i'm not sure, if i totally understand the above mentioned differences, so i'd like to explain it on my own and you can interrupt me, as far as i get wrong:
"A kernel is the initial piece of code which creates kernel-threads. Kernel threads are processes managed by the kernel. user-threads are part of a process. If you have a single-threaded process, than the whole process itself would be a user-thread. User-Threads make system-calls and this system-calls are served by a specific kernel-Thread which belongs to the calling user-threads. So for ervery user-thread which make a system call, a kernel-thread is created and after the kernel-thread has done its job, it gives control back to the user-thread and then the kernel-threas is destroyed."
Would this be ok?
Thank you!
Many greetings from Germany!
I don't think that's a very good mental model for kernel vs user. I think it's useful to look at the implementation of these abstractions in order to fully understand them:
What is a Kernel?
A kernel is basically just a piece of memory. It was privileged enough to be loaded before anything else, thereby allowing it to set the CPU's interrupt vectors.
Interrupts control everything, including I/O, timers, and virtual memory. That means that the kernel gets to decide how all that is handled.
A library is also just a piece of memory, and you can very well look at the kernel as the "system call library", among other things. But because the kernel represents the hardware, that piece of memory is shared among everyone.
Kernel Mode vs User Mode
Kernel mode is the CPU's "natural" mode, with no restrictions (on x86 CPUS - "ring 0"). User mode (on x86 CPUs - "ring 3") is when the CPU is instructed to trigger an interrupt whenever certain instructions are used or whenever some memory locations are accessed. This allows the kernel to have the CPU execute specific kernel code when the user tries to access kernel memory or memory representing I/O ports or hardware memory such as the GPU's frame buffer.
Processes and Threads
A process is also just a piece of memory, consisting of its own heap and the memory used by libraries, among which is the kernel.
A thread (= a unit of scheduling) is just a stack with an ID that the kernel knows of and tracks. That's the call stack that the CPU uses when the thread is running. User threads have 2 stacks: one for user mode and one for kernel mode - but they still have the same ID.
Because the kernel controls timers, it sets up a timer to go off e.g. every 1 ms. When the timer triggers ("timer interrupt"), the CPU runs the callback that the kernel set up for that interrupt, where the kernel can see that the current thread has been running for a while and decide to unschedule it and schedule another thread instead.
Virtual Memory Context
By "virtual memory context" I mean all the memory that can be accessed by the CPU. This includes all the memory of the process - including the user-mode heap and memory of libraries, user-mode call stacks of all process threads, kernel-mode stack of all threads in the system, the kernel's heap memory, I/O ports, and hardware memory.
When an interrupt or a system call occur, the virtual memory context doesn't change, only a CPU flag is flipped (i.e. from ring 3 to ring 0) and the CPU is now back in its "natural" kernel mode where it can freely access kernel memory, I/O ports and hardware memory.
When a new process is created, what actually happens is that a new thread is created, and assigned a new virtual memory context. Therefore, every process starts as single-threaded. That thread can later ask the kernel via a system call to create more threads (= stacks) which share its virtual memory context (= process), or ask the kernel to create more threads, each with a new virtual memory context (= new processes).
Kernel Threads
Like any other library, the kernel can have its own background threads for optimization purposes. When such a need arises (which can happen in the memory context of any process when servicing a system call), the kernel will create new threads and give them a special memory context, which is a context that only contains the kernel's memory, with no access to memory of any process.
You're mixing up a few somewhat different concepts.
To follow from what you wrote, there is a Kernel, which is a piece of code that handles all internal operations of the Operating System. It does create kernel threads, but the Kernel threads are nothing special. They are just threads which run in "Kernel-Mode" and are not associated with any "User-Mode" process.
Now we have a concept which is lacking from your explanation and is the key to understand it better. Kernel-Mode (or sometimes called system mode), along with User-Mode make up CPU modes available to OS.
