UPDATING INFO:
20100317:
/usr/src/etc/system.conf updated to ignore default kernel calls: copy
it (or merge it) to /etc/system.conf.
The hello driver (/dev/hello) added to the distribution:
# cd /usr/src/commands/scripts && make clean install
# cd /dev && MAKEDEV hello
KERNEL CHANGES:
- Generic signal handling support. The kernel no longer assumes PM as a signal
manager for every process. The signal manager of a given process can now be
specified in its privilege slot. When a signal has to be delivered, the kernel
performs the lookup and forwards the signal to the appropriate signal manager.
PM is the default signal manager for user processes, RS is the default signal
manager for system processes. To enable ptrace()ing for system processes, it
is sufficient to change the default signal manager to PM. This will temporarily
disable crash recovery, though.
- sys_exit() is now split into sys_exit() (i.e. exit() for system processes,
which generates a self-termination signal), and sys_clear() (i.e. used by PM
to ask the kernel to clear a process slot when a process exits).
- Added a new kernel call (i.e. sys_update()) to swap two process slots and
implement live update.
PM CHANGES:
- Posix signal handling is no longer allowed for system processes. System
signals are split into two fixed categories: termination and non-termination
signals. When a non-termination signaled is processed, PM transforms the signal
into an IPC message and delivers the message to the system process. When a
termination signal is processed, PM terminates the process.
- PM no longer assumes itself as the signal manager for system processes. It now
makes sure that every system signal goes through the kernel before being
actually processes. The kernel will then dispatch the signal to the appropriate
signal manager which may or may not be PM.
SYSLIB CHANGES:
- Simplified SEF init and LU callbacks.
- Added additional predefined SEF callbacks to debug crash recovery and
live update.
- Fixed a temporary ack in the SEF init protocol. SEF init reply is now
completely synchronous.
- Added SEF signal event type to provide a uniform interface for system
processes to deal with signals. A sef_cb_signal_handler() callback is
available for system processes to handle every received signal. A
sef_cb_signal_manager() callback is used by signal managers to process
system signals on behalf of the kernel.
- Fixed a few bugs with memory mapping and DS.
VM CHANGES:
- Page faults and memory requests coming from the kernel are now implemented
using signals.
- Added a new VM call to swap two process slots and implement live update.
- The call is used by RS at update time and in turn invokes the kernel call
sys_update().
RS CHANGES:
- RS has been reworked with a better functional decomposition.
- Better kernel call masks. com.h now defines the set of very basic kernel calls
every system service is allowed to use. This makes system.conf simpler and
easier to maintain. In addition, this guarantees a higher level of isolation
for system libraries that use one or more kernel calls internally (e.g. printf).
- RS is the default signal manager for system processes. By default, RS
intercepts every signal delivered to every system process. This makes crash
recovery possible before bringing PM and friends in the loop.
- RS now supports fast rollback when something goes wrong while initializing
the new version during a live update.
- Live update is now implemented by keeping the two versions side-by-side and
swapping the process slots when the old version is ready to update.
- Crash recovery is now implemented by keeping the two versions side-by-side
and cleaning up the old version only when the recovery process is complete.
DS CHANGES:
- Fixed a bug when the process doing ds_publish() or ds_delete() is not known
by DS.
- Fixed the completely broken support for strings. String publishing is now
implemented in the system library and simply wraps publishing of memory ranges.
Ideally, we should adopt a similar approach for other data types as well.
- Test suite fixed.
DRIVER CHANGES:
- The hello driver has been added to the Minix distribution to demonstrate basic
live update and crash recovery functionalities.
- Other drivers have been adapted to conform the new SEF interface.
Move archtypes.h to include/ dir, since several servers require it. Move
fpu.h and stackframe.h to arch-specific header directory. Make source
files and makefiles aware of the new header locations.
SYSLIB CHANGES:
- SEF must be used by every system process and is thereby part of the system
library.
- The framework provides a receive() interface (sef_receive) for system
processes to automatically catch known system even messages and process them.
- SEF provides a default behavior for each type of system event, but allows
system processes to register callbacks to override the default behavior.
- Custom (local to the process) or predefined (provided by SEF) callback
implementations can be registered to SEF.
- SEF currently includes support for 2 types of system events:
1. SEF Ping. The event occurs every time RS sends a ping to figure out
whether a system process is still alive. The default callback implementation
provided by SEF is to notify RS back to let it know the process is alive
and kicking.
2. SEF Live update. The event occurs every time RS sends a prepare to update
message to let a system process know an update is available and to prepare
for it. The live update support is very basic for now. SEF only deals with
verifying if the prepare state can be supported by the process, dumping the
state for debugging purposes, and providing an event-driven programming
model to the process to react to state changes check-in when ready to update.
- SEF should be extended in the future to integrate support for more types of
system events. Ideally, all the cross-cutting concerns should be integrated into
SEF to avoid duplicating code and ease extensibility. Examples include:
* PM notify messages primarily used at shutdown.
* SYSTEM notify messages primarily used for signals.
* CLOCK notify messages used for system alarms.
* Debug messages. IS could still be in charge of fkey handling but would
forward the debug message to the target process (e.g. PM, if the user
requested debug information about PM). SEF would then catch the message and
do nothing unless the process has registered an appropriate callback to
deal with the event. This simplifies the programming model to print debug
information, avoids duplicating code, and reduces the effort to print
debug information.
SYSTEM PROCESSES CHANGES:
- Every system process registers SEF callbacks it needs to override the default
system behavior and calls sef_startup() right after being started.
- sef_startup() does almost nothing now, but will be extended in the future to
support callbacks of its own to let RS control and synchronize with every
system process at initialization time.
- Every system process calls sef_receive() now rather than receive() directly,
to let SEF handle predefined system events.
RS CHANGES:
- RS supports a basic single-component live update protocol now, as follows:
* When an update command is issued (via "service update *"), RS notifies the
target system process to prepare for a specific update state.
* If the process doesn't respond back in time, the update is aborted.
* When the process responds back, RS kills it and marks it for refreshing.
* The process is then automatically restarted as for a buggy process and can
start running again.
* Live update is currently prototyped as a controlled failure.
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.
. changed umount() and mount() to call 'service', so that it can include
a custom label, so that umount() works again (RS slot gets freed now).
merged umount() and mount() into one file to encode keep this label
knowledge in one file.
. removed obsolete RS_PID field and RS_RESCUE rescue command
. added label to RS_START struct
. vfs no longer does kill of fs process on unmount (which was failing
due to RS_PID request not working)
. don't assume that if error wasn't one of three errors, that no error
occured in vfs/request.c
mfs changes:
. added checks to copy statements to truncate copies at buffer sizes
(left in debug code for now)
. added checks for null-terminatedness, if less than NAME_MAX was copied
. added checks for copy function success
is changes:
. dump rs label
drivers.conf changes:
. added acl for mfs so that mfs can be started with 'service start',
so that a custom label can be provided
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
New Shift-F6 dump for RS server at IS.
New getnpid, getnproc, getpproc library calls at PM.
New reincarnation server (basic functionality is there now).
