COMS W4118 Operating Systems I

Spring 2025 Course Overview

TR 4:10pm-5:25pm, 309 Havemeyer Hall
Two synchronous and in-person exams for all sections:
- Exam 1: 3/13 4:10pm
- Exam 2: 5/13 4:10pm
All students in all sections MUST take the exams at those times. There are no make-up or alternate exams. If you cannot make any of those exams, please take the course next semester.
Instructor: Kostis Kaffes
Office hours: Calendar
REQUIRED READING: ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICIES
4118 Dev Guides

HW Due Dates

Date	Assignment
F 1/24	HW0 due
Su 2/2	HW1 due
M 2/17	HW2 due
Th 2/27	HW3 due
Su ~~3/14~~ 3/23	HW4 due
F 4/11	HW5 due
F 4/25	HW6 due
TBD	HW7 due

Course Schedule

1/21

Course overview and logistics

Lecture:
- L01-overview
Assignments:
1. Check that you have access to Ed
2. Read the following two documents:
  - http://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/honesty
  - http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jae/honesty.html
3. HW0 (individual assignment) – due Fri 1/24, 11:59pm
  
  Send an email to Kostis containing:
  - To: kkaffes@cs.columbia.edu
  - Subject: “[4118] hw0-UNI” – without quotes, sole space before hw0, UNI replaced with your actual UNI in lowercase
  - Your name, major & school program, year – ex) Kostis Kaffes, Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, class of 2015
  - Your pledge – see http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jae/honesty.html
  - CS classes taken and/or other programming background
  - Optionally anything else you want to let me know
  - Optionally attach a picture of you, but please reduce image file size to about 100KB
4. Start forming your group of three people

1/23

Introduction to OS/Unix

Lecture:
- L02-introduction
- Code
Reading:
- APUE: chapter 1, 2.3, 2.4
- OSTEP: chapter 2
- LKD: chapter 1

HW1: linux-list

Individual assignment, due Sunday 2/2
- linux-list

1/28

Linux Overview

Lecture:
- L03-Linux
- Code

1/30

UNIX signals

Lecture:
- L04-unix-signals
- Code
Reading:
- APUE 9.4 - 9.6: skim, just to get a sense of process group, session, and controlling terminal
- APUE 9.7: skim pages 299-301, skip rest – just to get a sense of jobs running in foreground and background
- APUE 10.1 - 10.6 (skim signal descriptions in 10.2)
- APUE 10.8 - 10.9
- APUE 10.10: you can skip pages 340-341 & 343 (but interesting read if you know setjmp() / longjmp() or willing to find out)
- APUE 10.11 - 10.13
- APUE 10.14: skip page pages 352-353

UNIX File I/O

Lecture:
- L04-unix-io
- Code
Reading:
- APUE: 3.1-3.13
- APUE: 8.1-8.10
- APUE chapter 5 (skim)

HW2: shell

Individual assignment, due Monday 2/17
- shell

2/4

Interprocess communication in UNIX

Lecture:
- L05-unix-ipc
- Code
Reading:
- APUE 15.2, 15.5
- APUE 15.10
  - APUE 15.8 (just pgs 565-566): semaphore semantics
- APUE 7.6 - 7.7
- APUE 7.8: a little bit off-topic, so optional
- APUE 14.8: read page 525-527, skim the rest
- APUE 15.9: page 576-578

POSIX threads

Lecture:
- L05-threads
- Source code
Reading:
- APUE 11.1 - 11.4
- APUE 11.5: read page 388-393; skip the rest of 11.5
- APUE 11.6: read up to (and including) 11.6.6

2/6

Nonblocking I/O and I/O multiplexing

Reading:
- APUE 14.2
- APUE 14.4.0 (i.e., page 500-501)
- APUE 14.4.1
- epoll
Lecture:
- L06-advanced-io

UNIX domain sockets

Reading:
- APUE 17.1
- APUE 17.2: pages 631-633 are optional, but recommended
- APUE 17.2.1
- APUE 17.3: pages 637-641 are optional, but recommended
- APUE 17.4: read 642-643, skip the rest
Lecture:
- L06-dom-sock
- Source code

2/11

Linux System Calls

Reading:
- OSTEP chapter 4 (previously assigned)
- OSTEP chapter 6 (previously assigned)
- LKD chapter 2
- LKD chapter 3: skim pages 37-40
- LKD chapter 5
Lecture:
- L07-syscalls
- Source code

