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Mastering Linux Kernel Development

By : CH Raghav Maruthi

2.9 (10)

Buy this Book

Mastering Linux Kernel Development

2.9 (10)

By: CH Raghav Maruthi

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Mastering Linux Kernel Development looks at the Linux kernel, its internal arrangement and design, and various core subsystems, helping you to gain significant understanding of this open source marvel. You will look at how the Linux kernel, which possesses a kind of collective intelligence thanks to its scores of contributors, remains so elegant owing to its great design. This book also looks at all the key kernel code, core data structures, functions, and macros, giving you a comprehensive foundation of the implementation details of the kernel’s core services and mechanisms. You will also look at the Linux kernel as well-designed software, which gives us insights into software design in general that are easily scalable yet fundamentally strong and safe. By the end of this book, you will have considerable understanding of and appreciation for the Linux kernel.

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

Comprehending Processes, Address Space, and Threads

Processes

Process descriptors

Kernel stack

The issue of stack overflow

Process creation

Kernel threads

Process status and termination

Namespaces and cgroups

Summary

Deciphering the Process Scheduler

Process schedulers

Linux process scheduler design

Runqueue

The scheduler's entry point

Process priorities

Scheduler classes

Completely Fair Scheduling class (CFS)

Real-time scheduling class

Scheduler related system calls

Process preemption

Summary

Signal Management

Signals

Signal-management APIs

Signal data structures

Signal generation and delivery

Restarting interrupted system calls

Summary

Memory Management and Allocators

Initialization operations

Zones and nodes

Memory allocators

Summary

Filesystems and File I/O

Filesystem - high-level view

Filesystems in the Linux kernel

Common filesystem interface

Special filesystems

Summary

Interprocess Communication

Pipes and FIFOs

Message queues

Shared memory

Semaphores

Summary

Virtual Memory Management

Process address space

Summary

Kernel Synchronization and Locking

Atomic operations

Introducing exclusion locks

Summary

Interrupts and Deferred Work

Interrupt signals and vectors

Programmable interrupt controller

High-level interrupt-management interfaces

Deferred work

Summary

Clock and Time Management

Time representation

Hardware abstraction

Linux timekeeping data structures, macros, and helper routines

Software timers and delay functions

POSIX clocks

Summary

Module Management

Kernel modules

Summary

Memory Management and Allocators

The efficiency of memory management broadly sets the efficiency of the whole kernel. Casually managed memory systems can seriously impact the performance of other subsystems, making memory a critical component of the kernel. This subsystem sets all processes and kernel services in motion by virtualizing physical memory and managing all dynamic allocation requests initiated by them. The memory subsystem also handles a wide spectrum of operations in sustaining operational efficiency and optimizing resources. The operations are both architecture specific and independent, which mandates the overall design and implementation to be just and tweakable. We will closely look at the following aspects in this chapter in our effort to comprehend this colossal subsystem: