CSCI 3500: Operating Systems - Class Page

Spring 2019

1. Course Description
2. Prerequisites
3. Studios
4. Labs
5. Course Schedule
6. SLU Git Repository
7. Textbooks and Other Resources
8. Grading
9. Academic Honesty
10. Academic Support
11. Disability Services
12. Title IX Statement

Course Description

Operating systems are the fundamental bridge between computer hardware and the software programs we create and use. As a concept, operating systems are one of the oldest software disciplines, yet they continue to adapt and reinvent themselves as the computing landscape evolves. Modern operating systems must tackle the same challenges of the original mainframes, but must also meet the varied needs of personal computers, severs, mobile/embedded devices, and virtualized systems.

The four elements of this course are lectures, studios, labs, and exams. Studios are short assignments intended to be completed primarily within class time and to augment lecture topics. Labs are longer assignments that will ask students to apply and analyze OS mechanisms. Most class periods will consist of a short lecture followed by studio time. Expect a lab assignment approximately every two weeks.

Topical outline:

• The operating system, system libraries, and user applications
• System calls and interrupts
• User programs, processes, and threads
• Processor sharing and operating system scheduling
• Race conditions, locks, and mutual exclusion
• The address space abstraction and virtual memory address translation
• Virtual memory via paged memory and historical approaches
• File systems and disk organization
• 7-layer OSI and 4-layer TCP/IP networking models
• Sockets programming
• Read, write, and execute permissions and institutional access models

Assessment Objectives- at the completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe how operating systems facilitate and interact with system libraries and user space programs
• Describe the purpose and implementation of major operating system abstractions: processes, threads, virtual memory, and the network stack
• Identify the presence/absence of race conditions and resolve race conditions with locking
• Write simple concurrent and multi-threaded programs (e.g. with fork() and Pthreads)
• Write simple networked programs (e.g. with sockets programming)

Catalog Description:Theory and practice of operating systems, with emphasis on one of the UNIX family of operating systems. File organization and database systems. Focus on a multi-user system in the client-server model. Hands-on experience.

Prerequisites

• CSCI 2100 - Data Structures
• One of: CSCI 2400 - Computer Architecture or ECE 3217 - Computer Architecture and Organization
• Some experience: C or C++
• Some experience: object-oriented programming
• Studios and lab assignments are constructed around the Linux terminal, prior experience is beneficial but not required

Please see the instructor if you're missing a prerequisite or uncertain about your preparation for this course.

Studios

Computer science is an eminently practical discipline, and studios are daily assignments intended to complement and reinforce lectures through practice. Studios will be completed in a team of two students. Students from different teams may discuss studios, but sharing of code or solutions is strictly prohibited.

Studios are due approximately quarterly. The midterm exam and other cirumstances may modify this, see the complete course schedule below.

Studios will be graded on a trimodal scale: complete, partial credit, or no credit. Studios that are turned in late or not turned in at all will receive no credit, studios graded as partial will receive 60% credit.

Labs

There will be five lab assignments for this course. These are programming assignments whose purpose is to apply course concepts and to analyze operating system mechanisms. As such, each lab will require a written report detailing your findings in addition to a code submission.

Some labs will require a team of two students, while others are individual projects. Students from different teams may discuss the lab assignments only during course meeting times. Students from the same team are of course encouraged to discuss and work on lab assignments at any time.

Labs submitted on time (as determined by electronic time stamp) are eligible for full credit. Labs submitted up to 24 hours late will be given a ten percent penalty. Labs submitted between 24 and 48 hours late will be given a twenty percent penalty. Labs submitted after 48 hours late will not be given credit, except in the case of extenuating circumstances pre-approved by the instructor.

Course Schedule

SLU Git Repository

All studios and labs will be submitted via individual course Git repositories that are housed at SLU. You will find your repository already has a directory structure that provides a place for all lab and studio assignments. Your work must be in the appropriate location for the instructor to find it and count it for credit.