Kernel-Mode is a kind of trusted execution mode, which allows the code to access any memory and execute any instruction. It handles I/O and system interrupts.
User-Mode is a limited mode, which does not allow the executing code to access any memory address except those associated with the User-Mode process.
Also User-Mode cannot access I/O or those many OS related function (such as handle or process creation). For these operations, User-Mode code should call into Kernel-Mode, by a system call (as you have correctly mentioned).
A system call is a special CPU instruction which switches the CPU mode to Kernel-Mode and starts executing a special code provided by OS which dispatches different system calls. So, it means the work is NOT scheduled for a Kernel-Mode thread, instead the OS (kernel/trusted) code is executed in the context of the same User-Mode thread. The only thing that happens is that CPU mode changes to Kernel-Mode.
As for completing jobs in a Kernel-thread, I should say although in some cases, some operations (e.g. I/O) might be scheduled for a separate Kernel thread to complete, but the Kernel threads are not created and destroyed in the process of a system call.
Backed by:
10+ years of driver development experience
Also:
http://www.linfo.org/kernel_mode.html
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/gettingstarted/user-mode-and-kernel-mode
Related
For what i learned from Operating System Concepts and online searching:
all user threads are finally mapped to kernel threads for being scheduled to physical CPUs
kernel threads can only be executed in kernel mode
above two arguments leads to the conclusion:
user code are all executed in kernel mode
is this right?
i have read the whole book and searched for many articles, the question still holds.
at Wikipedia, it says about LWP:
Kernel threads
Kernel threads are handled entirely by the kernel. They need not be associated with a process; a kernel can create them whenever it needs to perform a particular task. Kernel threads cannot execute in user mode. LWPs (in systems where they are a separate layer) bind to kernel threads and provide a user-level context. This includes a link to the shared resources of the process to which the LWP belongs. When a LWP is suspended, it needs to store its user-level registers until it resumes, and the underlying kernel thread must also store its own kernel-level registers.
also what does it means when saying about user-level registers and kernel level registers?
after digging and digging, i have following temp conclusion, but i am not sure. Hope the question further be answered and clearifed:
kernel thread, depending on discussion context, has two meanings:
when talking about user/kernel threading, kernel thread means a kernel task that totally execute in kernel mode and only execute kernel codes, like ksoftirqd for handling bottom half of interrupts
when taking about threading model, namely how user code is mapped into schedulable entities in kernel, kernel thread means a task that is schedulable by kernel
further about threading model and light weight processes in Linux:
in old times the operating system does not know thread, it only know processes(tasks) and threads are implmented by thread libraries totally in user side. There is a inherent problem for this that is if one user thread is blocked, such as I/O, all the user threads are blocked, because there is only one schedulable tasks in the kernel for this process. From the perspective of the kernel, the whole process is blocked. To solve this problem, light weight process(LWP), also called virtual processor(VP) is invented.
LWP is a intermedia data structure between user thread and a kernel thread(the second meaning above). LWP binds a user thread with a kernel thread(task), which in before is bounded with a user process. Simply put: in before a user process occupies a kernel thread(task), now with LWP a user thread can occupy a individual kernel thread(task), without sharing it with other user threads. (I think) This is why it is called light weight process. The advantage of this model is obvious, if one of the user thread is blocked, other user threads has ways to continue being executed by other kernel threads(tasks).
A kernel thread(task) acutually knows nothing about user process. It is just a task, a schedulable entity created, managed, destroyed totally by kernel itself. But a LWP belongs to a specific process and knows other LWPs that also belongs to the same one. LWP is like a bridge between user process and kernel thread(task).
When a kernel thread(task) that is bound to a LWP is scheduled by the kernel, the user level registers(pointed by LWP) is loaded into CPU, also the kernel thread(task) has registers and they are also loaded into CPU. From the standing point of CPU, a LWP is a kernel thread(task). It does not care it executes kernel code or user code.
user/kernel mode, user/kernel thread: they are independent. In Linux, a user thread created by pthread essentially is a kernel thread and this thread can execute in both user mode or kernel mode, depending on whether the thread is executing user code or kernel code.
