System Calls & Libraries

Vivek Pai Lecture 4, COS318 Sep 25, 2001

Gedankundmathematics
Recall the pointer verification case for fread( ) Can you speed up the checking process? Whats the best you could achieve? O(n)? O(logn)? O(1)? What happens if you have >32 bits?

Aside: # atoms in universe = 1080, or 2256

Does this provide any other benefits?

System Calls & Libraries

Mechanics

Is the project workable?

Has everyone started? Barring major problems, due Tuesday midnight

Readings updated

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Protection Issues

I/O protection

Prevent users from performing illegal I/Os

Memory protection

Prevent users from modifying kernel code and data structures

Prevent a user from using the CPU for too long
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CPU protection

Protection Is Not Safety/Security

Protection is a prerequisite Safety can be separation of concerns Security related to overall design

Examples? Bad pointer access causing seg fault Sniffing cleartext passwords on the wire
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Support in Modern Processors: User Kernel

An interrupt or exception (INT)

User mode Regular instructions Access user-mode memory

Kernel (privileged) mode Regular instructions Access user-mode memory

A special instruction (IRET) 6

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Why a Privileged Mode?

Special Instructions

Mapping, TLB, etc Device registers I/O channels, etc. Processor features

Mode Bits

Device access
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x86 Protection Rings

Privileged instructions Can be executed only When current privileged Level (CPR) is 0

Operating system kernel Operating system services Applications

Level 0 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

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Other Design Approaches

Capabilities

Fine-grained access control Crypto-like tokens OS services in user space Small core hypervisor

Microkernels

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Monolithic

All kernel routines are together A system call interface Examples:

User program

User program

entry Kernel many many things

Linux Most Unix OS NT

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Monolithic Pros and Cons

Pros Relatively few crossings Shared kernel address space Performance
Cons Flexibility Stability Experimentation
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Layered Structure

Hiding information at each layer Develop a layer at a time Examples

Level N . . . Level 2 Level 1 Hardware

THE (6 layers) MS-DOS (4 layers)

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Layering Pros and Cons

Pros Separation of concerns Simplicity / elegance
Cons Boundary crossings Performance?

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Microkernel

Micro-kernel is micro Services are implemented as regular process Micro-kernel get services on behalf of users by messaging with the service processes Examples: Taos, Mach, L4

User program

Services

entry m-kernel

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Microkernel Pros and Cons

Pros Easier to develop services Fault isolation Customization Smaller kernel => easier to optimize
Cons Lots of boundary crossings Really poor performance
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Virtual Machine

Virtual machine monitor

provide multiple virtual real hardware run different OS codes IBM VM/370 virtual 8086 mode Java VMWare

user OS1 VM1 ...

user OSn VMn

Example

Small kernel

Bare hardware

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Hardware Support

What is the minimal support? Can virtual machine be protected without such support?
Hint: what is a Turing machine?

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System Call Mechanism

User code can be arbitrary User User User code cannot modify program program kernel memory Makes a system call with parameters The call mechanism switches entry code to kernel mode Kernel in Execute system call protected memory Return with results
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Interrupt and Exceptions

Interrupt Sources

Hardware (by external devices) Software: INT n

Exceptions

Program error: faults, traps, and aborts Software generated: INT 3 Machine-check exceptions

See Intel document chapter 5, volume 3 for details

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Interrupt and Exceptions (1)

Vector # 0 Mnemonic #DE Description Divide error (by zero) Type Fault

1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

#DB
#BP #OF #BR #UD #NM #DF #TS

Debug
NMI interrupt Breakpoint Overflow BOUND range exceeded Invalid opcode Device not available Double fault Coprocessor segment overrun Invalid TSS
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Fault/trap
Interrupt Trap Trap Trap Fault Fault Abort Fault

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Interrupt and Exceptions (2)

Vector # 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19-31 32-255 #MF #AC #MC Mnemonic #NP #SS #GP #PF Description Segment not present Stack-segment fault General protection Page fault Reserved Floating-point error (math fault) Alignment check Machine check Reserved User defined
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Type Fault Fault Fault Fault Fault Fault Fault Abort Interrupt

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System Calls

Interface between a process and the operating system kernel Categories

Process management Memory management File management Device management Communication

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OS Kernel: Trap Handler

HW Device Interrupt System Service Call HW exceptions SW exceptions Virtual address exceptions Exception dispatcher Exception handlers
Sys_call_table

Interrupt service routines

System service dispatcher

System services

VM managers pager HW implementation of the boundary

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Passing Parameters

Affects and depends on

Architecture Compiler OS

Different choices for different purposes

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Passing Parameters - Registers

Place parameters in registers # of registers # of usable registers # of parameters in system call Spill/fill code in compiler
Really fast
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Passing Parameters - Vector

Register holds vector address Single register Vector in users memory Nothing horrible, just not common

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Passing Parameters - Stack

Place parameters on stack Similar to vector approach Stack already exists Gets copied anyway
Top

frame
frame

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Library Stubs for System Calls

Use read( fd, buf, size) as an example:

int read( int fd, char * buf, int size) { move fd, buf, size to R1, R2, R3 move READ to R0 Linux: 80 int $0x80 NT: 2E move result to Rresult }

User stack

User memory Registers Registers

Kernel stack

Kernel memory

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System Call Entry Point

Assume passing parameters in registers

EntryPoint: switch to kernel stack save context check R0 call the real code pointed by R0 restore context switch to user stack iret (change to user mode and return)

User stack

User memory Registers Registers

Kernel stack

Kernel memory

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Design & Performance Issues

Can user code lie? One result register large results? Parameters in user memory Multiprocessors

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General Design Aesthetics

Simplicity, obviousness Generality same call handles many cases Composition / decomposition

But: Expressiveness Performance

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Separation Of Concerns
Memory management Kernel allocates pages hw protection Programs use malloc( ) fine grained Kernel doesnt care about small allocs

Allocates pages to library Library handles malloc/free

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Library Benefits

Call overhead

Chains of alloc/free dont go to kernel

Flexibility easy to change policy

Fragmentation Coalescing, free list management

Easier to program

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Feedback To The Program

System calls, libraries are program to OS What about other direction?

Various exceptional conditions General information, like screen resize

When would this occur?

Answer: signals
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