- as thre are still KERNEL and IDLE entries, time accounting for
kernel and idle time works the same as for any other process
- everytime we stop accounting for the currently running process,
kernel or idle, we read the TSC counter and increment the p_cycles
entry.
- the process cycles inherently include some of the kernel cycles as
we can stop accounting for the process only after we save its
context and we start accounting just before we restore its context
- this assumes that the system does not scale the CPU frequency which
will be true for ... long time ;-)
- we don't need to test this in kernel as we always have interrupts
disabled
- if interrupts are enabled in kernel, it is only at very carefully
chosen places. There are no such places now.
* Userspace change to use the new kernel calls
- _taskcall(SYSTASK...) changed to _kernel_call(...)
- int 32 reused for the kernel calls
- _do_kernel_call() to make the trap to kernel
- kernel_call() to make the actuall kernel call from C using
_do_kernel_call()
- unlike ipc call the kernel call always succeeds as kernel is
always available, however, kernel may return an error
* Kernel side implementation of kernel calls
- the SYSTEm task does not run, only the proc table entry is
preserved
- every data_copy(SYSTEM is no data_copy(KERNEL
- "locking" is an empty operation now as everything runs in
kernel
- sys_task() is replaced by kernel_call() which copies the
message into kernel, dispatches the call to its handler and
finishes by either copying the results back to userspace (if
need be) or by suspending the process because of VM
- suspended processes are later made runnable once the memory
issue is resolved, picked up by the scheduler and only at
this time the call is resumed (in fact restarted) which does
not need to copy the message from userspace as the message
is already saved in the process structure.
- no ned for the vmrestart queue, the scheduler will restart
the system calls
- no special case in do_vmctl(), all requests remove the
RTS_VMREQUEST flag
- switch_address_space() implements a switch of the user address space
for the destination process
- this makes memory of this process easily accessible, e.g. a pointer
valid in the userspace can be used with a little complexity to
access the process's memory
- the switch does not happed only just before we return to userspace,
however, it happens right after we know which process we are going
to schedule. This happens before we start processing the misc flags
of this process so its memory is available
- if the process becomes not runnable while processing the mics flags
we pick a new process and we switch the address space again which
introduces possibly a little bit more overhead, however, it is
hopefully hidden by reducing the overheads when we actually access
the memory
- the syscalls are pretty much just ipc calls, however, sendrec() is
used to implement system task (sys) calls
- sendrec() won't be used anymore for this, therefore ipc calls will
become pure ipc calls
The old deadlock code was misplaced and unable to deal with asynchronous
IPC primitives (notify and senda) effectively. As an example, the following
sequence of messages allowed the deadlock detection code to
trigger a false positive:
1. A.notify(B)
2. A.receive(B)
3. B.receive(A)
1. B.notify(A)
The solution is to run the deadlock detection routine only when a process is
about to block in mini_send() or mini_receive().
KERNEL CHANGES:
- The kernel only knows about privileges of kernel tasks and the root system
process (now RS).
- Kernel tasks and the root system process are the only processes that are made
schedulable by the kernel at startup. All the other processes in the boot image
don't get their privileges set at startup and are inhibited from running by the
RTS_NO_PRIV flag.
- Removed the assumption on the ordering of processes in the boot image table.
System processes can now appear in any order in the boot image table.
- Privilege ids can now be assigned both statically or dynamically. The kernel
assigns static privilege ids to kernel tasks and the root system process. Each
id is directly derived from the process number.
- User processes now all share the static privilege id of the root user
process (now INIT).
- sys_privctl split: we have more calls now to let RS set privileges for system
processes. SYS_PRIV_ALLOW / SYS_PRIV_DISALLOW are only used to flip the
RTS_NO_PRIV flag and allow / disallow a process from running. SYS_PRIV_SET_SYS /
SYS_PRIV_SET_USER are used to set privileges for a system / user process.
- boot image table flags split: PROC_FULLVM is the only flag that has been
moved out of the privilege flags and is still maintained in the boot image
table. All the other privilege flags are out of the kernel now.
RS CHANGES:
- RS is the only user-space process who gets to run right after in-kernel
startup.
- RS uses the boot image table from the kernel and three additional boot image
info table (priv table, sys table, dev table) to complete the initialization
of the system.
- RS checks that the entries in the priv table match the entries in the boot
image table to make sure that every process in the boot image gets schedulable.
- RS only uses static privilege ids to set privileges for system services in
the boot image.