All user threads are finally mapped to kernel threads.
That is not a useful way to think about threads. In most operating systems, a program can ask the OS to create a new thread and the program can provide a pointer to a function for the new thread to call. There's no "mapping" that happens there.* The new thread runs in exactly the same way as the program's original (a.k.a., "main") thread. It runs application code in user mode except, occasionally, when it makes a system call, and then for the duration of the system call it runs kernel code in kernel mode.
Many programming languages come with an OS-independent library that provides some kind of a Thread object. The thread object is not the same thing as the actual thread. It's more of a handle that the application uses to control the OS thread. If you like, you can say that those thread objects are "mapped" to OS threads, but that's still somewhat abusing the notion of what a "mapping" is.
kernel threads can only be executed in kernel mode
If you aren't writing OS code, it's best to avoid saying "kernel thread" altogether. In the Linux OS in particular, "kernel thread" means something, and it has nothing whatever to do with application code. Linux kernel threads are threads that are created by the OS for the OS, and they never run "user" (i.e., application) code.
It's possible for an application program to create and schedule its own threads, completely unknown to the OS. Some people call those "user threads." Some used to call them "green threads." Back in the old days, before any OS had thread support, we just called them "threads." Doing threads that way is a lot of work, for little reward. (Can't schedule them preemptively.) Outside of the realm of tiny, embedded, real-time systems, almost nobody bothers to do it anymore.
* But wait! Things will get more complicated in the near future when Java's Project Loom hits the main stream. Threads traditionally are expensive. In particular, each thread must have its own contiguous call stack—usually a chunk of at least a few megabytes—allocated to it. The goal of project loom is to make threads as cheap as any other object.
They way they intend to make threads "cheap" is to "virtualize" them, and to break up their call stacks into linked lists of reclaimable heap objects. Under project loom, a limited number of real OS threads that are scheduled by the OS scheduler will, in turn, schedule and execute the code of a multitude of "virtual" application threads, and so there really will be something going on that feels a bit like "mapping."
I won't be at all surprised if the same idea spreads to other languages.
There are two different meanings of kernel threads. When threading people talk about "kernel threads" they mean "threads the kernel knows about" i.e. "threads that are controlled by the kernel". When kernel people talk about "kernel threads" they mean "threads that run in kernel mode".
"Threads the kernel knows about" are contrasted to "user threads" which are hidden from the kernel and controlled by the program itself.
No, not all threads controlled by the kernel run in kernel mode. The kernel controls the scheduling of threads that run in kernel mode, and also threads that run in user mode.
The quote about LWPs is talking about systems where the scheduler thinks that all threads are kernel-mode threads. To run a user-mode thread (which they call an LWP because it's not really a thread because all threads are kernel-mode threads) the thread has to call a function like RunLWP(pointer_to_lwp);.
I don't know which system is like this. Linux is not like this; Windows is not like this. This is a weird, overly complicated design which is why it's not normally used.
The "registers" are where the CPU remembers what it is currently doing. The most important one is the "instruction pointer" register (some CPUs call it something different) which remembers which instruction is next. If you remember all of the register values, and then come back later and set them to the same values, the CPU will carry on like nothing happened. That's why threading works - the thread can't tell that it's been interrupted, because all of the registers have the same values as if it wasn't interrupted. Here's a list of registers on x86-class CPUs. You don't need to know them for this question - it just might be interesting.
When an interrupt happens, depending on the CPU type, the CPU will save the instruction pointer and maybe one or two other registers. The interrupt handler has to save the rest (or be careful not to change them). Here about halfway down you can see how an x86-class CPU switches from user-space to an interrupt handler when an interrupt occurs.
So this RunLWP function would save the current registers (from the kernel) and set them according to the last time the LWP stopped running. Then the LWP runs. Then when some interrupt happens, the interrupt handler would save the current registers (from user-space) and set them according to the saved kernel handlers, so the kernel code after RunLWP runs. Probably. Again, I don't know any actual system like this, but it seems like the logical way to do things. The reason it should return back to the kernel code instead of the user code is so that the kernel code can decide whether it wants to keep running the LWP or not.
I don't know why they would say the interrupt handler would save both the kernel-space and user-space registers. Current CPUs generally only have one set of registers which software has to swap out when it wants to make the CPU change what it is doing. RunLWP would have to save the kernel registers and load the user ones, then the interrupt handler would have to save the user registers and load the interrupt handler ones. It could be that the CPUs which these systems were designed for did have two sets of registers.
Copy pasted from this link:
Thread switching does not require Kernel mode privileges.
User level threads are fast to create and manage.
Kernel threads are generally slower to create and manage than the user threads.
Transfer of control from one thread to another within the same process requires a mode switch to the Kernel.
I never came across these points while reading standard operating systems reference books. Though these points sound logical, I wanted to know how they reflect in Linux. To be precise :
Can someone give detailed steps involved in context switching between user threads and kernel threads, so that I can find the step difference between the two.
Can someone explain the difference with actual context switch example or code. May be system calls involved (in case of context switching between kernel threads) and thread library calls involved (in case of context switching between user threads).
Can someone link me to Linux source code line (say on github) handling context switch.
I also doubt why context switch between kernel threads requires changing to kernel mode. Aren't we already in kernel mode for first thread?
Can someone give detailed steps involved in context switching between user threads and kernel threads, so that I can find the step difference between the two.
Let's imagine a thread needs to read data from a file, but the file isn't cached in memory and disk drives are slow so the thread has to wait; and for simplicity let's also assume that the kernel is monolithic.
For kernel threading:
thread calls a "read()" function in a library or something; which must cause at least a switch to kernel code (because it's going to involve device drivers).
the kernel adds the IO request to the disk driver's "queue of possibly many pending requests"; realizes the thread will need to wait until the request completes, sets the thread to "blocked waiting for IO" and switches to a different thread (that may belong to a completely different process, depending on global thread priorities). The kernel returns to the user-space of whatever thread it switch to.
later; the disk hardware causes an IRQ which causes a switch back to the IRQ handler in kernel code. The disk driver finishes up the work it had to do the for (currently blocked) thread and unblocks that thread. At this point the kernel might decide to switch to the "now unblocked" thread; and the kernel returns to the user-space of the "now unblocked" thread.
For user threading:
thread calls a "read()" function in a library or something; which must cause at least a switch to kernel code (because it's going to involve device drivers).
the kernel adds the IO request to the disk driver's "queue of possibly many pending requests"; realizes the thread will need to wait until the request completes but can't take care of that because some fool decided to make everything worse by doing thread switching in user space, so the kernel returns to user-space with "IO request has been queued" status.
after the pointless extra overhead of switching back to user-space; the user-space scheduler does the thread switch that the kernel could have done. At this point the user-space scheduler will either tell kernel it has nothing to do and you'll have more pointless extra overhead switching back to kernel; or user-space scheduler will do a thread switch to another thread in the same process (which may be the wrong thread because a thread in a different process is higher priority).
later; the disk hardware causes an IRQ which causes a switch back to the IRQ handler in kernel code. The disk driver finishes up the work it had to do for the (currently blocked) thread; but the kernel isn't able to do the thread switch to unblock the thread because some fool decided to make everything worse by doing thread switching in user space. Now we've got a problem - how does kernel inform the user-space scheduler that the IO has finished? To solve this (without any "user-space scheduler running zero threads constantly polls kernel" insanity) you have to have some kind of "kernel puts notification of IO completion on some kind of queue and (if the process was idle) wakes the process up" which (on its own) will be more expensive than just doing the thread switch in the kernel. Of course if the process wasn't idle then code in user-space is going to have to poll its notification queue to find out if/when the "notification of IO completion" arrives, and that's going to increase latency and overhead. In any case, after lots of stupid pointless and avoidable overhead; the user-space scheduler can do the thread switch.