2/13

Run queues and wait queues

Reading
- Process states (previously assigned)
  - OSTEP 4.4
  - LKD pages 27-28
- Scheduling basics & wait queues
  - LKD pages 57-61
Lecture
- L08-run-wait-queues

2/18

Interrupts & Spin Locks

Reading:
- Interrupts: LKD chapter 7
- Kernel locks: LKD chapter 10: pages 183 (from Spin Locks) - 202
- Preemption: LKD pages 62 - 64 (before Real-Time Scheduling Policies)
Lecture:
- L9-interrupts-spinlocks

HW3: tabletop

Individual assignment, due Thursday 2/27
- tabletop

2/20

Synchronization

Reading:
- OSTEP chapter 28 (sections 28.9, 28.10, 28.11, and 28.15 are optional)
- Optionally, OSTEP chapter 30
- OSTEP chapter 31
- Optionally, read java.lang.Object API doc about wait(), notify(), notifyAll() if you haven’t already
Lecture:
- L10-sync-1
- L10-sync-2

2/25

Synchronization (cont.)

2/27

Scheduling Algorithms

Reading:
- OSTEP chapters 7, 8
Lecture:
- L12-sched-algo

HW4: fridge

Group assignment, due Sunday 3/23
- fridge

3/4

Scheduling in Linux

Reading:
- OSTEP chapters 9, 10
- LKD chapter 4:
  - pages 42 (Linux’s Process Scheduler) - 50
  - optional, but recommended: pages 50 - 56
  - pages 57 - 64: previously assigned, but read again
  - pages 64 - 67
Lecture:
- L13-sched-linux

3/6

Midterm Review

3/11

No class

3/13

Midterm

3/18

No class – Spring Break

3/20

No class – Spring Break

3/25

Memory Management Fundamentals

Reading:
- Address translation basics: OSTEP chapter 15
- Segmentation: OSTEP chapter 16
  - see this blog if you want to learn about x86 segmentation (optional)
- Free-space management: OSTEP chapter 17
- Paging: OSTEP chapter 18
Lecture:
- L14-paging

HW5: Freezer

Group assignment, due Friday 4/11
- freezer

3/27

x86 Memory Management

Reading:
- Multi-level page table: OSTEP 20.3
- Inverted page table: OSTEP 20.4
- TLB: OSTEP 19
Lecture:
- L15-x86-mm

4/1

Virtual Memory Beyond Physical Memory

Reading:
- OSTEP chapter 21
- OSTEP chapter 22
Lecture:
- L16-virt-mem

4/3

Memory Management in Linux

Lecture:
- L17-linux-mm

4/8

Storage Devices

Reading:
- OSTEP chapters, 36, 37, 40, and 44
Lecture
- L18-storage-devices

HW6: Farfetch’d

Group assignment, due Friday 4/25
- farfetchd

4/10

Storage Devices (continued)

4/15

Storage Devices (continued)

4/17

UNIX File System and Journaling

Reading:
- APUE 4.14, 4.15
- OSTEP chapter 41, 42
Lecture:
- L19-unix-fs

4/22

No class

4/24

LFS

Reading:
- OSTEP chapter 43
Lecture:
- L20-lfs

4/29

TBD

5/1

COMS W4118 Operating Systems I

Spring 2025 Course Overview

HW Due Dates

Course Schedule

Course overview and logistics

Introduction to OS/Unix

HW1: linux-list

Linux Overview

UNIX signals

UNIX File I/O

HW2: shell

Interprocess communication in UNIX

POSIX threads

Nonblocking I/O and I/O multiplexing

UNIX domain sockets

Linux System Calls

Run queues and wait queues

Interrupts & Spin Locks

HW3: tabletop

Synchronization

Synchronization (cont.)

Scheduling Algorithms

HW4: fridge

Scheduling in Linux

Midterm Review

No class

Midterm

No class – Spring Break

No class – Spring Break

Memory Management Fundamentals

HW5: Freezer

x86 Memory Management

Virtual Memory Beyond Physical Memory

Memory Management in Linux

Storage Devices

HW6: Farfetch’d

Storage Devices (continued)

Storage Devices (continued)

UNIX File System and Journaling

No class

LFS

TBD

Wrap-up and Final Review