BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE, PILANI

DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMMES DIVISION

SECOND SEMESTER 2008-2009
EC-2 (Regular)
Course No. : CSZG623
Course Title : Advanced Operating Systems
Nature of Exam : Open Book
Weightage : 60%
Duration : Hours
Date of Exam :
Attempt all the questions. Start each question from a fresh page. Write precisely. Assume suitable data if necessary.

Q. 1.
The selection policy for receiver initiated load sharing algorithm is mostly a preemptive one. It
normally assumes task pre-emption at the sender site. Can sender-initiated algorithm be also pre-
emptive. Justify your answer.
[4M]
Q. 2.
How does Take-Grant model ensure control of information flow?
[4M]
Q. 3.
a) Describe the page replacement algorithm used in Mach Operating system?
b) How well is it suited for Multiprocessor systems? Suggest any one performance limitations
involved in this scheme used.
[4+6=10M]
Q. 4.
Use Birman-Schiper-Stephenson causal ordering of messages protocol to find out whether the message sends
and receives are causally ordered in the distributed system given below. You are free to do any modifications
to the original algorithm if you feel that it is indispensable.

Send (M)
P1
M1 M2
P2 Time
M3 M1
M3 M2 Space
P3
[6]
Q. 5.
a) Show that agreement algorithm proposed by Dolev,Fischer,Fowler,Lynch,Strong cannot be
reached if one out of three processors is faulty.
b) Show that the Lamport-Shostak-Pease algorithm cannot be used in a system with n processors,
when m processors are faulty (for n = 3m), and insecure communication channel is used.
[4+6=10M]
Q. 6.
In Sprite file system, the server and client sides to need to maintain a number of data structures and
several types of messages are exchanged between the two sides.
a) Describe the data structures maintained at the client and server sides that are required for
effective determination of files/directories and their contents.
b) Enumerate the types of the messages that are exchanged between a client and the server to
enable proper synchronization of data and meta-data. Describe the format of the
messages(e.g., fields that define the message content) and their relevance in the operation.
No. of Pages = 1
No. of Questions = 7
c) Show the handling of the messages at the server node. Write pseudo code for the message
handlers and discuss how and when the data structures maintained at the server are accessed
in the message handling code.
[4+4+10=18M]

Q. 7.
a. Synchronizing clocks is difficult in a distributed system. Give two reasons to support this
statement.
b. State whether the following are true or false.
I. The network layer is responsible for routing a packet within a subnet.
II. The datalink layer enables communication between two applications residing on
different computers.
III. It is the transport layer which decides whether both users can send as well as receive
data at the same time, or whether only one host can send and the other can receive.
IV. There are only software issues when connecting networks to each other.
V. A router must have atleast two network interface cards.
VI. Digital certificate establishes the relation between a user and his/her private key.
VII. In Secure Socket Layer (SSL) once the handshake is over, the client and the server use
public key for encryption and private key for decryption.
VIII. DNS is a resource management component of a distributed system.
IX. In MutiRPC, a process is allowed to invoke a procedure on many servers concurrently,
and also not two different procedures on many servers in parallel.
X. Logical clocks are called as virtual clocks because they give timestamps nearly equal to
physical clock values.
[3+5=8M]


END