Can someone explain the difference with actual context switch example or code. May be system calls involved (in case of context switching between kernel threads) and thread library calls involved (in case of context switching between user threads).
The actual low-level context switch code typically begins with something like:
save whichever registers are "caller preserved" according to the calling conventions on the stack
save the current stack top in some kind of "thread info structure" belonging to the old thread
load a new stack top from some kind of "thread info structure" belonging to the new thread
pop whichever registers are "caller preserved" according to the calling conventions
return
However:
usually (for modern CPUs) there's a relatively large amount of "SIMD register state" (e.g. for 80x86 with support for AVX-512 I think it's over 4 KiB of of stuff). CPU manufacturers often have mechanisms to avoid saving parts of that state if it wasn't changed, and to (optionally) postpone the loading of (pieces of) that state until its actually used (and avoid it completely if its not actually used). All of that requires kernel.
if it's a task switch and not just used for thread switches you might need some kind of "if virtual address space needs to change { change virtual address space }" on top of that
normally you want to keep track of statistics, like how much CPU time a thread has used. This requires some kind of "thread_info.time_used += now() - time_at_last_thread_switch;"; which gets difficulty/ugly when "process switching" is separated from "thread switching".
normally there's other state (e.g. pointer to thread local storage, special registers for performance monitoring and/or debugging, ...) that may need to be saved/loaded during thread switches. Often this state is not directly accessible in user code.
normally you also want to set a timer to expire when the thread has used too much time; either because you're doing some kind of "time multiplexing" (e.g. round-robin scheduler) or because its a cooperating scheduler where you need to have some kind of "terminate this task after 5 seconds of not responding in case it goes into an infinite loop forever" safe-guard.
this is just the low level task/thread switching in isolation. There is almost always higher level code to select a task to switch to, handle "thread used too much CPU time", etc.
Can someone link me to Linux source code line (say on github) handling context switch
Someone probably can't. It's not one line; it's many lines of assembly for each different architecture, plus extra higher-level code (for timers, support routines, the "select a task to switch to" code, for exception handlers to support "lazy SIMD state load", ...); which probably all adds up to something like 10 thousand lines of code spread across 50 files.
I also doubt why context switch between kernel threads requires changing to kernel mode. Aren't we already in kernel mode for first thread?
Yes; often you're already in kernel code when you find out that a thread switch is needed.
Rarely/sometimes (mostly only due to communication between threads belonging to the same process - e.g. 2 or more threads in the same process trying to acquire the same mutex/semaphore at the same time; or threads sending data to each other and waiting for data from each other to arrive) kernel isn't involved; and in some cases (which are almost always massive design failures - e.g. extreme lock contention problems, failure to use "worker thread pools" to limit the number of threads needed, etc) it's possible for this to be the dominant cause of thread switches, and therefore possible that doing thread switches in user space can be beneficial (e.g. as a work-around for the massive design failures).
Don't limit yourself to Linux or even UNIX, they are neither the first nor last word on systems or programming models. The synchronous execution model dates back to the early days of computing, and are not particularly well suited to larger scale concurrent and reactive programming.
Golang, for example, employs a great many lightweight user threads -- goroutines -- and multiplexes them on a smaller set of heavyweight kernel threads to produce a more compelling concurrency paradigm. Some other programming systems take similar approaches.
I have recently learned that Linux kernel threads run in process context.
Why are they run in process context?
Why are they not simply run in a traditional "thread"? (if that even makes sense to ask)
No it doesn't make sense to ask :) (see here)
Process context merely means the thread is a normal thread, such as the threads you get in processes.
Interrupt context just means the thread was started by an interrupt.