- RS includes basic memory management support to allocate the boot image buffer
dynamically during initialization. The buffer shall contain the executable
image of all the system services we would like to restart after a crash.
- First step towards decoupling between resource provisioning and resource
requirements in RS: RS must know what resources it needs to restart a process
and what resources it has currently available. This is useful to tradeoff
reliability and resource consumption. When required resources are missing, the
process cannot be restarted. In that case, in the future, a system flag will
tell RS what to do. For example, if CORE_PROC is set, RS should trigger a
system-wide panic because the system can no longer function correctly without
a core system process.
PM CHANGES:
- The process tree built at initialization time is changed to have INIT as root
with pid 0, RS child of INIT and all the system services children of RS. This
is required to make RS in control of all the system services.
- PM no longer registers labels for system services in the boot image. This is
now part of RS's initialization process.
- idle task becomes a pseudo task which is never scheduled. It is never put on
any run queue and never enters userspace. An entry for this task still remains
in the process table for time accounting
- Instead of panicing if there is not process to schedule, pick_proc() returns
NULL which is a signal to put the cpu in an idle state and set everything in
such a way that after receiving and interrupt it looks like idle task was
preempted
- idle task is set non-preemptible to avoid handling in the timer interrupt code
which make userspace scheduling simpler as idle task does not need to be
handled as a special case.
- new proc_is_runnable() macro to test whether process is runnable. All tests
whether p_rts_flags == 0 converted to use this macro
- pick_proc() calls removed from enqueue() and dequeue()
- removed the test for recursive calls from pick_proc() as it certainly cannot
be called recursively now
- PREEMPTED flag to mark processes that were preempted by enqueueuing a higher
priority process in enqueue()
- enqueue_head() to enqueue PREEMPTED processes again at the head of their
current priority queue
- NO_QUANTUM flag to block and dequeue processes preempted by timer tick with
exceeded quantum. They need to be enqueued again in schedcheck()
- next_ptr global variable removed
- after a trap to kernel, the code automatically switches to kernel
stack, in the future local to the CPU
- k_reenter variable replaced by a test whether the CS is kernel cs or
not. The information is passed further if needed. Removes a global
variable which would need to be cpu local
- no need for global variables describing the exception or trap
context. This information is kept on stack and a pointer to this
structure is passed to the C code as a single structure
- removed loadedcr3 variable and its use replaced by reading the %cr3
register
- no need to redisable interrupts in restart() as they are already
disabled.
- unified handling of traps that push and don't push errorcode
- removed save() function as the process context is not saved directly
to process table but saved as required by the trap code. Essentially
it means that save() code is inlined everywhere not only in the
exception handling routine
- returning from syscall is more arch independent - it sets the retger
in C
- top of the x86 stack contains the current CPU id and pointer to the
currently scheduled process (the one right interrupted) so the mode
switch code can find where to save the context without need to use
proc_ptr which will be cpu local in the future and therefore
difficult to access in assembler and expensive to access in general
- some more clean up of level0 code. No need to read-back the argument
passed in
%eax from the proc structure. The mode switch code does not clobber
%the general registers and hence we can just call what is in %eax
- many assebly macros in sconst.h as they will be reused by the apic
assembly
- preemption handled in the clock timer interrupt handler, not in the clock task
- more achitecture independent clock timer handling code
- smp ready as each CPU can have its own timer
o Support for ptrace T_ATTACH/T_DETACH and T_SYSCALL
o PM signal handling logic should now work properly, even with debuggers
being present
o Asynchronous PM/VFS protocol, full IPC support for senda(), and
AMF_NOREPLY senda() flag
DETAILS
Process stop and delay call handling of PM:
o Added sys_runctl() kernel call with sys_stop() and sys_resume()
aliases, for PM to stop and resume a process
o Added exception for sending/syscall-traced processes to sys_runctl(),
and matching SIGKREADY pseudo-signal to PM
o Fixed PM signal logic to deal with requests from a process after
stopping it (so-called "delay calls"), using the SIGKREADY facility
o Fixed various PM panics due to race conditions with delay calls versus
VFS calls
o Removed special PRIO_STOP priority value
o Added SYS_LOCK RTS kernel flag, to stop an individual process from
running while modifying its process structure
