The Linux kernel

The Linux kernel

Andries Brouwer, aeb@cwi.nl

2003-02-01

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Some remarks on the Linux Kernel

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1. Linux

• 1.1 History
• 1.2 Size
• 1.3 Hardware platforms
• 1.4 Authors
• 1.5 Users and marketshare
• 1.6 Name
• 1.7 Distributions
• 1.8 Copyright, Open Source, GPL
• 1.9 Literature and documentation

 

2. The kernel source

• 2.1 Kernel versions
• 2.2 Obtaining the kernel source
• 2.3 Compiling the kernel
• 2.4 Booting a new kernel
• 2.5 Modules
• 2.6 Subsystems - layout of the tree
• 2.7 The C code
• 2.8 Logging kernel messages
• 2.9 Keyboard interface to the kernel
• 2.10 Profiling the kernel
• 2.11 Debugging the kernel
• 2.12 Submitting patches
• 2.13 Talking about the kernel

 

3. User space and the libc interface

• 3.1 Application programs and C library
• 3.2 Kernel and user space
• 3.3 Error return conventions
• 3.4 Alternative C libraries
• 3.5 Initial userspace
• 3.6 Libraries and binary formats

 

4. System Calls

• 4.1 System call numbers
• 4.2 The call
• 4.3 System call parameters
• 4.4 Error return
• 4.5 Interrupted system calls
• 4.6 Sysenter and the vsyscall page

 

5. Signals

• 5.1 Sending signals
• 5.2 Receiving signals
• 5.3 Semantics
• 5.4 Blocking signals
• 5.5 Voodoo: wait and SIGCHLD
• 5.6 Returning from a signal handler
• 5.7 ptrace
• 5.8 The Linux "parent death" signal

 

6. File names and files

• 6.1 The file hierarchy
• 6.2 The Unix filesystem model
• 6.3 The Linux filesystem model
• 6.4 Open files
• 6.5 Path names relative to a file descriptor

 

7. Filesystems

• 7.1 FAT
• 7.2 Ext2
• 7.3 Journaling filesystems
• 7.4 NFS
• 7.5 The proc filesystem
• 7.6 A baby filesystem example

 

8. The Linux Virtual File System

• 8.1 Terminology
• 8.2 Filesystem type registration
• 8.3 Struct file_system_type
• 8.4 Mounting
• 8.5 The superblock
• 8.6 Inodes
• 8.7 Dentries
• 8.8 Files
• 8.9 struct vfsmount
• 8.10 fs_struct
• 8.11 nameidata

 

9. Memory

• 9.1 Physical and virtual memory
• 9.2 Kinds of memory
• 9.3 Kernel memory handling
• 9.4 i386 addressing
• 9.5 Reference
• 9.6 Overcommit and OOM
• 9.7 Stack overflow

 

10. Processes

• 10.1 Processes
• 10.2 Process groups
• 10.3 Sessions
• 10.4 Threads

 

11. Character devices

• 11.1 Registration
• 11.2 Opening
• 11.3 The tty driver
• 11.4 Raw devices
• 11.5 The random device

 

12. Handling of asynchronous events

• 12.1 O_NONBLOCK
• 12.2 select
• 12.3 pselect
• 12.4 poll
• 12.5 epoll
• 12.6 dnotify
• 12.7 inotify

 

13. Sysfs and kobjects

• 13.1 atomic_t
• 13.2 struct kref
• 13.3 struct kobject
• 13.4 struct kset
• 13.5 struct kobj_type
• 13.6 struct subsystem
• 13.7 struct kobj_map
• 13.8 Example: floppy
• 13.9 Hotplug

 

14. Security

• 14.1 seccomp