Real-Time Operating Systems and Middleware

The Course:

The course web page changed: find the old (2010) page here

Slides:

Theory:

• Introduction to the course
• Real-Time Scheduling
• Real-Time Scheduling Analysis
  • Exercizes
• Considerations on Other Scheduling algorithms
• Shared Resources
• Removing some restrictive assumptions
• Sensitivity Analysis (for the sake of curiosity)
• Summary about OS kernels
• The Timer Resolution Latency
• The Non-Preemptable Section Latency
• Some slides about Linux Kernel Locking (enforcing consistency in a modern multithreaded kernel).
• A paper about Real-Time on Linux
• The The Sporadic Server
• Another reservation-based scheduling algorithm
• MultiProcessor real-time scheduling

Practice (in the lab):

• Real-Time API - Part I
• Real-Time API - Managing the Concurrency
• The PThreads API
  • Introduction to PThreads
  • PThreads Synchronization
• Compiling for embedded systems:
  • Some notes on CrossCompilers
  • How to build a filesystem for embedded devices
  • Filesystems for embedded devices: a summary
• Tutorial on writing real-time applications with POSIX
• Source code for an example RT application
• The Some slides about the Linux Kernel

NOTE: slides are periodically updated... Be sure to have the latest version!

For comments, qestions, etc. send me an email.

References:

• A good Operating System book (I suggest ``Operating Systems'' by William Stallings, but ``Operating Systems Design and Implementation'' by Andrew Tanenbaum, or similar books are OK too). As an example here is a list of the interesting chapters in ``Operating systems. Internals and design principles; 7th ed.'' by W. Stallings.
• For the Real-Time Scheduling part, interested students can consult ``HARD REAL-TIME COMPUTING SYSTEMS: Predictable Scheduling Algorithms and Applications'' by Giorgio Buttazzo (Springer, 2005) - There is an italian version of the book, too.
• For the Real-Time programming part, consult the Open Group site (in particular, have a look at the real-time extensions)
• Another good reference for people interested in Unix programming is ``Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment'' by W. Richard Stevens (Addison Wesley)

Funny Stories:

• About the Mars Pathfinder

Projects:

First of all, please note that projects are not mandatory anymore.

A list of possible projects for the exam is available. Please note that some projects are more difficult than other ones; this will be taken in account during the evaluation. If you have proposal for different, simpler, more interesting, or more complex projects, let me know.

Other Material:

• Some notes about C Coding
• Some notes about writing Makefiles
• For experiments on operating system kernels, the qemu emulator will be used. If you are impatient and you want to start playing with the emulator now, here you can find version 0.9 precompiled and ready to be used on a Linux system. Just download the tarball and uncompress it in /tmp. Have a look at the qemu site for instructions about how to use it.
• A cross-compiler for ARM
• A patched version of busybox that works on the computers in A104
• The package containing the ARM test kernel
• Some scripts for generating an initramfs
• The kernel headers for compiling test Linux modules (for ARM)
• How to use xenomai
• Example about Linux Kernel Modules, and some instructions for compiling and using kernel modules.

Some Practice at the Computer...

If you want to see how the theory studied in the course applies in simple programming exercizes, check this link.

The Exam

Are you ready?

The texts of some of the previous exams:

• January 18 2011
• February 15 2011
• June 7 2011

Remember to send me your projects some days in advance respect to the exam, so that I can evaluate them.

Please check esse3 for knowing when the next exams will be. If you have problems with esse3 (the exam does not appear, or you cannot register), contact esse3studenti@unitn.it, or use the link on this web page: http://193.205.206.41/portale/form/helpdesk/help_studenti_intro.asp. They will fix your problem.

There will be the possibility to have a written exam on January 24. If you are interested in it, register for the February's exam on esse3, and send me an email. This written exam will be at 9:00AM in A107.