Weekly Syllabus

Week
(Date)

Topic

Reading*

Notes**

Week 1
(9/5) 		Introduction: course overview
  • F00F Bug story
  • Metdown and Spectre
  • Lab -- VM setup and kernel building

OS history, general concepts, taxonomy




Week 2
(9/12) 		System primer overview: kernel modules, device drivers, system calls and ioctls
 Chapter 1

Computer-System Structures: machine booting, interrupts, I/O, DMA, storage etc

Hardware-related protection issues: CPU, memory, I/O protection etc
 Chapter 2




Week 3
(9/19) 		OS structure: monoliths, microkernels, virtual machines etc (Background: Bovet & Cesati + Intel manuals)

Further reading (just a sampling as there are many):
  • Lab -- Virtual Disk and GRUB

The system interface: system calls and how they work

Overview of process, memory, file  and I/O mgmt etc




Week 4
(9/26)
 Processes: address spaces, run-states

Processes versus threads 		Chapter 3

Discussion of grub, bootloaders, linkers, BIOS and x86 background (real versus protected mode)




Week 5
(10/3) 		Discussion of MEMOS simple OS Chapter 4

Background reading: Understanding the Linux Kernel (Bovet and Cesati)
  • Lab -- Protected Mode / Real Mode

Discussion of Quest OS boot procedure

Thread concepts




Week 6
(10/10) 		Substitute Monday Schedule of Classes

Scheduling - basic algorithms

Coroutines
 Chapter 6




Week 7
(10/17) 		Scheduling - real-time algorithms/analysis
 Additional documentation on main web page
  • Lab -- MEMOS assignment demos

Proportional share scheduling





Week 8
(10/24) 		Synchronization - critical sections, mutexes, semaphores, hardware instructions Chapter 5

Synchronization - classic problems
  • FIFOS assignment released
  • memos helper files. Do not share and do not upload to public repos such as gitlab, github, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, ...




Week 9
(10/31)
 Discussion of FIFOS assignment
  • Lab -- GDT, IDT, PIC, PIT

Monitors, deadlocks -- basic conditions
and solutions 		Chapter 7




Week 10
(11/7) 		Memory Management - swapping, swap files/partitions Chapter 8

Memory Management (continued)...





Week 11
(11/14) 		Virtual Memory  Chapter 9
  • Lab -- TF Office Hours

Virtual Memory -- page replacement




Week 12
(11/21) 		Discussion of DISCOS assignment

Filesystem Implementation
  

Thanksgiving Recess
 Chapters 10-13
  • No Thursday lecture




Week 13
(11/28)
 Buddy Memory / Slab Allocation Chapters 16-18

Filesystems continued
  




Week 14
(12/5) 		Miscellaneous Topics: Quest and Quest-V
  • Slides provided as appropriate, depending on topics discussed
  • Lab -- TF Office Hours

Miscellaneous Topics: VCPU Scheduling in Quest





Week 15
(12/12) 		Miscellaneous Topics: Distributed Systems, DriveOS
  • Lab -- TF Office Hours

Q & A final assignment
  • Final assignment demos will be during the final exam time slot