Principles of Operating Systems

CMSC 421 - Spring 2020

Homework 3

50 points total

Due by 2:30 PM EDT on Thursday, April 16th

Please provide written responses to the following questions. Each response should be about a paragraph or two in length — there is no need to write us a book for each, just be sure to answer the question thoroughly. Each question is worth 10 points.

  1. Describe in detail how round robin scheduling is performed. Be sure to include how time plays a part in this scheduling algorithm.
  2. Name and describe the conditions that must occur in a system in order for a deadlock to arise. If all of these conditions are present in a system, must there be a deadlock currently?
  3. Describe what a character device is in the Linux kernel. How does a character device differ from a block device?
  4. Describe the role of a TLB in implmenting virtual memory on a computer system. What benefit does using a TLB provide that using page tables directly does not?
  5. Briefly describe fail0verflow's SRESET and HRESET attacks and what they allowed fail0verflow to do on the system.

You must submit a PDF file of the answers to these questions on the Homework 3 assignment on Blackboard. You may prepare your responses in any word processing application of your choosing, but you must submit a PDF file. Do not submit Microsoft Word/Apple Pages/LibreOffice documents with your responses. You must convert to a PDF file before submitting or you will lose points.

Last modified: