|
|
|
Modern Operating Systems by Herbert Bos and Andrew S. Tanenb...
Modern_Operating_Systems_by_Herbert_Bos_and_Andrew_S._Tanenbaum_4th_Ed.pdf
Showing 804-805 out of 1137
Modern Operating Systems by Herbert Bos and Andrew...
Modern_Operating_Systems_by_Herbert_Bos_and_Andrew_S._Tanenbaum_4th_Ed.pdf-M ODERN O PERATING S YSTEMS
Modern Operating Systems by Herbert...
Modern_Operating_Systems_by_Herbert_Bos_and_Andrew_S._Tanenbaum_4th_Ed.pdf-M ODERN O PERATING S YSTEMS
Page 804
SEC. 10.5
INPUT/OUTPUT IN LINUX
773
the cache, the block is taken from there and a disk access is avoided, thereby re-
sulting in great improvements in system performance.
Block
device
driver
Char
device
driver
Network
device
driver
I/O
scheduler
Regular
file
Char
special
file
Network
socket
Cache
Virtual File System
(Optional
line
discipline)
Protocol
drivers
File system 1
FS 2
Block
device
driver
I/O
scheduler
Block
special
file
Figure 10-22.
The Linux I/O system showing one file system in detail.
If the block is not in the page cache, it is read from the disk into the cache and
from there copied to where it is needed. Since the page cache has room for only a
fixed number of blocks, the page-replacement algorithm described in the previous
section is invoked.
The page cache works for writes as well as for reads. When a program writes a
block, it goes to the cache, not to the disk.
The
pdflush
daemon will flush the
block to disk in the event the cache grows above a specified value. In addition, to
avoid having blocks stay too long in the cache before being written to the disk, all
dirty blocks are written to the disk every 30 seconds.
In order to reduce the latency of repetitive disk-head movements, Linux relies
on an
I/O scheduler
.
Its purpose is to reorder or bundle read/write requests to
block devices. There are many scheduler variants, optimized for different types of
workloads. The basic Linux scheduler is based on the original
Linux elevator
scheduler
.
The operations of the elevator scheduler can be summarized as fol-
lows: Disk operations are sorted in a doubly linked list, ordered by the address of
the sector of the disk request. New requests are inserted in this list in a sorted man-
ner. This prevents repeated costly disk-head movements. The request list is subse-
quently
merged
so that adjacent operations are issued via a single disk request. The
basic elevator scheduler can lead to starvation. Therefore, the revised version of
the Linux disk scheduler includes two additional lists, maintaining read or write
operations ordered by their deadlines. The default deadlines are 0.5 sec for reads
Page 805
774
CASE STUDY 1: UNIX, LINUX, AND ANDROID
CHAP. 10
and 5 sec for writes.
If a system-defined deadline for the oldest write operation is
about to expire, that write request will be serviced before any of the requests on the
main doubly linked list.
In addition to regular disk files, there are also block special files, also called
raw block files
.
These files allow programs to access the disk using absolute
block numbers, without regard to the file system.
They are most often used for
things like paging and system maintenance.
The interaction with character devices is simple. Since character devices pro-
duce or consume streams of characters, or bytes of data, support for random access
makes little sense. One exception is the use of
line disciplines
.
A line discipline
can be associated with a terminal device, represented via the structure
tty
struct
,
and it represents an interpreter for the data exchanged with the terminal device. For
instance, local line editing can be done (i.e., erased characters and lines can be re-
moved), carriage returns can be mapped onto line feeds, and other special proc-
essing can be completed. However, if a process wants to interact on every charac-
ter, it can put the line in raw mode, in which case the line discipline will be bypas-
sed. Not all devices have line disciplines.
Output works in a similar way, expanding tabs to spaces, converting line feeds
to carriage returns + line feeds, adding filler characters following carriage returns
on slow mechanical terminals, and so on. Like input, output can go through the line
discipline (cooked mode) or bypass it (raw mode). Raw mode is especially useful
when sending binary data to other computers over a serial line and for GUIs.
Here,
no conversions are desired.
The interaction with
network devices
is different. While network devices also
produce/consume streams of characters, their asynchronous nature makes them less
suitable for easy integration under the same interface as other character devices.
The networking device driver produces packets consisting of multiple bytes of
data, along with network headers. These packets are then routed through a series of
network protocol drivers, and ultimately are passed to the user-space application. A
key data structure is the socket buffer structure,
skbuff
, which is used to represent
portions of memory filled with packet data. The data in an
skbuff
buffer do not al-
ways start at the start of the buffer. As they are being processed by various proto-
cols in the networking stack, protocol headers may be removed, or added. The user
processes interact with networking devices via
sockets
, which in Linux support the
original BSD socket API.
The protocol drivers can be bypassed and direct access
to the underlying network device is enabled via
raw
sockets
.
Only the superuser is
allowed to create raw sockets.
10.5.5 Modules in Linux
For decades, UNIX device drivers were statically linked into the kernel so they
were all present in memory whenever the system was booted. Given the environ-
ment in which UNIX grew up, commonly departmental minicomputers and then
Ace your assessments! Get Better Grades
Browse thousands of Study Materials & Solutions from your Favorite Schools
Concordia University
Concordia_University
School:
Operating_Systems
Course:
Great resource for chem class. Had all the past labs and assignments
Leland P.
Santa Clara University
Introducing Study Plan
Using AI Tools to Help you understand and remember your course concepts better and faster than any other resource.
Find the best videos to learn every concept in that course from Youtube and Tiktok without searching.
Save All Relavent Videos & Materials and access anytime and anywhere
Prepare Smart and Guarantee better grades
Know more
Students also viewed documents
lab 18.docx
lab_18.docx
Course
Course
3
Module5QuizSTA2023.d...
Module5QuizSTA2023.docx.docx
Course
Course
10
Week 7 Test Math302....
Week_7_Test_Math302.docx.docx
Course
Course
30
Chapter 1 Assigment ...
Chapter_1_Assigment_Questions.docx.docx
Course
Course
5
Week 4 tests.docx.do...
Week_4_tests.docx.docx
Course
Course
23
Week 6 tests.docx.do...
Week_6_tests.docx.docx
Course
Course
106
