Threads

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Chapter 4: Threads

Chapter 4: Threads

 Overview
 Multithreading Models
 Threading Issues
 Pthreads
 Windows XP Threads
 Linux Threads
 Java Threads

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Single and Multithreaded Processes

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Benefits

 Responsiveness

 Resource Sharing

 Economy

 Utilization of MP Architectures

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
User Threads

 Thread management done by user-level threads library

 Three primary thread libraries:


 POSIX Pthreads
 Win32 threads
 Java threads

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Kernel Threads

 Supported by the Kernel

 Examples
 Windows XP/2000
 Solaris
 Linux
 Tru64 UNIX
 Mac OS X

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Multithreading Models

 Many-to-One

 One-to-One

 Many-to-Many

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Many-to-One

 Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread


 Examples:
 Solaris Green Threads
 GNU Portable Threads

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Many-to-One Model

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One-to-One

 Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread


 Examples
 Windows NT/XP/2000
 Linux
 Solaris 9 and later

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
One-to-one Model

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Many-to-Many Model

 Allows many user level threads to be mapped to many kernel


threads
 Allows the operating system to create a sufficient number of
kernel threads
 Solaris prior to version 9
 Windows NT/2000 with the ThreadFiber package

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Many-to-Many Model

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Two-level Model

 Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be


bound to kernel thread
 Examples
 IRIX
 HP-UX
 Tru64 UNIX
 Solaris 8 and earlier

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Two-level Model

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Threading Issues

 Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls


 Thread cancellation
 Signal handling
 Thread pools
 Thread specific data
 Scheduler activations

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Semantics of fork() and exec()

 Does fork() duplicate only the calling thread or all threads?

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Thread Cancellation

 Terminating a thread before it has finished


 Two general approaches:
 Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target
thread immediately
 Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to
periodically check if it should be cancelled

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Signal Handling

 Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a


particular event has occurred
 A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled
 Options:
 Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
 Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
 Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
 Assign a specific threa to receive all signals for the process

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Thread Pools

 Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work


 Advantages:
 Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing
thread than create a new thread
 Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be
bound to the size of the pool

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Thread Specific Data

 Allows each thread to have its own copy of data


 Useful when you do not have control over the thread
creation process (i.e., when using a thread pool)

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Scheduler Activations

 Both M:M and Two-level models require communication to


maintain the appropriate number of kernel threads allocated
to the application
 Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a communication
mechanism from the kernel to the thread library
 This communication allows an application to maintain the
correct number kernel threads

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Pthreads

 A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread


creation and synchronization
 API specifies behavior of the thread library,
implementation is up to development of the library
 Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux,
Mac OS X)

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Windows XP Threads

 Implements the one-to-one mapping


 Each thread contains
 A thread id
 Register set
 Separate user and kernel stacks
 Private data storage area
 The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known
as the context of the threads
 The primary data structures of a thread include:
 ETHREAD (executive thread block)
 KTHREAD (kernel thread block)
 TEB (thread environment block)

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Linux Threads

 Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads


 Thread creation is done through clone() system call
 clone() allows a child task to share the address space
of the parent task (process)

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Java Threads

 Java threads are managed by the JVM

 Java threads may be created by:

 Extending Thread class


 Implementing the Runnable interface

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Java Thread States

Operating System Concepts – 7th edition, Jan 23, 2005 4.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
End of Chapter 4

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