COM 1335 Distributed Operating Systems

Course Format
Course Coordinator
Textbooks and References

Prerequisites by Topic
Major Topics Covered in Course
Laboratory Projects

Course Description

Covers distributed operating systems; communication: ATM, client-server, remote procedure call; processors, processes, and threads; distributed file systems; security. Uses case studies.

4 QH credit
Prerequisite: COM 1330.

Course Information

Course is offered during the Spring and Summer quarters. CS majors are guaranteed a place in class.

• Spring 2001 (one section)
• Summer 2001 (one section)

Course Format

BSCS03 Systems track
BSCS04 elective course
BACS focused elective
BSIS general elective

This is a track course for BS CS majors graduating in the years 2003 and before, an elective for BS CS majors graduating in the year 2004 and beyond, and a 'focused elective' for  BA CS majors.

Course Coordinators

Professor John Casey
jcasey@ccs.neu.edu

Textbooks and References

• Andrew Tanenbaum and Albert Woodhull, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. Second edition. (Prentice Hall, 1997).
• Xerox packet: The assignments, the code (in a useful order), and one copy of each of the PSP sheets, all 3-hole punched.

References

Descriptions or code for Unix:
 

• John Lions, Lions' Commentary on UNIX, 6th edition: with Source Code, Peer-to-Peer Communications, 1996.
• M. K. McCusick, et. al., The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System, Addison-Wesley, 1996.

Access to all the secret stuff in Unix:
 
• 4.4BSD System Manager's Manual, Usenix / O'Reilly, 1994.
• Michael Beck, et. al., Linux Kernel Internals, Addison Wesley, 1998.
• Richard Petersen, Linux, the Complete Reference, Osborne / McGraw Hill, 1996.
• Adrian Cockcroft, Sun Performance and Tuning: SPARC & Solaris, Prentice Hall PTR, 1995.

Learning Java:
 
• Mary Campione and Kathy Walrath, The Java Tutorial, Addison-Wesley.

Windows NT:
 

• Helen Custer, Inside Windows NT, Microsoft Press, 1993, (or the newer edition)

I/O: Processors and Peripherals:
 

• John Hennessy and Dave Patterson, Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware-Software Interface, (2nd edition) Morgan-Kaufmann, 1998. 

Course Goals

Learn to work with medium sized programs by building substantial portions of one.

Gain experience with a very well designed program: the Unix file system.

Work in teams to build software.

Prerequisites by Topic

COM 1330

Major Topics Covered in the Course

• Build the functionality, that is, the system calls, of a Unix operating system.
• Reimplement the system by building data structures on a simulated disk.

Laboratory projects

See above.