To become familiar with the multitasking capabilities of UNIX/Linux systems.

Although one UNIX system implementations have a lot in common, within each implementation there are differences. These can range from kernel or library call implementations all the way down to particular behaviors (or default behaviors) of commands to the organization of system scripts.

With this in mind, we have the potential to encounter some of those differences with respect to the ps(1) utility. Depending on the type of system you are on (or documentation you are referencing) potentially both the behavior and arguments to ps(1) may vary.

In “UNIX for the Beginning Mage”, please read:

• Chapter 8, pages 85-94.

In “Harley Hahn's Guide to UNIX and Linux”, please read:

• Chapter 26 (“Processes and Job Control”, pages 767-816).

In “Learning the UNIX Operating System, 5th Edition”, please read:

• Chapter 7 (“Multitasking”, page 130-135).

UNIX is a multitasking, multiuser operating system.

So far in this course you have dealt with the multiuser aspect of the system (through the who(1) utility from Lab #0 and with the write(1), talk(1), and ytalk(1) utilities. Through this usage you have seen that many users can be on the system simultaneously, each doing individual tasks.

So what is multitasking? Multitasking is the ability of the system's processor to allocate cycles of CPU time efficiently enough in order to give the appearance that many processes are running simultaneously.

A process is the term given to a running UNIX application (ie a “program in action”).

UNIX provides a mechanism for viewing these processes running in memory. The top(1) and ps(1) utilities allow you to view various perspectives of the process list.

Instead of saying “list of running programs”, you would say “the process list”. You can manipulate the process, as it is a unique instance of a real program on the system.

In a way, the multiuser aspect of UNIX already proves it is multitasking, as each user is doing their own task independent of any other user.

However, each user can multitask their own session. This ability to run and manage more than one process within your login terminal is known as Job Control.

Some additional terminology you should be familiar with:

• Process ID (PID): a unique number assigned to each running process on the system.
• Foreground process: a process that is running in the foreground (currently using STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR).
• Background process: a process that is running independently in the background, allowing you to use your shell (which is in your foreground) or start additional applications.
• killing a process: in UNIX, you can terminate processes with the kill(1) utility.

The ps(1) is used to list the running processes on the system. Running with no arguments will show the current processes attached to your login session.

When used by itself following a command on the command-line, the & will instruct the shell to run the command in the background.

For example:

lab46:~$ head -n4 /etc/motd > file1 &
[1] 12956
lab46:~$ 

Will take the first 4 lines of /etc/motd and redirect its STDOUT to a file called file1. This will run in the background, and will give the PID of the process.

This particular command-line should complete quickly.

In the multitask/ subdirectory of the UNIX Public Directory, you will find the count.c file. Copy it to your home directory and take a look at it.

Now let us compare the benefits of using the & to background processes:

The command separator is another useful feature, represented as a semi-colon (;). You can use this to string commands together to execute one after the other.

For example:

lab46:~$ ls -l; cat /etc/motd

Will execute ls with the -l argument, then once it is complete, will go and cat out the contents of /etc/motd. Each command is run separately, and therefore has its own unique PID.

Finally, the parenthesis come in use. If you enclose an entire command-line in parenthesis (excluding the &, as seen on page 132 in Learning the UNIX Operating System, 5th Edition) will cause the shell to treat that sequence of commands as one unique command, and give ALL commands involved just one unique PID!

Devise a command-line to do the following:

• using sleep(1)
• delay for 8 seconds before running ls(1)
• when ls(1) is run, it should list all the files in /var
• the output of the ls(1) should be redirected into a file, in your home directory, called: multitask.lab.txt
• make sure this whole task runs in the background

Confused? Be sure to ask questions.

Not only can you background processes, but you can suspend and manipulate foreground processes. By using the SUSPEND character, you can cause most applications running in the foreground to stop, giving you back control of you prompt.

When at the prompt using the bourne shell, you can use the built-in command jobs to list any suspended jobs that can be manipulated. If you have any, they will be preceded by a job number, allowing you to foreground (fg) or background (bg) that job.

Set up the following situation:

• Run “cat -” at the Lab46 prompt.
• Once it is running, hit CTRL-Z to suspend it.
• Then, once you get the prompt back, run “links http://localhost &”
• Type “jobs” to see the list of jobs currently running in your session.

So far we've put some things in the background, and if we're lucky, we'll just have gotten a message from the shell.

If you ended up logging out, please repeat Task 2 to do the following question.

Once the jobs list is empty, you should be able to logout again without a problem. Test this then log back in again to continue with the lab.

Finally, we are going to determine how to terminate processes on the system using the kill(1) utility.

The kill utility works on a series of signals that applications use to communicate with the operating system. The most common signals you will encounter are the Hangup (SIGHUP), Kill (SIGKILL), and Terminate (SIGTERM) signals.

Hangup is one of the lowest level signals. It instructs the process to re-run, often used to get programs to re-read configuration files.

Kill is among the most powerful of the signals as far as normal processes go. When used on a running process, it basically means “kill process with no mercy” – instant and immediate termination.

Terminate is the default signal, when none are supplied. It informs the process that it is to terminate, allowing the process to clean up and take care of any matters it needs to attend to before it exits.

kill understands a series of signals, but for the purposes of this class we will only be dealing with the above 3 on a regular basis.

Now that we've viewed the current situation, let's change it up a bit:

Process management is an important feature of any multitasking operating system. Having a handle on how it works not only helps you to better understand how to use UNIX, but to better manage your resources on a system.

Putting these new skills together with those learned in prior weeks, we can start to make the system work for us:

There are additional commands that deal with processes on the system. You may want to familiarize yourself with the pkill(1) and pgrep(1) utilities.

This assignment has activities which you should tend to- document/summarize knowledge learned on your Opus.

As always, the class mailing list and class IRC channel are available for assistance, but not answers.