Process Management

ROBIN MATHUR
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE &
ENGINEERING ,LPU
 Processes
 Process Concept
 Process Scheduling
 Operations on Processes
 Cooperating Processes
 Interprocess Communication
 Communication in Client-Server Systems
A process is a program under execution which is executed from
RAM and essentially comprises of various sections, such as the
Executable instructions, Stack, Heap and also a hidden section
known as the State
 Process

 Program is passive entity stored on disk (executable file),

process is active
 Program becomes process when executable file loaded
into memory
 Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks,
command line entry of its name, etc
 One program can be several processes
 Consider multiple users executing the same program
 Process – a program in execution; process execution must
progress in sequential fashion
 Multiple parts
 The program code, also called text section
 Current activity including program counter, processor
registers
 Stack containing temporary data
 Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
 Data section containing global variables
 Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time
 Process State
 As a process executes, it changes state
 new: The process is being created
 running: Instructions are being executed
 waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur
 ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor
 terminated: The process has finished execution
Diagram of Process State
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process
 Process state
 Program counter
 CPU registers
 CPU scheduling information
 Memory-management information
 Accounting information
 I/O status information
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process
(also called task control block)
 Process state – running, waiting, etc
 Program counter – location of instruction to next
execute
 CPU registers – contents of all process-centric
registers
 CPU scheduling information- priorities, scheduling
queue pointers
 Memory-management information – memory
allocated to the process
 Accounting information – CPU used, clock time
elapsed since start, time limits
 I/O status information – I/O devices allocated to
process, list of open files
CPU Switch From Process to Process
 Process Scheduling

 Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU

for time sharing
 Process scheduler selects among available processes
for next execution on CPU
 Maintains scheduling queues of processes
 Job queue – set of all processes in the system
 Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main
memory, ready and waiting to execute
 Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O
device
 Processes migrate among the various queues
Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues
Representation of Process Scheduling
 Schedulers
 Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should
be executed next and allocates CPU
 Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
 Short-term scheduler is invoked frequently (milliseconds)  (must be
fast)
 Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should
be brought into the ready queue
 Long-term scheduler is invoked infrequently (seconds, minutes) 
(may be slow)
 The long-term scheduler controls the degree of multiprogramming
 Processes can be described as either:
 I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than computations,
many short CPU bursts
 CPU-bound process – spends more time doing computations; few very
long CPU bursts
 Long-term scheduler strives for good process mix
Addition of Medium Term Scheduling

 Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of multiple

programming needs to decrease
 Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in
from disk to continue execution: swapping
 Context Switch
 When CPU switches to another process, the system must
save the state of the old process and load the saved
state for the new process via a context switch
 Context of a process represented in the PCB
 Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no
useful work while switching
 The more complex the OS and the PCB  the longer
the context switch
 Time dependent on hardware support
 Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per
CPU  multiple contexts loaded at once
 Process Creation

 Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create

other processes, forming a tree of processes
 Resource sharing
 Parent and children share all resources
 Children share subset of parent’s resources
 Parent and child share no resources
 Execution
 Parent and children execute concurrently
 Parent waits until children terminate
 Process Creation (Cont.)

 Address space
 Child duplicate of parent
 Child has a program loaded into it
 UNIX examples
 fork system call creates new process
 exec system call used after a fork to replace the process’
memory space with a new program
 Process Termination
 Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to
terminate it (exit)
 Output data from child to parent (via wait)
 Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
 Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort)
 Child has exceeded allocated resources
 Task assigned to child is no longer required
 If parent is exiting
 Some operating system do not allow child to continue if its
parent terminates
– All children terminated - cascading termination
 Cooperating Processes

 Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution

of another process
 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of
another process
 Reasons for providing an environment that allows process
cooperation
 Information sharing
 Computation speed-up
 Modularity
 Convenience