Syllabus (pdf) - Syracuse University

CIS 657 - Principles of Operating Systems
Fall 2011, Syracuse University
Syllabus
Lectures : MW 2:15–3:35 pm @ HL 207, 8/29-12/7 Labs : Th 2-5 / 5-8 pm @ Link 202, 9/1-12/8
Instructor : Kanat Bolazar TA : Yiou Xiao
Office Hrs : MW 12:30 - 2:00 pm @ SCITC 4-116
and by appointment
Purpose
Office Hrs : TBA
This is a graduate course on design and implementation of operating systems. Students are
expected to have taken an undergraduate operating systems course such as CSE 586 or
equivalent at another institution.
Starting with implementation issues and known trade-offs, we will see how various architectural,
policy and design decisions must be made in the implementation of an Operating System.
Studying a concrete example should ground the previously abstract knowledge of OS concepts and
principles.
Textbook
The textbook for this course is The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System
(covering version 5.2.1), by Marshall Kirk McKusick and George V. Neville-Neil, AddisonWesley,
ISBN: 0-201-70245-2.
Our textbook focuses on the concepts and structure of the FreeBSD operating system, and even
though the book does not have much source code, it is the best introduction for reading the source
code because it teaches the concepts, terms and names of policies used in the internal
documentation of the source code.
As this textbook is the best there is for FreeBSD, and it has not seen a new print since FreeBSD
5.2.1, we stay with FreeBSD 5.2.1 in this course, even though there are many more recent versions
(FreeBSD 8.2, possibly more).
Other than the textbook, FreeBSD.org has a very complete FreeBSD Handbook freely available
online, that can help casual users, administrators, and even us, kernel developers. If you look for
the handbook, make sure you get the 5.2.1 version, not the latest version, as FreeBSD has seen
some significant change.
We will use VMware Player (for OS virtualization) and a FreeBSD 5.2.1 image in our labs and
projects. These are freely available online; you need not buy a FreeBSD installation CD or DVD. We
will spend a short time on AndroidOS at the end of the course (as time allows); we don't need a
book for such a brief study; we'll use online resources.
Grading Policy
The grade for this course will be calculated as:
• 40% Programming Assignments (two or three)
• 30% Midterm Exams (two)
• 20% Final Exam
• 10% Homeworks (short, few) and quizzes (frequent)

Labs and Programming Assignments
There are two lab sessions for the course. You must attend one of the sessions.
We will use VMware to host FreeBSD on machines in the lab (and on your laptop, except VMware
Player is not ported to Mac OS X).
Either bring your laptops and/or a USB stick with 2 GB space, to hold the VMware virtual machine
(1.1 GB, and will grow over time; 260 MB zipped), and possibly the VMware Player installer (105
MB). Remember to save the virtual machine to USB again when you are done.
Some small parts of programming assigments will be required to be completed during the lab
(completed in the three hours allowed). In this case, the lab performance will affect the
programming assignment grade. Other labs are meant as practice, and are not graded.
Programming assignments will have a minimum of two weeks each. They will be written in C, and
will cover common Operating System tasks starting with memory and process management at the
core, and possibly including interactive shell that lives outside the kernel.
Late Policy
All assignments must be turned in by the due date, must compile and run. Keep developing in
cycles, and always have one version that covers some of the requirements, compiles, works, and
doesn't crash. This is what you should always do, especially after you graduate.
Honor Policy
Students are expected to do their own work. Unless explicitly given permission, you should not
work with other students on the programming of your assignments. Discussion of concepts is fine,
but your code should be your own. Do not take code from the Internet or other sources. Code
sharing is also a violation of this policy. Violation of this policy is grounds for failure from the
course.
Class Notes
I will make the lecture notes and lab pages available online.
Rough Schedule
Lectures:
1. Introduction to FreeBSD (ch1)
2. Assessment Test
3. C Programming, reading FreeBSD source code
4. Unix Programming in C
5. Design Overview of FreeBSD (ch2)
6. Kernel Services (ch3)
7, 8, 9. Process Management (ch4)
10. Midterm 1
11, 12, 13, 14. Memory Management (ch5)
15, 16, 17, 18. I/O System (ch6)
19. Midterm 2
20, 21, 22. Local Filesystems (and Filestores) (ch8)
23. Review of FreeBSD
24. Introduction to Android; It's Linux Inside
25. FreeBSD vs. Android: Similarities, Differences
26, 27, 28. Selected Topics on Android