A short guide to using SLU's git resources

Textbook and Class Resources

Reccomended Course textbook: Modern Operating Systems, 4th Ed. by Tanenbaum and Bos. A classic computing textbook on the fundamentals of operating systems, with a bent towards Unix-like operating systems. This book is not required for the course, rather it is a secondary source of information that provides a more comprehensive textbook-like presentation of the material. I will not be assigning homework from the book or taking test questions from the book.

Linux skills references:

References for Linux software development.

• vi tutorial

• Another vi tutorial

• emacs tutorial

• Another emacs tutorial

Software resources:

• Secure Shell: My favorite terminal client- runs through the Chrome browser on nearly any platform. Gives a great, consistent interface between Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you've only ever used PuTTY you should really try something else!

• Google Search for Shell Emulators: Find something that works for you!

• WinSCP: Easily transfer files between your Windows machine and the departmental Linux machines.

• scp manual page: Transfer files between your Mac/Linux machine and the departmental Linux machines.

Linux kernel hacking references:

We aren't doing any kernel hacking in this course, but these are great references if you're interested.

• Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love, 2010. This is an excellent, compact, and inexpensive text that gives the reader a good understanding of kernel design and critical kernel source code. Written by a Linux kernel veteran.

• Understanding the Linux Kernel by Bovet and Cesati, 2006. This is a more exhaustive reference to the kernel than Love's book, covering many data structures and code snippets in detail. Available online for free through the university's subscription to the O'Riley Safari service.

• Linux Device Drivers by Corbet, Rubini, and Kroah-Hartman, 2005. The definitive book on hardware device drivers for Linux. Contains some useful reference material over kernel modules, kernel development, kernel locking, timing, and other topics. Available online for free through lwn.net.

• LWN.net is a news and information outlet for the open source community. They often run very high quality articles about kernel development, kernel architecture, and kernel mechanisms. When I can't find any good references, searching for "LWN (my_topic)" is usually helpful.

• Linux Journal is a magazine covering the Linux community. They often run very high quality articles about kernel development, kernel architecture, and kernel mechanisms. Similar to above, searching for "Linux Journal (my_topic)" often yields good results.

• Linux Cross Reference by free-electrons.com This tool easily allows you to browse the Linux source code as well as search for identifiers.

• kernel.org the go-to website for Linux kernel source code.

Grading

There are three activities for which you will receive credit in this course: studios, labs, and exams. Studios are daily guided assignments primarily designed to familiarize students with course concepts and development tools (i.e. knowledge and comprehension tasks). Lab assignments will ask students to apply general course concepts and analyze OS design alternatives. A midterm and final exam will evaluate your technical understanding of course concepts.

Studios are graded on the following scale: complete, partial credit, or no credit. Studios will not be turned back with detailed comments. Labs and exams will be graded on a points scale and will be turned back with detailed comments.

Make up exams will only be given for severe and documented reasons.

Your grade will be determined as follows:

Grading is done on a straight scale (uncurved). The following scores are guaranteed. The grading scale may be curved upwards (in your favor) at the discretion of the instructor.

• 93% guarantees an A
• 90% guarantees an A-
• 87% guarantees a B+
• 83% guarantees a B
• 80% guarantees a B-
• 77% guarantees a C+
• 73% guarantees a C
• 70% guarantees a C-
• 60% guarantees a D

Most work assigned in this course, other than exams and some labs, is expected to be completed collaboratively. Student teams may change from assignment to assignment, but the sharing of written work or significant portions of code between teams is strictly prohibited.

Some specific guidelines for this course:

• Code you submit as solutions to the programming assignments must be written by you or your team. You are not allowed to copy code from other students.
• Copying pieces of code from in-class examples is allowed, but you must cite the source of such code with a comment denoting the start and finish of the copied section.
• Copying small pieces of code from man pages, online references or other sources is generally acceptable, but to be safe you should check with me first. Code from such sources must be cited with a comment denoting the start and finish of the copied section.
• Copied code that is not cited will be considered plagiarism and will be treated as cheating. Citing your code protects you from this. However, copying large portions of code is still grounds for a reduction in grade, even if it is not cheating. Please check with the instructor if you are copying more than a few lines of code!