Signal and debugger handling in PM:
o Fixed debugger signals being dropped if a second signal arrives when
the debugger has not retrieved the first one
o Fixed debugger signals being sent to the debugger more than once
o Fixed debugger signals unpausing process in VFS; removed PM_UNPAUSE_TR
protocol message
o Detached debugger signals from general signal logic and from being
blocked on VFS calls, meaning that even VFS can now be traced
o Fixed debugger being unable to receive more than one pending signal in
one process stop
o Fixed signal delivery being delayed needlessly when multiple signals
are pending
o Fixed wait test for tracer, which was returning for children that were
not waited for
o Removed second parallel pending call from PM to VFS for any process
o Fixed process becoming runnable between exec() and debugger trap
o Added support for notifying the debugger before the parent when a
debugged child exits
o Fixed debugger death causing child to remain stopped forever
o Fixed consistently incorrect use of _NSIG
Extensions to ptrace():
o Added T_ATTACH and T_DETACH ptrace request, to attach and detach a
debugger to and from a process
o Added T_SYSCALL ptrace request, to trace system calls
o Added T_SETOPT ptrace request, to set trace options
o Added TO_TRACEFORK trace option, to attach automatically to children
of a traced process
o Added TO_ALTEXEC trace option, to send SIGSTOP instead of SIGTRAP upon
a successful exec() of the tracee
o Extended T_GETUSER ptrace support to allow retrieving a process's priv
structure
o Removed T_STOP ptrace request again, as it does not help implementing
debuggers properly
o Added MINIX3-specific ptrace test (test42)
o Added proper manual page for ptrace(2)
Asynchronous PM/VFS interface:
o Fixed asynchronous messages not being checked when receive() is called
with an endpoint other than ANY
o Added AMF_NOREPLY senda() flag, preventing such messages from
satisfying the receive part of a sendrec()
o Added asynsend3() that takes optional flags; asynsend() is now a
#define passing in 0 as third parameter
o Made PM/VFS protocol asynchronous; reintroduced tell_fs()
o Made PM_BASE request/reply number range unique
o Hacked in a horrible temporary workaround into RS to deal with newly
revealed RS-PM-VFS race condition triangle until VFS is asynchronous
System signal handling:
o Fixed shutdown logic of device drivers; removed old SIGKSTOP signal
o Removed is-superuser check from PM's do_procstat() (aka getsigset())
o Added sigset macros to allow system processes to deal with the full
signal set, rather than just the POSIX subset
Miscellaneous PM fixes:
o Split do_getset into do_get and do_set, merging common code and making
structure clearer
o Fixed setpriority() being able to put to sleep processes using an
invalid parameter, or revive zombie processes
o Made find_proc() global; removed obsolete proc_from_pid()
o Cleanup here and there
Also included:
o Fixed false-positive boot order kernel warning
o Removed last traces of old NOTIFY_FROM code
THINGS OF POSSIBLE INTEREST
o It should now be possible to run PM at any priority, even lower than
user processes
o No assumptions are made about communication speed between PM and VFS,
although communication must be FIFO
o A debugger will now receive incoming debuggee signals at kill time
only; the process may not yet be fully stopped
o A first step has been made towards making the SYSTEM task preemptible
- no longer have kernel have its own page table that is loaded
on every kernel entry (trap, interrupt, exception). the primary
purpose is to reduce the number of required reloads.
Result:
- kernel can only access memory of process that was running when
kernel was entered
- kernel must be mapped into every process page table, so traps to
kernel keep working
Problem:
- kernel must often access memory of arbitrary processes (e.g. send
arbitrary processes messages); this can't happen directly any more;
usually because that process' page table isn't loaded at all, sometimes
because that memory isn't mapped in at all, sometimes because it isn't
mapped in read-write.
So:
- kernel must be able to map in memory of any process, in its own
address space.
Implementation:
- VM and kernel share a range of memory in which addresses of
all page tables of all processes are available. This has two purposes:
. Kernel has to know what data to copy in order to map in a range
. Kernel has to know where to write the data in order to map it in
That last point is because kernel has to write in the currently loaded
page table.
- Processes and kernel are separated through segments; kernel segments
haven't changed.
- The kernel keeps the process whose page table is currently loaded
in 'ptproc.'
- If it wants to map in a range of memory, it writes the value of the
page directory entry for that range into the page directory entry
in the currently loaded map. There is a slot reserved for such
purposes. The kernel can then access this memory directly.
- In order to do this, its segment has been increased (and the
segments of processes start where it ends).
