Description
Section 1: Shell Scripts
1.1 Objectives
The following exercises in this part cover essential shell scripting concepts, including conditional statements, pipes, file and directory operations, arithmetic calculations, and the
use of commands like ”find” and ”time” By completing these tasks, you will gain hands-on
experience and a deeper understanding of how to leverage shell scripts for everyday problemsolving.
1.2 Background
In this background section, we explored the world of shell scripting, focusing on the fundamental aspects of what shell is, where it’s used, why it’s a crucial tool and a captivating fun
fact related to shell scripting.
What is Shell? Shell is a command-line interface that acts as a bridge between users
and the underlying components of a computer’s operating system. It enables users to interact
with the system through text-based commands.
Where it’s Used? Shell environments are integral to Unix-like operating systems like
Linux and macOS, and they also exist in various forms in Windows systems. Shell scripting
is essential for system administrators, developers, and anyone looking to maximize their
computer’s capabilities.
Why it’s Used? Shell scripting is employed for a range of purposes, including automation of tasks, customization of system settings, batch processing, resource management, and
real-time interactivity. It provides a powerful means of improving efficiency and productivity.
As a fun fact about Shell scripting, the term ”shell” is aptly chosen, as it encapsulates and
protects the inner workings of the operating system, much like a protective shell surrounds
an organism.
1.3 Questions
1. Write a shell program to calculate if a number is even or odd.
2. Write a shell program to list the number of files and directories along with their permissions in a particular directory.
3. Write a shell program to calculate the sum of n numbers. (n should be greater than 3)
4. Write a shell script that calculates and displays the total size of all files in a directory
and 3 levels of its subdirectories using the ”find” command and pipelining. Display
the size in human-readable format (e.g., KB, MB, GB)
5. Write a shell program to determine whether the input is Armstrong number or not.
(An Armstrong number of three digits is an integer such that the sum of the cubes of
its digits is equal to the number itself. For example, 371 is an Armstrong number since
3**3 + 7**3 + 1**3 equals 371.)
1.4 How to Do It
1.4.1 Choose a text editor
You can use ”Vi”, ”Vim”, ”nano”, or ”gedit” as editors available in the terminal. Also, you
can use ”VSCode”, ”Atom”, or ”Sublime” which all support GUI.
1.4.2 Write your code
Write the code that you want to execute in bash language. Please use meaningful names for
the variables and functions and write comments whenever it is needed.
1.4.3 Make your code executable
Use ”chmod” command to make your code executable. Please note that your code won’t
work if you skip this step.
1.4.4 Execute your code
You can test your code by running it in the Computer Science labs. (cslinux.ucalgary.ca)
Make sure that your codes are working in the Computer Science labs as it is the main
reference for TAs when grading your work.
Section 2: Producer-Consumer Problem
2.1 Objectives
Processes, self-contained program execution units that have their own memory space, registers, and program counter, are designed to achieve a specific purpose that is assigned to
them. Different processes achieve different purposes. However, oftentimes, more than one
process may need to access the same resource or exchange data with another process.
This
leads us to the concept of coordinating and managing access to shared resources amongst
different processes in a manner where they do not interfere with each other in undesirable
ways; this is called Synchronization. Your assignment is to make use of the basic binary and
counting semaphores discussed in class in order to simulate a busy day at a carnival thus
implementing a classic synchronization problem – The Producer Consumer Problem.
2.2 Background
One of the most famous and essential problems in synchronization and concurrency is the
producer-consumer problem. Our focus is on a specialized version of this problem called the
bounded-buffer problem. In such a problem, we have two processes: one called the producer
and the other the consumer, and additionally, there is a bounded buffer that both the producer and consumer write to and read from.
The producer is in charge of adding items to
the bounded buffer, and the consumer is in charge of removing them. If the buffer is full,
the producer waits until a consumer takes something. If the bounded buffer is empty, the
consumer waits until the producer adds something.
In this assignment, we will implement an extended form of the producer-consumer problem:
the multiple-producer multiple-consumer problem. It is identical to the consumer-producer
problem, except as the name implies, multiple processes can produce, and multiple processes
can consume. Also, there may be more than one bounded buffer.
You will solve this problem in the context of a busy day at the carnival, where you have two
producer processes (balloon artists), three consumer processes (customers), and two bounded
buffers (balloon carts).
Scenario
You are the owner of Balloon Brigade, a company that sells different types of balloon figures
and you have been asked to set up a stall at the Calgary Carnival. However, the organizers
are adamant that you can’t bring ready-made balloon figures and sell them, but rather, your
balloon artists should make the figures at the carnival and put them in carts throughout the
duration of the carnival as they believe that many people enjoy watching how these figures
are made.
You will thus be in charge of organizing your two specialized balloon artists (represented by
two producer processes) to constantly resupply two carts of balloon figures (represented by
two bounded buffers), for three queues of excited customers to take from (represented by
three consumer processes).
