January 10: Introduction

Up to this point in the semester we have covered the following topics (in bold) out of the "syllabus" list above, through a combination of lectures, readings, and the homework assignments.

synchronization primitives; threads and concurrent execution; critical sections; locking; deadlock, livelock
Basic operating system designs and structures, OS history
IDT; interrupts; system initialization; privilege levels; segment descriptors
hardware support for segmentation and paging; page permissions
traps and interrupts; call gates
System calls
process supervision; ptrace; debugging
binary file format; ELF
Process creation, meta-data, management, and scheduling
Thread management from the kernel viewpoint
Memory hierarchy, Memory management, virtual memory, DMA; page faults, page replacement
Device I/O; disk scheduling algorithms
Files and file systems; attributes, VFS; file system case study
File locking
Network stack, filtering architecture
kernel instrumentation; kprobes; SystemTap

March 1: Midterm Exam

You should consider studying the things that are pointed out on this wiki with an exclamation point.

You have 1 hour and 15 minutes for this individual written exercise.

The TA will proctor the exam. Prof. Locasto will not be present. If you have a question, the TA can offer clarification of a term or concept, but will not offer explanation. Students may use both course textbooks (MOS, ULK) and 1 page of notes (this may be single or double sided and of any font size of your choice). You may not use a calculator, phone, computer, or other digital device. Leave these devices at home or in your bag.

The questions appear in no particular order of difficulty. Skip questions if you feel unsure and come back to them. Please write your name and email address on the test sheet. Answers may be provided directly on the test sheet. Answers should be terse, succinct, and otherwise concise. Diagrams and lists are welcomed and encouraged. Very long prose answers are likely to represent long, rambling, and incorrect answers.

March 6: Signals

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/Signals

March 8: Memory Addressing

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/MemAddr

March 13: The Process Address Space

Here we consider the general abstraction as well as how the Linux kernel supports "memory regions" (vm areas).

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/ProcAddrSpace

March 15: Virtual Memory

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/VirtualMemory

March 20: Page Replacement

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/PageReplacement

March 22: Kernel Memory Management

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/KernMem

March 27: File I/O

File. File input-ouput. Permissions. Attributes. Functions (open/read/write/close/lseek/stat). Threads, processes, and file locking.

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/FileIO

March 29: Filesystems

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/Filesystems

April 3: VFS and Ext3

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/VFS

April 5: Extended Attributes

USRI for the first 15 minutes of class.

Support for extended attributes, labels, and ACLs.

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/XAttr

April 10: Disk Scheduling

A consideration of low-level I/O and how to schedule rotational media requests.

Courses/Computer_Science/CPSC_457.W2012/Lecture Notes/DiskScheduling

12 April: Final Exam Review

Today's topic will be dynamically determined by popular vote on a Piazza poll.

Today is CPSC Industry Day and the Undergraduate Showcase. I encourage you to attend after class.

Final Exam Review

Up to this point in the semester we have covered the following topics (in bold) out of the "syllabus" list, through a combination of lectures, tutorials, readings, and the homework assignments.

synchronization primitives; threads and concurrent execution; critical sections; locking; deadlock, livelock
Basic operating system designs and structures, OS history
IDT; interrupts; system initialization; privilege levels; segment descriptors
hardware support for segmentation and paging; page permissions
traps and interrupts; call gates
System calls
process supervision; ptrace; debugging
binary file format; ELF
Process creation, meta-data, management, and scheduling
Thread management from the kernel viewpoint
Memory hierarchy, Memory management, virtual memory, DMA; page faults, page replacement
Device I/O; disk scheduling algorithms
Files and file systems; attributes, VFS; file system case study
File locking
Network stack, filtering architecture
kernel instrumentation; kprobes; SystemTap

19 April: Final Exam

The exam will take place from noon to 2pm.

The final exam will test your knowledge of most of the major topics we discussed this semester.

This test will take the form of an individual written exercise.

Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 457.W2012/Lecture Notes

Contents

January 10: Introduction

January 12: From Programs to Processes

January 17: System Architecture and System Calls

January 19: Process Creation

January 24: System Startup

January 26: Process Scheduling

January 31: Scheduling and Timing

February 2: Concurrency, Communication, and Synchronization

February 7: Threads

February 9: Deadlock

February 14: Kernel Control Flow

February 16: Kernel Synchronization

February 21: No lecture (Reading week)

February 23: No lecture (Reading week)

February 28: Midterm Review