- In the pagefault handler, detect if the kernel is doing
'trappable' memory access (i.e. a pagefault isn't a fatal
error) and if so,
- set the saved instruction pointer to phys_copy_fault,
breaking out of phys_copy
- set the saved eax register to the address of the page
fault, both for sanity checking and for checking in
which of the two ranges that phys_copy was called
with the fault occured
- Some boot-time processes do not have their own page table,
and are mapped in with the kernel, and separated with
segments. The kernel detects this using HASPT. If such a
process has to be scheduled, any page table will work and
no page table switch is done.
Major changes in kernel are
- When accessing user processes memory, kernel no longer
explicitly checks before it does so if that memory is OK.
It simply makes the mapping (if necessary), tries to do the
operation, and traps the pagefault if that memory isn't present;
if that happens, the copy function returns EFAULT.
So all of the CHECKRANGE_OR_SUSPEND macros are gone.
- Kernel no longer has to copy/read and parse page tables.
- A message copying optimisation: when messages are copied, and
the recipient isn't mapped in, they are copied into a buffer
in the kernel. This is done in QueueMess. The next time
the recipient is scheduled, this message is copied into
its memory. This happens in schedcheck().
This eliminates the mapping/copying step for messages, and makes
it easier to deliver messages. This eliminates soft_notify.
- Kernel no longer creates a page table at all, so the vm_setbuf
and pagetable writing in memory.c is gone.
Minor changes in kernel are
- ipc_stats thrown out, wasn't used
- misc flags all renamed to MF_*
- NOREC_* macros to enter and leave functions that should not
be called recursively; just sanity checks really
- code to fully decode segment selectors and descriptors
to print on exceptions
- lots of vmassert()s added, only executed if DEBUG_VMASSERT is 1
Kernel:
o Remove s_ipc_sendrec, instead using s_ipc_to for all send primitives
o Centralize s_ipc_to bit manipulation,
- disallowing assignment of bits pointing to unused priv structs;
- preventing send-to-self by not setting bit for own priv struct;
- preserving send mask matrix symmetry in all cases
o Add IPC send mask checks to SENDA, which were missing entirely somehow
o Slightly improve IPC stats accounting for SENDA
o Remove SYSTEM from user processes' send mask
o Half-fix the dependency between boot image order and process numbers,
- correcting the table order of the boot processes;
- documenting the order requirement needed for proper send masks;
- warning at boot time if the order is violated
RS:
o Add support in /etc/drivers.conf for servers that talk to user processes,
- disallowing IPC to user processes if no "ipc" field is present
- adding a special "USER" label to explicitly allow IPC to user processes
o Always apply IPC masks when specified; remove -i flag from service(8)
o Use kernel send mask symmetry to delay adding IPC permissions for labels
that do not exist yet, adding them to that label's process upon creation
o Add VM to ipc permissions list for rtl8139 and fxp in drivers.conf
Left to future fixes:
o Removal of the table order vs process numbers dependency altogether,
possibly using per-process send list structures as used for SYSTEM calls
o Proper assignment of send masks to boot processes;
some of the assigned (~0) masks are much wider than necessary
o Proper assignment of IPC send masks for many more servers in drivers.conf
o Removal of the debugging warning about the now legitimate case where RS's
add_forward_ipc cannot find the IPC destination's label yet
- ipc checking code in kernel didn't properly catch the
sendrec() to self case; added special case check
- triggered by PM using stock panic() - needs its own _exit()
reported by Joren l'Ami.
process is not PREEMPTIBLE (or it's not ready, or there isn't a current
process yet). This fixes a case where a process that isn't
PREEMPTIBLE actually gets preempted. (This solves a race condition
between CLOCK and SYSTEM.)
bugfixes:
SYSTEM:
. removed
rc->p_priv->s_flags = 0;
for the priv struct shared by all user processes in get_priv(). this
should only be done once. doing a SYS_PRIV_USER in sys_privctl()
caused the flags of all user processes to be reset, so they were no
longer PREEMPTIBLE. this happened when RS executed a policy script.
(this broke test1 in the test set)
VFS/MFS:
. chown can change the mode of a file, and chmod arguments are only
part of the full file mode so the full filemode is slightly magic.
changed these calls so that the final modes are returned to VFS, so
that the vnode can be kept up-to-date.
(this broke test11 in the test set)
MFS:
. lookup() checked for sizeof(string) instead of sizeof(user_path),
truncating long path names
(caught by test 23)
. truncate functions neglected to update ctime
(this broke test16)
VFS:
. corner case of an empty filename lookup caused fields of a request
not to be filled in in the lookup functions, not making it clear
that the lookup had failed, causing messages to garbage processes,
causing strange failures.
