CS571 Operating Systems

Location:	Horizon Hall 2009
Meeting Time:	Monday 4:30 - 7:10 pm
Instructor:	Dr. Songqing Chen
E-mail:	sqchen AT gmu dot edu
Office Hours:	Wednesday 2 - 3 PM or email for an appointment

OVERVIEW

RECOMMENDED PREREQUISITES

TEXTBOOK

The required textbooks for this class is:
Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces, by Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, Arpaci-Dusseau (Version 1.00) (free PDF for each chapter available online)
The recommended textbooks are
1. Operating System Concepts, by Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne, 10th Edition, John Wiley & Sons 2018, ISBN: 978-1-118-06333-0.
2. Operating Systems Principles and Practice, by Thomas Anderson and Michael Dahlin, Second Edition. ISBN: 978-0-9856735-2-9, Recursive Books, Ltd.

TOPICS

• Introduction
• Processes
• Threads
• Concurrency and Synchronization
• CPU Scheduling
• Memory Management
• Virtual Memory
• Input/Output & Storage
• File Systems
• Protection and Security

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon completion of this course, the students should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of operating systems features, evolution, and design
• Show an understanding of the need for concurrent operation of multiple tasks (processes/threads) and an ability to solve basic process synchronization problems that arise from concurrent operation settings
• Demonstrate knowledge of system calls, process scheduling, basic memory management, storage systems, and file system management
• Show an understanding of basic algorithms for OS services such as memory management and process scheduling
• Demonstrate knowledge of security threats to an operating system from both processes and networked sources and show an understanding of protection techniques

CLASS MATERIALS

PROJECTS

• Projects are very time-consuming, and most likely are significantly more time-consuming than your projects in other classes. You will need to understand the OS kernel code, design new OS features, and implement and test them!
• Each project will come with the specific instructions, as well as late penalty.
• There is no late token. Always start your project as early as you can!
• Remember to frequently backup your work.
• If your code does not compile, you will get no credit.
• We reserve the right to use MOSS and other software to detect plagiarism.

GRADING POLICY

Your grade will be calcuated as follows:

• 30% Programming projects
• 10% Homework assignments
• 5% Quizzes and class participation
• 30% Midterm exams (two)
• 25% Final exam (cumulative)

Tentative dates for midterm exams and the final exam are Oct. 6th, Nov. 17th, and Dec. 15th, 4:30-7:10 pm. All exams are closed notes, closed books.

No credit if your project does not compile. Late homeworks/projects will have a penalty (specified in each assignment) and will not be accepted 2 days after the due date. There is no make-up for missed exams. The students are responsible for keeping back-ups of their work while they are working on an assignment. For group programming assignments, each member of the group must make a separate submission. If a student makes multiple submissions, only the last submission will be graded. It is critical that the students double check the files they are submitting, as submitting a wrong, corrupted, or empty file is very likely to result in a score of 0 for that assignment.

If you think your work is not correctly graded then you must initiate contact with the grader within a week of receiving the grade (either email or on the Canvas). Grade contesting beyond this time window will not be allowed.

GRADING SCALE

• A+: >= 95%; A: [90%, 95%); A-: [85%, 90%)
• B+: [80%, 85%); B: [75%, 80%); B-: [70%, 75%)
• C: [60%, 70%)
• F: [0%, 60%)

Note: class participation is required and a minimum score of 50% is required on the Final exam to pass this course.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

You are expected to abide by the University's Academic Standards and the CS Department's Honor Code and Academic Integrity Policies during the semester, i.e., collaboration between students in different groups on an assignment is unacceptable. You may not use any assistive technology, AI or other tools to complete assignments. That is, you are forbidden from asking an AI to solve any of the problems or write any code for this class. This includes designing data structures or algorithms, implementing the algorithms, translating from one language to another, or finding bugs in your code. You are forbidden to upload or paste any assignment materials into an AI. You may only ask an AI the same sort of general questions you would ask a peer. For the purposes of the CS Department's Honor Code and Academic Integrity Policies , an AI is considered "someone else" who is not an instructor or teaching assistant. Any violation of the honor code will result in referral to the honor council.

DISABILITY STATEMENT

MISC RESOURCES

Common Course Policies

GMU Academic Calendar

Academic Integrity