Caveat: the following is highly simplified and not be completely accurate:
Interrupts are low level events that cause the CPU to stop what it is doing and execute special code called an interrupt handler (do a context change to the interrupt handler). Interrupts are caused by hardware e.g. a network card signals that a packet has arrived and needs to be read, or by software events e.g. virtual memory uses interrupts to ask the kernel to load a page from disk physical memory, etc..
In modern CPUs interrupts and threads are quite complex, they have priorities, privilege levels, can be individually masked, etc..
Why is it called a process context and not a thread context? I assume this is for historic reasons.
Traditionally Unix, and by extension Linux, did not support threads only processes.
CPUs don't really know about processes and threads, from a CPU point of view they are all execution contexts, the difference between threads and a processes is a function of how the operating system arranges the virtual memory and other OS related attributes (user context, permissions, etc.) of the different execution contexts.
A Kernel Thread can be referred to as a context in execution that does not possess a userspace counterpart (unlike other threads/processes in Linux where the userspace process is mapped to a kernel space process). These are generally used as daemons eg. kswapd - the swapper process for evicting virtual memory pages. There is no userspace existence of this process.
Secondly, because these have a definite context associated with itself that can be switched (say the state of registers save on its own stack), the Kernel Threads are schedulable. And, anything that is schedulable can be considered as a "Process context".
On the other hand, interrupts are not schedulable. They occur and execute the interrupt handler spawning its own context.
Could any one tell me what is exactly done in both situations? What is the main cost each of them?
The main distinction between a thread switch and a process switch is that during a thread switch, the virtual memory space remains the same, while it does not during a process switch.
Both types involve handing control over to the operating system kernel to perform the context switch. The process of switching in and out of the OS kernel along with the cost of switching out the registers is the largest fixed cost of performing a context switch.
A more fuzzy cost is that a context switch messes with the processors cacheing mechanisms. Basically, when you context switch, all of the memory addresses that the processor "remembers" in its cache effectively become useless. The one big distinction here is that when you change virtual memory spaces, the processor's Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) or equivalent gets flushed making memory accesses much more expensive for a while. This does not happen during a thread switch.
Process context switching involves switching the memory address space. This includes memory addresses, mappings, page tables, and kernel resources—a relatively expensive operation. On some architectures, it even means flushing various processor caches that aren't sharable across address spaces. For example, x86 has to flush the TLB and some ARM processors have to flush the entirety of the L1 cache!
Thread switching is context switching from one thread to another in the same process (switching from thread to thread across processes is just process switching).Switching processor state (such as the program counter and register contents) is generally very efficient.
First of all, operating system brings outgoing thread in a kernel mode if it is not already there, because thread switch can be performed only between threads, that runs in kernel mode. Then the scheduler is invoked to make a decision about thread to which will be performed switching. After decision is made, kernel saves part of the thread context that is located in CPU (CPU registers) into the dedicated place in memory (frequently on the top of the kernel stack of outgoing thread). Then the kernel performs switch from kernel stack of outgoing thread on to kernel stack of the incoming thread. After that, kernel loads previously stored context of incoming thread from memory into CPU registers. And finally returns control back into user mode, but in user mode of the new thread.
In the case when OS has determined that incoming thread runs in another process, kernel performs one additional step: sets new active virtual address space.
The main cost in both scenarios is related to a cache pollution. In most cases, the working set used by the outgoing thread will differ significantly from working set which is used by the incoming thread. As a result, the incoming thread will start its life with avalanche of cache misses, thus flushing old and useless data from the caches and loading the new data from memory. The same is true for TLB (Translation Look Aside Buffer, which is on the CPU). In the case of reset of virtual address space (threads run in different processes) the penalty is even worse, because reset of virtual address space leads to the flushing of the entire TLB, even if new thread actually needs to load only few new entries. As a result, the new thread will start its time quantum with lots TLB misses and frequent page walking. Direct cost of threads switch is also not negligible (from ~250 and up to ~1500-2000 cycles) and depends on the CPU complexity, states of both threads and sets of registers which they actually use.