(caught by test 30)
. trust v_size in vnode when doing reads or writes on non-special
files, truncating i/o where necessary; this is necessary for pipes,
as MFS can't tell when a pipe has been truncated without it being
told explicitly each time.
when the last reader/writer on a pipe closes, tell FS about
the new size using truncate_vn().
(this broke test 25, among others)
. permission check for chdir() had disappeared; added a
forbidden() call
(caught by test 23)
new code, shouldn't change anything:
. introduced RTS_SET, RTS_UNSET, and RTS_ISSET macro's, and their
LOCK variants. These macros set and clear the p_rts_flags field,
causing a lot of duplicated logic like
old_flags = rp->p_rts_flags; /* save value of the flags */
rp->p_rts_flags &= ~NO_PRIV;
if (old_flags != 0 && rp->p_rts_flags == 0) lock_enqueue(rp);
to change into the simpler
RTS_LOCK_UNSET(rp, NO_PRIV);
so the macros take care of calling dequeue() and enqueue() (or lock_*()),
as the case may be). This makes the code a bit more readable and a
bit less fragile.
. removed return code from do_clocktick in CLOCK as it currently
never replies
. removed some debug code from VFS
. fixed grant debug message in device.c
preemptive checks, tests, changes:
. added return code checks of receive() to SYSTEM and CLOCK
. O_TRUNC should never arrive at MFS (added sanity check and removed
O_TRUNC code)
. user_path declared with PATH_MAX+1 to let it be null-terminated
. checks in MFS to see if strings passed by VFS are null-terminated
IS:
. static irq name table thrown out
mainly in the kernel and headers. This split based on work by
Ingmar Alting <iaalting@cs.vu.nl> done for his Minix PowerPC architecture
port.
. kernel does not program the interrupt controller directly, do any
other architecture-dependent operations, or contain assembly any more,
but uses architecture-dependent functions in arch/$(ARCH)/.
. architecture-dependent constants and types defined in arch/$(ARCH)/include.
. <ibm/portio.h> moved to <minix/portio.h>, as they have become, for now,
architecture-independent functions.
. int86, sdevio, readbios, and iopenable are now i386-specific kernel calls
and live in arch/i386/do_* now.
. i386 arch now supports even less 86 code; e.g. mpx86.s and klib86.s have
gone, and 'machine.protected' is gone (and always taken to be 1 in i386).
If 86 support is to return, it should be a new architecture.
. prototypes for the architecture-dependent functions defined in
kernel/arch/$(ARCH)/*.c but used in kernel/ are in kernel/proto.h
. /etc/make.conf included in makefiles and shell scripts that need to
know the building architecture; it defines ARCH=<arch>, currently only
i386.
. some basic per-architecture build support outside of the kernel (lib)
. in clock.c, only dequeue a process if it was ready
. fixes for new include files
files deleted:
. mpx/klib.s - only for choosing between mpx/klib86 and -386
. klib86.s - only for 86
i386-specific files files moved (or arch-dependent stuff moved) to arch/i386/:
. mpx386.s (entry point)
. klib386.s
. sconst.h
. exception.c
. protect.c
. protect.h
. i8269.c
instead of keeping a running total of enqueued processes
(because somehow the load average was broken)
. added SI_KPROC_TAB to get a copy of kernel process table from PM, for
a top implementation
. fixed arg to sys_nice() to make it an endpoint, not a slot number
instance numbers, encoded and decoded using macros in <minix/endpoint.h>.
proc number -> endpoint migration
. proc_nr in the interrupt hook is now an endpoint, proc_nr_e.
. m_source for messages and notifies is now an endpoint, instead of
proc number.
. isokendpt() converts an endpoint to a process number, returns
success (but fails if the process number is out of range, the
process slot is not a living process, or the given endpoint
number does not match the endpoint number in the process slot,
indicating an old process).
. okendpt() is the same as isokendpt(), but panic()s if the conversion
fails. This is mainly used for decoding message.m_source endpoints,
and other endpoint numbers in kernel data structures, which should
always be correct.
. if DEBUG_ENABLE_IPC_WARNINGS is enabled, isokendpt() and okendpt()
get passed the __FILE__ and __LINE__ of the calling lines, and
print messages about what is wrong with the endpoint number
(out of range proc, empty proc, or inconsistent endpoint number),
with the caller, making finding where the conversion failed easy
without having to include code for every call to print where things
went wrong. Sometimes this is harmless (wrong arg to a kernel call),
sometimes it's a fatal internal inconsistency (bogus m_source).
