many
modern versions of
UNIX.

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 Process & Thread information
 In a multithreaded environment, a
process is defined as the unit of
resource allocation and a unit of
protection.
 Associated with processes:
 A virtual address space which holds the
process image
 Protected access to
 Processors,
 Other processes,
 Files,
 I/O resources
 Each thread has
 An execution state (running, ready, etc.).
 Saved thread context when not running.
Single-Threaded and Multithreaded
 An execution stack.
 Some per-thread static storage for local
Process Models
variables.
 Access to the memory and resources of
its process (all threads of a process
share this).
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Benefits of Threads
 Takes less time to create a new thread than a process.
 Less time to terminate a thread than a process.
 Switching between two threads takes less time that
switching processes.
 Threads enhance efficiency in communication between
programs.

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Thread use in a Single-User
Multiprocessing System
 Foreground and background work (e.g. Spreadsheet ).
 Asynchronous processing (e.g. protection against power failure
within a word processor).
 Speed of execution (On thread can compute one batch of data while
another thread reading the next batch from a device)
 Modular program structure

 Several actions that affect all of the threads in a process

 The OS must manage these at the process level.
 Examples:
 Suspending a process involves suspending all threads of the process.
 Termination of a process, terminates all threads within the process.

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Thread Functionality
 Threads have execution states and may synchronize with one
another (Similar to processes).
 We look at these two aspects of thread functionality in turn.
 States.
 Synchronisation.
 The Key states for a thread are (running , Ready, Blocked)
 There are four basic thread operations associated with a
change in thread State
 Spawn : thread within a process may spawn another thread within
the same process,
 Block: When a thread needs to wait for an event
 Issue: will blocking a thread block other, or all, threads
 Unblock : When the event for which a thread is blocked occurs
 Finish : When a thread completes.
 Deallocate register context and stacks

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Thread Execution
Example: Remote Procedure Call using Threads
 A program that
performs two
remote procedure
calls (RPCs) to
two different
hosts , to obtain a
combined result.

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Multithreading on a Uniprocessor

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 Threads Synchronization
 The threads of a process share the same address space and
other resources
 Any alteration of a resource by one thread affects the environment
of the other threads in the same process.
 The issues raised and the techniques used in the synchronization
of threads are, in general, the same as for the synchronization of
processes.

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Types of Threads
 User Level Thread (ULT)

 Kernel level Thread (KLT) also called:

 kernel-supported threads or lightweight processes.

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User-Level Threads (ULTs)

 All thread management is

done by the application.
 The kernel is not aware of
the existence of threads.
 OS schedules the process,
process decides which
thread(s) to run.

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Relationships between ULT
Thread and Process States

system call

Thread 2 needs
some action
performed by
Time out thread 1

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 Relationships between ULT
Thread and Process States
 All of the activity described in the previous Figure takes place in user
space and within a single process. The kernel is unaware of this activity.
The kernel continues to schedule the process as a unit and assigns a
single execution state (Ready, Running, Blocked, etc.) to that process.
 Thread 2 makes a system call that blocks B. For example, an I/O call is
made. This causes control to transfer to the kernel. The kernel invokes I/O
action, places process B in the Blocked state, and switches to another
process(thread 2 of process B is still in the Running state).
 A clock interrupt passes control to the kernel, and the kernel determines
that the currently running process (B) has exhausted its time slice. The
kernel places process B in the Ready state and switches to another
process. (thread 2 of process B is still in the Running state).
 Thread 2 needs some action performed by thread 1 of process B. Thread
2 enters a Blocked state and thread 1 transitions from Ready to Running.
The process itself remains in the Running state.

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 User-level Threads
 Threads managed by a threads library
 Kernel is unaware of presence of threads
 Advantages:
 Thread switching does not require kernel mode privileges.
 Scheduling can be application specific.
 ULTs can run on any OS.
 Disadvantages
 In a typical OS, many system calls are blocking. As a result, when a
ULT executes a system call, not only is that thread blocked, but also
all of the threads within the process are blocked.
 In a pure ULT strategy, a multithreaded application cannot take
advantage of multiprocessing.
 A kernel assigns one process to only one processor at a time. Therefore,
only a single thread within a process can execute at a time.
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 User-level Threads
 Overcoming ULT Disadvantages:
 Writing an application as multiple processes rather than
multiple threads. But this approach eliminates the main
advantage of threads.
 Jacketing . The purpose of jacketing is to convert a blocking
system call into a non-blocking system call.

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Kernel-Level Threads (KLT)
 All of the work of thread
management is done by the kernel.
 Kernel maintains context information
for the process and the threads
 No thread management done by
application, simply an application
programming interface (API) to the
kernel
 Scheduling is done on a thread basis.
 Windows is an example of this
approach.

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 Advantages of KLT
 The kernel can simultaneously schedule multiple threads from
the same process on multiple processors.
 If one thread in a process is blocked, the kernel can schedule
another thread of the same process.
 Kernel routines themselves can be multithreaded.

 Disadvantage of KLT
 The transfer of control from one thread to another within the
same process requires a mode switch to the kernel.

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Combined Approaches

 Thread creation done in the

user space.
 Bulk of scheduling and
synchronization of threads by
the application.

 Example is Solaris

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Windows 7 Thread and SMP Management
 Processes and services provided by the Windows Kernel
are relatively simple and general purpose
 Implemented as objects
 An executable process may contain one or more threads
 Both processes and thread objects have built-in synchronization
capabilities

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Windows Process/ Thread Object

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Thread States

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Windows SMP Support
 Threads can run on any processor
 But an application can restrict affinity
 Soft Affinity
 The dispatcher tries to assign a ready thread to the same
processor it last ran on.
 This helps reuse data still in that processor’s memory caches
from the previous execution of the thread.
 Hard Affinity
 An application restricts threads to certain processor.

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