P.S.: Good post about context switch overhead: http://blog.tsunanet.net/2010/11/how-long-does-it-take-to-make-context.html
process switching: it is a transition between two memory resident of process in a multiprogramming environment;
context switching: it is a changing context from an executing program to an interrupt service routine (ISR).
In Thread Context Switching, the virtual memory space remains the same while it is not in the case of Process Context Switch. Also, Process Context Switch is costlier than Thread Context Switch.
I think main difference is when calling switch_mm() which handles memory descriptors of old and new task. In the case of threads, the virtual memory address space is unchanged (threads share virtual memory), so very little has to be done, and therefore less costly.
Though thread context switching needs to change the execution context (registers, stack pointers, program counters), they don't need to change address space as processes context switches do. There's an additional cost when you switch address space, more memory access (paging, segmentation, etc) and you have to flush TLB when entering or exiting a new process...
In short, the thread context switch does not assign a brand new set of memory and pid, it uses the same as the parent since it is running within the same process. A process one spawns a new process and thus assigns new mem and pid.
There is a loooooot more to it. They have written books on it.
As for cost, a process context switch >>>> thread as you have to reset all of the stack counters etc.
Assuming that The CPU the OS runs has got Some High Latency Devices Attached,
It makes sense to run another thread Of the Process's Address Space, while the high latency device responds back.
But, if the High Latency Device is responding faster than the time to need do set up of table + translation of Virtual To Physical memories for a NEW Process, then it is questionable if a switch is essential at all.
Also, HOT cache(data needed for running the process/thread is reachable in less time) is better choice.
What is a reentrant kernel?
Much simpler answer:
Kernel Re-Entrance
If the kernel is not re-entrant, a process can only be suspended while it is in user mode. Although it could be suspended in kernel mode, that would still block kernel mode execution on all other processes. The reason for this is that all kernel threads share the same memory. If execution would jump between them arbitrarily, corruption might occur.
A re-entrant kernel enables processes (or, to be more precise, their corresponding kernel threads) to give away the CPU while in kernel mode. They do not hinder other processes from also entering kernel mode. A typical use case is IO wait. The process wants to read a file. It calls a kernel function for this. Inside the kernel function, the disk controller is asked for the data. Getting the data will take some time and the function is blocked during that time.
With a re-entrant kernel, the scheduler will assign the CPU to another process (kernel thread) until an interrupt from the disk controller indicates that the data is available and our thread can be resumed. This process can still access IO (which needs kernel functions), like user input. The system stays responsive and CPU time waste due to IO wait is reduced.
This is pretty much standard for today's desktop operating systems.
Kernel pre-emption
Kernel pre-emption does not help in the overall throughput of the system. Instead, it seeks for better responsiveness.
The idea here is that normally kernel functions are only interrupted by hardware causes: Either external interrupts, or IO wait cases, where it voluntarily gives away control to the scheduler. A pre-emptive kernel instead also interrupts and suspends kernel functions just like it would interrupt processes in user mode. The system is more responsive, as processes e.g. handling mouse input, are woken up even while heavy work is done inside the kernel.
Pre-emption on kernel level makes things harder for the kernel developer: The kernel function cannot be suspended only voluntarily or by interrupt handlers (which are somewhat a controlled environment), but also by any other process due to the scheduler. Care has to be taken to e.g. avoid deadlocks: A thread locks resource A but needing resource B is interrupted by another thread which locks resource B, but then needs resource A.
Take my explanation of pre-emption with a grain of salt. I'm happy for any corrections.
All Unix kernels are reentrant. This means that several processes may be executing in Kernel Mode at the same time. Of course, on uniprocessor systems, only one process can progress, but many can be blocked in Kernel Mode when waiting for the CPU or the completion of some I/O operation. For instance, after issuing a read to a disk on behalf of a process, the kernel lets the disk controller handle it and resumes executing other processes. An interrupt notifies the kernel when the device has satisfied the read, so the former process can resume the execution.