. some process table fields have been appended an _e to indicate it's
become and endpoint.
. process endpoint is stored in p_endpoint, without generation number.
it turns out the kernel never needs the generation number, except
when fork()ing, so it's decoded then.
. kernel calls all take endpoints as arguments, not proc numbers.
the one exception is sys_fork(), which needs to know in which slot
to put the child.
via cause_sig() during an exception.
moved lock check configuration to <minix/sys_config.h> instead of
kernel/config.h, because the 'relocking' field in kinfo depends on it.
other prettification: common locking macro, whether lock timing is on or
not.
. Also allow receive() to be done from kernel processes, not just
sendrec(). This is because receive()s can't harm the kernel processes,
but are done from the CLOCK task (without sendrec()).
enforced. If a call is denied, this will be kprinted. Please report any such
errors, so that I can adjust the mask before returning errors instead of
warnings.
Wrote CMOS driver. All CMOS code from FS has been removed. Currently the
driver only supports get time calls. Set time is left out as an exercise
for the book readers ... startup scripts were updated because the CMOS driver
is needed early on. (IS got same treatment.) Don't forget to run MAKEDEV cmos
in /dev/, otherwise the driver cannot be loaded.
TTY: select and revive with new notify and FS call back;
kernel: removed old notify code; removed ugly prepare_shutdown timer
kputc: don't send to FS if PRINTF_PROC fails
- reinstalled priority changing, now in sched() and unready()
- reinstalled check on message buffer in sys_call()
- reinstalled check in send masks in sys_call()
- changed do_fork() to get new privilege structure for SYS_PROCs
- removed some processes from boot image---will be dynamically started later
sys_privctl() call to dynamically start servers and drivers.
- Shutdown sequence slightly adjusted: called as watchdog timer to let the
busy sys_abort() call from the PM return first.
- Changed umap_bios() to have more restrictive check: BIOS memory is now
allowed in BIOS_MEM_BEGIN to END (interrupt vectors) and BASE_MEM_TOP
to UPPER_MEM_END. Hopefully this keeps QEMU and Bochs happy.
that passes signal map along. This mechanisms is also used for nonuser signals
like SIGKMESS, SIGKSTOP, SIGKSIG.
Revised comments of many system call handlers. Renamed setpriority to nice.
New configuration header file to include/ exclude functionality.
Extracted privileged features from struct proc and create new struct priv.
Renamed various system calls for readability.
- current and maximum priority per process;
- quantum size and current ticks left per process;
- max number of full quantums in a row allow
(otherwise current priority is decremented)
Removed stop sequence when MINIX is shut down.
Disabled send mask checks --- to be replaced by proper mechanism.
Fixed bug relating to 'shutdown -x'.
Simplified clock accounting of realtime.
Updated Makefiles for mkdept script.
caused interrupts to be reenabled (due to unlock), which caused a race. The
problems were especially visible on slower machines.
* Relocated free memory parsing to process manager. This saved quite some
code at the kernel level. Text size was reduced by about 650 bytes.
* Removed locks for updating the realtime in the clock's main loop and the
get_uptime function. Interrupts are no longer reentrant, so realtime is
immediately updated.
Reduced kernel size by 512KB by moving private buffer into cstart() function.
Replaced assertions with erroneous return values. Removed assertions relating
to isuserp(rp), since all processes should become user processes; system
processes are now treated similar to other processes.
* Removed some variants of the SYS_GETINFO calls from the kernel;
replaced them with new PM and utils libary functionality. Fixed
bugs in utils library that used old get_kenv() variant.
* Implemented a buffer in the kernel to gather random data.
Memory driver periodically checks this for /dev/random.
A better random algorithm can now be implemented in the driver.
Removed SYS_RANDOM; the SYS_GETINFO call is used instead.
* Remove SYS_KMALLOC from the kernel. Memory allocation can now
be done at the process manager with new 'other' library functions.
when lock timing is enabled in minix/config.h.
Added phys_zero() routine to klib386.s that zeroes a range of memory, and
added corresponding system call.
and type) are overwritten with newer flags/ arguments. The interface from
within the kernel is lock_notify(). User processes can make a system call with
notify(). NOTIFY fully replaces the old notification mechanism.
The call works. Permission check, restriction of outstanding notifications
to be added. Low level code to make it work from within interrupt handlers
will be added as well.