Each artist specializes in 2 figures, and they strictly add items
only to their respective cart (buffer):
1. Balloon Bob specializes in balloon animals:
(a) Balloon Monkey
(b) Balloon Dog
2. Helium Harry specializes in balloon houses:
(a) Balloon Hut
(b) Balloon Tower
A balloon artist should randomly pick between either of their figures, and add it to the
balloon cart at a random rate between 1 and 10 seconds (inclusive).
The three consumer processes are each programmed as an infinite loop() of customers:
1. The first process will represent customers that want any animal balloon.
2. The second process will represent customers that want any house balloon.
3. The third process will represent customers that want one of each.
A customer needs to wait if there’s not enough of any of their desired balloon figures. The
balloon artists need to wait if any of their respective carts are full. After a customer takes
an item, the respective customer process should wait for a random amount of time between
5 and 15 seconds seconds (inclusive) before iterating again.
2.3 Questions
Part 1 – Your stall at the carnival has just ONE balloon artist, Balloon Bob (producer) as
Helium Harry is running late. Balloon Bob is making balloon animals and putting them into
a cart (bounded buffer). Customers are lined up to pick up these balloon animals (consumer).
Part 2 – Helium Harry has just arrived with his cart. Now there are TWO balloon artists
(two producers). They put their respective balloons into their respective carts (two bounded
buffers). There are three types of consumers – people who want balloon animals, people who
want balloon houses and people who want both animals and houses.
Simulate these scenarios the best you can. For part 1, make it such that the user can
interact with the program. The following screenshot shows an example output for part 1 of
your assignment:
For part 2, ensure that you display your understanding of multi-threading by simulating
an environment where producers and consumers are able to do their tasks without any errors.
Make sure the simulation runs for 45 seconds.
For both part 1 and 2, ensure you have an option which displays the contents of the
buffer and any other information regarding its state.
2.4 How to Do It
Before beginning part one, you need to understand how the basic locking mechanism works
between processes and how to synchronize them such that there are no race conditions
between them, which occur when two or more processes want to alter the shared data at the
same time.
The following steps should help you organize your work on the assignment.
2.4.1 Create and initialize the buffers and semaphores
For each bounded-buffer, we need a binary semaphore that makes sure only one process
can write to the buffer at any one time. Call this semaphore mutex as it is acting as a lock
for the buffer. For each buffer, we will also need two counting semaphores – called full
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and empty – that ensure a producer can’t go into its critical section if the buffer is full, and
likewise, a consumer can’t do so if their respective buffer is empty.
Play with these semaphores to make sure mutual exclusion is being met. Hypothetically:
If you were to use just 1 buffer, to keep track of the buffer and its state, you would have
needed to use an integer array that stores values 0,1,2. This will allow the buffer to be
managed easily as 0 will represent an empty position, 1 will represent balloon animals and
2 will represent balloon houses.
2.4.2 Create the producers and consumers
You should now have the necessary setup to start working on your producer and consumer
processes to simulate the fun-filled carnival. Each time a producer or consumer executes its
critical section (i.e. adds/takes from the buffer), they should print the following:
1. Whether it is a producer or consumer doing the action
2. Which producer/consumer it is:
(a) Balloon Bob vs Helium Harry for the producers
(b) Balloon Animals vs Balloon Houses vs hybrid for the consumers
3. Which variation of the balloon figures the producer/consumer has added/taken from
the buffer
Keep in mind that you should be implementing bounded-buffers! This means utilizing and
keeping track of the in and out positions of each buffer. Simply adding/taking from any
empty/full slot will not receive credit!
2.4.3 Create and Use Threads
In this part you need to re-implement the problem using threads. From an educational point
of view, this should reflect your understanding of the use of threads vs processes, and how to
handle their side effects, if any.
In your implementation, you need to consider the following:
1. Avoid zombie processes and threads (pthread exit and pthread join, etc.)
2. Avoid multiple processes writing to the same shared memory at the same time thus
avoiding data corruption (race conditions)
3 Grading
The entire assignment carries 100 points. Section 1 (shell programs) will carry 30 out of the
100 points (questions 1-3 are worth 5 points each and questions 4 and 5 are worth 7.5 points
each). The first part of Section 2 will carry 35 points and the second part of Section 2 will
carry 35 points out of the 100.
4 Deadline
The assignment is due by October 6 at 11:59 PM, after that the deduction policy of 20%
daily (part of the day is considered as a full day) will be applied. The first 15 minutes of the
penalty day is a grace period and will not result in deduction.
5 Submission
To submit, create a new folder called ”dir name” and place all files you wish to submit
in this folder. Use the command ”tar -zcvf zip name.tar.gz dir name” and upload the
zip name.tar.gz. The Zip File name should be the student name+ID (example: Name =
John Doe, Student ID = 12345678, FILENAME = john doe 12345678). Ensure that you
have added all the files while zipping.
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