One way to provide reentrancy is to write functions so that they modify only local variables and do not alter global data structures. Such functions are called reentrant functions . But a reentrant kernel is not limited only to such reentrant functions (although that is how some real-time kernels are implemented). Instead, the kernel can include nonreentrant functions and use locking mechanisms to ensure that only one process can execute a nonreentrant function at a time.
If a hardware interrupt occurs, a reentrant kernel is able to suspend the current running process even if that process is in Kernel Mode. This capability is very important, because it improves the throughput of the device controllers that issue interrupts. Once a device has issued an interrupt, it waits until the CPU acknowledges it. If the kernel is able to answer quickly, the device controller will be able to perform other tasks while the CPU handles the interrupt.
Now let's look at kernel reentrancy and its impact on the organization of the kernel. A kernel control path denotes the sequence of instructions executed by the kernel to handle a system call, an exception, or an interrupt.
In the simplest case, the CPU executes a kernel control path sequentially from the first instruction to the last. When one of the following events occurs, however, the CPU interleaves the kernel control paths :
A process executing in User Mode invokes a system call, and the corresponding kernel control path verifies that the request cannot be satisfied immediately; it then invokes the scheduler to select a new process to run. As a result, a process switch occurs. The first kernel control path is left unfinished, and the CPU resumes the execution of some other kernel control path. In this case, the two control paths are executed on behalf of two different processes.
The CPU detects an exception-for example, access to a page not present in RAM-while running a kernel control path. The first control path is suspended, and the CPU starts the execution of a suitable procedure. In our example, this type of procedure can allocate a new page for the process and read its contents from disk. When the procedure terminates, the first control path can be resumed. In this case, the two control paths are executed on behalf of the same process.
A hardware interrupt occurs while the CPU is running a kernel control path with the interrupts enabled. The first kernel control path is left unfinished, and the CPU starts processing another kernel control path to handle the interrupt. The first kernel control path resumes when the interrupt handler terminates. In this case, the two kernel control paths run in the execution context of the same process, and the total system CPU time is accounted to it. However, the interrupt handler doesn't necessarily operate on behalf of the process.
An interrupt occurs while the CPU is running with kernel preemption enabled, and a higher priority process is runnable. In this case, the first kernel control path is left unfinished, and the CPU resumes executing another kernel control path on behalf of the higher priority process. This occurs only if the kernel has been compiled with kernel preemption support.
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The kernel is the core part of an operating system that interfaces directly with the hardware and schedules processes to run.
Processes call kernel functions to perform tasks such as accessing hardware or starting new processes. For certain periods of time, therefore, a process will be executing kernel code. A kernel is called reentrant if more than one process can be executing kernel code at the same time. "At the same time" can mean either that two processes are actually executing kernel code concurrently (on a multiprocessor system) or that one process has been interrupted while it is executing kernel code (because it is waiting for hardware to respond, for instance) and that another process that has been scheduled to run has also called into the kernel.
A reentrant kernel provides better performance because there is no contention for the kernel. A kernel that is not reentrant needs to use a lock to make sure that no two processes are executing kernel code at the same time.
A reentrant function is one that can be used by more than one task concurrently without fear of data corruption. Conversely, a non-reentrant function is one that cannot be shared by more than one task unless mutual exclusion to the function is ensured either by using a semaphore or by disabling interrupts during critical sections of code. A reentrant function can be interrupted at any time and resumed at a later time without loss of data. Reentrant functions either use local variables or protect their data when global variables are used.
A reentrant function:
Does not hold static data over successive calls
Does not return a pointer to static data; all data is provided by the caller of the function
Uses local data or ensures protection of global data by making a local copy of it
Must not call any non-reentrant functions