CSCI 332

Operating Systems

POSIX threads

Prof. Dimitrios Zorbas

 Today’s class
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Week 3: Threads
– Issues with threads
– Linux threads
– POSIX Threads
– Examples
 Issues with threads
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What will happen if a thread invokes fork?
– Copy the entire process?
– Copy only that thread?
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How can we send signals to a specific thread?
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How can we stop a thread while it is executing
something?
– Asynchronous and deferred cancellation
 Threads on Linux
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Does not distinguish between threads and
processes
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The clone() system call is used to determine what
will be shared with the child (thread) task
– Flags are used to do so (e.g., CLONE_FS, CLONE_VM)
– man clone for more info
 POSIX
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Portable Operating System Interface
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Standard to unify the programs and system calls
that many different OS provide
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX for more
information
 Pthreads
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Pthreads (POSIX threads) is a standard or API for
doing threading
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Specification, not implementation
●
Can be implemented using User threading or
Kernel threading
●
Users can be oblivious of the underlying
implementation
 Linux Thread Implementation
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Linux Native POSIX Thread Library (LNPT)
– Since kernel v2.6
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Library: Implemented in the form of a library (that you have to link to your
program)
– #include <pthread.h>
●
Rely on kernel to create / schedule threads
→ Comparison with Windows Thread API
– Not POSIX compliant but Pthreads ports exist
 Pthread API
●
man pthreads

int pthread_create(pthread_t * thread,

const pthred_attr_t * attr,
void * (*start_routine)(void *),
void * arg);

void pthread_exit(void * value_ptr);

int pthread_join(pthread_t thread, void ** value_ptr);
int pthread_cancel(pthread_t thread);
int pthread_detach(void);
 pthread_create()
Arguments:
●
thread - returns the thread id. (unsigned long int defined in bits/pthreadtypes.h)
●
attr - Set to NULL if default thread attributes are used. (else define members of the struct pthread_attr_t defined
in bits/pthreadtypes.h) Attributes include:
– detached state (joinable? Default: PTHREAD_CREATE_JOINABLE. Other option: PTHREAD_CREATE_DETACHED)
– scheduling policy (real-time? PTHREAD_INHERIT_SCHED,PTHREAD_EXPLICIT_SCHED,SCHED_OTHER) scheduling
parameter
– inheritsched attribute (Default: PTHREAD_EXPLICIT_SCHED Inherit from parent thread: PTHREAD_INHERIT_SCHED)
– scope (Kernel threads: PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM User threads: PTHREAD_SCOPE_PROCESS Pick one or the other not
both.)
– guard size
– stack address (See unistd.h and bits/posix_opt.h _POSIX_THREAD_ATTR_STACKADDR)
– stack size (default minimum PTHREAD_STACK_SIZE set in pthread.h),
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void * (*start_routine) - pointer to the function to be threaded. Function has a single argument: pointer to void.
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*arg - pointer to argument of function. To pass multiple arguments, send a pointer to a structure.
 Example
#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>

void *print_message_function( void *ptr ){

char *message;
message = (char *) ptr;
printf("%s \n", message);
}

int main(){
pthread_t thread1, thread2;
char *message1 = "Hello from Thread 1";
char *message2 = "Hello from Thread 2";

int ret1 = pthread_create( &thread1, NULL, print_message_function, (void*) message1);

int ret2 = pthread_create( &thread2, NULL, print_message_function, (void*) message2);

return 0;
}
 Questions
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Are these two threads, orphan threads ?

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Do these two threads invoke a system call ?
 pthread_join()
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The main process waits for a thread to terminate
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int pthread_join(pthread_t thread, void **retval);

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Change the previous code to use pthread_join()
 pthread_self()
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Returns the thread id (this is not the PID!)

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Change the previous code to print out the thread
ids
 pthread_yield()
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Gives up using CPU resources so other threads can
make use of the CPU
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Implemented using sched_yield()
– Requires #include <sched.h>
To be continued...
Any questions?
 What to read
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Dino book: 4.4.1, 4.6.1-3, 4.7.2
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Tanenbaum book: 2.2.2–2.2.6, 10.3-10.3.3
 Next class:
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Week 3: Threads
– Commands
– OpenMP
– Pthreads examples