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Hands-On System Programming with Linux

By : Kaiwan N. Billimoria, Aivazian

4 (6)

Buy this Book

Hands-On System Programming with Linux

4 (6)

By: Kaiwan N. Billimoria, Aivazian

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

The Linux OS and its embedded and server applications are critical components of today’s software infrastructure in a decentralized, networked universe. The industry's demand for proficient Linux developers is only rising with time. Hands-On System Programming with Linux gives you a solid theoretical base and practical industry-relevant descriptions, and covers the Linux system programming domain. It delves into the art and science of Linux application programming— system architecture, process memory and management, signaling, timers, pthreads, and file IO. This book goes beyond the use API X to do Y approach; it explains the concepts and theories required to understand programming interfaces and design decisions, the tradeoffs made by experienced developers when using them, and the rationale behind them. Troubleshooting tips and techniques are included in the concluding chapter. By the end of this book, you will have gained essential conceptual design knowledge and hands-on experience working with Linux system programming interfaces.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Free Chapter

Linux System Architecture

Technical requirements

Linux and the Unix operating system

The Unix philosophy in a nutshell

Linux system architecture

Execution contexts within the kernel

Summary

Virtual Memory

Technical requirements

Virtual memory

Process memory layout

Summary

Resource Limits

Resource limits

Granularity of resource limits

Hard and soft limits

Summary

Dynamic Memory Allocation

The glibc malloc(3) API family

Beyond the basics

Summary

Linux Memory Issues

Common memory issues

Summary

Debugging Tools for Memory Issues

Tool types

Some key points

Summary

Process Credentials

The traditional Unix permissions model

Summary

Process Capabilities

The modern POSIX capabilities model

Miscellaneous

Summary

Process Execution

Technical requirements

Process execution

Summary

Process Creation

Process creation

Summary

Signaling - Part I

Why signals?

Available signals

Handling signals

Summary

Signaling - Part II

Gracefully handling process crashes

Signaling – caveats and gotchas

Real-time signals

Sending signals

Alternative signal-handling techniques

Summary

Timers

Older interfaces

The newer POSIX (interval) timers mechanism

A quick mention

Summary

Multithreading with Pthreads Part I - Essentials

Multithreading concepts

Thread management – the essential pthread APIs

Summary

Multithreading with Pthreads Part II - Synchronization

The racing problem

Locking concepts

Using the pthread APIs for synchronization

Summary

Multithreading with Pthreads Part III

Thread safety

Thread cancelation and cleanup

Threads and signaling

Threads vs processes – look again

Pthreads – a few random tips and FAQs

Summary

CPU Scheduling on Linux

The Linux OS and the POSIX scheduling model

Exploiting Linux's soft real-time capabilities

RTL – Linux as an RTOS

Summary

Advanced File I/O

I/O performance recommendations

Summary

Troubleshooting and Best Practices

Troubleshooting tools

Best practices

Summary

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Process Capabilities

In two chapter, you will learn concepts and practices regarding process credentials and capabilities. Besides being of practical importance to application development in Linux, this chapter, by its very nature, delves deeper into an often overlooked but extremely important aspect: security.

We have divided the coverage of this key area into two major parts, each of which is a chapter in this book:

In Chapter 7, Process Credentials, the traditional-style Unix permissions model is discussed in some detail, and techniques to run programs with root privileges but without requiring the root password were shown.
In this Chapter 8, Process Capabilities, the modern approach, the POSIX capabilities model, is discussed in some detail.

We will attempt to clearly show the reader that, while it is important to learn about the traditional mechanisms and how they operate...