Winter
2013/14

Operating Systems Principles II (Master)
 


Computer Science Department
Systems Architecture Group

 
Abstract: An operating system (OS) is the software responsible for controlling and managing hardware and basic system operations, as well as running application software such as word processing programs, Web browsers, and many others. In general, the operating system is the first layer of software loaded into memory when a computer starts up. All other software that gets loaded after it depends on the operating system to provide various common core services, such as disk access, memory management, process scheduling, and user interfaces. As operating systems evolve, ever more services are expected to be common core. These days, an OS may be required to provide network and Internet connectivity and also to protect the computer's other software from damage by malicious programs, such as viruses. Operating systems in widespread use on personal computers (PC) have consolidated into two families: the Microsoft Windows family and the Unix-like family. Mainframe computers and embedded systems use a variety of different operating systems, many with no direct connection to Windows or Unix.

Building Operating Systems is much about studying existing systems, knowing common problems, knowing what other people did, and figuring out if their ideas can be applied to a given new problem. These long-lasting principles - as opposed to implementation details and user interfaces of today's systems/software - is what this lecture is about.
 
Synopsis:
  • Praktische Informatik, Master, 8 SP.
  • Offered regularly, at least once every two years, usually in winter.
  • 2 lectures per week, 2h each, over one semester (4SWS VL).
  • 1 lab (Übungen/Praktikum) per week, 2h each, over one semester (2SWS UE).

Credits and grading:

  • There will be a few, short, unannounced, closed-book quizzes to verify your existence and to test your understanding.
  • To qualify for the final written examination (at the end of the semester), you have to complete all lab assignments to the satisfaction of the teaching assistant (70% of all points).
  • Regular class attendance is expected; frequent absences are grounds for a failing grade regardless of other performance. You may be missing up to 1 lecture per semester without prior and reasonable excuse. 'prior' means notification by email before the end of business the day before the lecture. 'reasonable' means sickness or study-related events that require your attendance.
  • Lectures begin on time. Students arriving more than 10 minutes late will not be admitted to the lecture and will be counted as 'missing' that day.

Lab (Praktikum):

Lab-0: Lab-Overview, Matlab (examples), Lab-0 (Make-Performance)
Lab-1: Events & Threads (Beispiele)
Lab-2: EventQueue (Beispiele, Aufgabenvorlage)
Lab-3: C++11 (Beispiele)
Lab-4: FUSE (Beispiel: hello_fs), Aufgabe (securefs), Vorlage für die Aufgabe, Readlink
Lab-5: Valgrind (Beispiele)
Lab-6: Cache Performance (Beispiel)
Lab-7: Byzantine generals
Lab-8: Byzantine generals 2
Lab-9: Consistency
Lab-10: Overview


Syllabus:

  1. Getting Started

    Lecture slides: Getting Started

    Requitred Reading: how-to-read-a-paper
     

    How to read a scientific paper?

    1. Read for an overview. What is the purpose of this work?
    2. Read again, with focus on the "story". Annotate the paper.
    3. Read one more time, with focus on the details. Have a discussion with others. Take notes of arguments that came up during the discussion.
       
    Examples   original paper   anotated paper   discussion notes
    Rethink the Sync rethink-sync rethink-sync_a rethink-sync_n
    Practical, transparent operating system support for superpages superpages superpages_a superpages_n
    Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX Server esx esx_a esx_n
    Eliminating Receive Livelock in an Interrupt-Driven Kernel livelock livelock_a livelock_n
    Generalized File System Dependencies featherstitch featherstitch_a featherstitch_n



     

  2. Thread vs. Event -based Concurrency

    Lecture Slides:    (final set as of 2013-11-14)

    Required Reading:     Threads Cannot Be Implemented As a Library  by Hans-J. Boehm
     

    Recommended Reading:

    Additional  Reading:
     

     

  3. Local (HDD) Filesystems - revisited

    ( The hard life of a hard drive - The tension between performance and durability/reliability. )

    Lecture Slides:   (final set as of 2013-12-17)

    Required Reading:   Failure_Trends_in_a_Large_Disk_Drive_Population
    optional (not required):     More than an interface — SCSI vs. ATA
     

    Recommended Reading:

    Additional Reading (common production file systems):


     

  4. Remote (access to) Filesystems

    Lecture Slides:   (final set as of 2014-01-08)

    Recommended Reading:

     

  5. Data Center Storage Clusters

    Lecture Slides:   (final set as of 2014-01-15)
    Lecture Slides:   (DHT,Dynamo - as of 2014-01-07)

    Recommended Reading:

     

  6. Concepts: Time, Consistency and Consensus

    6.1  Consistency

         Lecture Slides:   (final set as of 2014-01-20)

         Recommended Reading:

     

6.2  Time, Clocks

    Lecture Slides:   Uhr-Zeit   (final set as of 2014-01-27)
    Lecture Slides:   Clock Synchronization (final set as of 2014-01-27)
    Lecture Slides:   Logical Time (final set as of 2014-01-27)
 

     Recommended Reading:

      Additional Material:

 

6.3  Consensus

     Lecture Slides:     RAFT  (final set as of 2014-01-22)
     Lecture Slides:     Byzantine Generals  (final set as of 2014-02-06)

     Recommended Reading:

  1. (Google's) Spanner

      Lecture Slides:    Spanner (final set as of 2014-02-12)

      Recommended Reading:

     

  2. System/Language-Level Security, Fault Isolation

    Lecture Slides:  not yet available
     

     

  3. Lawyers, Guns and Money: Open Source Software

    Lecture Slides:   (very early draft - as of 2014-01-27)

     

    • motivation for "free software" ("free" as in "free speech" and not as in "free beer")
    • intellectual property law (US, Europe)
    • common "free" License Models
    • open software based business models
    • famous  open source projects / business models

     

 Links
Stanford
CS 140
Princeton
Cos 318
HPI-Potsdam
Prof. Polze: Operating Systems Principles
Middleware
(Prof.Redlich, HU-B)
Security Engineering
(Dr.Müller, HU-B)
Secure SysAdmin
(Dr.Bell, HU-B)
Unix API and Tools
(Dr.Bell, HU-B)
IBM Mainframes
(Profs.Redlich/Spruth)
Rechnerkommunikation I
(Dr.Sommer, HU-B)
Rechnerkommunikation II
(Dr.Sommer, HU-B)
Mobile/Embedded Systems
(Dr.Richling, HU-B)

Book: Silberschatz
OS Principles

Open VMS
HP Documentation

MIT
Exokernel Operating System
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