reverse order to easily support variadic arguments. Thus, instead of
using the proper stdarg.h macros (that nowadays are
compiler-dependent), it may be tempting to directly take the address of
the last argument and considering it as the start of an array. This is
a shortcut that avoid looping to get all the arguments as the CPU
already pushed them on the stack before the call to the function.
Unfortunately, such an assumption is strictly compiler-dependent and
compilers are free to move the last argument on the stack, as a local
variable, and return the address of the location where the argument was
stored, if asked for. This will break things as the rest of the array's
argument are stored elsewhere (typically, a couple of words above the
location where the argument was stored).
This patch fixes the issue by allowing ACK to take the shortcut and
enabling gcc/llvm-gcc to follow the right way.
struct return. For example, GCC and LLVM comply with this (tested on IA32).
ACK doesn't seem to follow this convention and expects the caller to clean up
the stack. Compiling hand-written ACK-compliant assembly code (returning a
struct) with GCC or LLVM used to break things (4-bytes misaligned stack).
The patch fixes this problem.
IPC changes:
- receive() is changed to take an additional parameter, which is a pointer to
a status code.
- The status code is filled in by the kernel to provide additional information
to the caller. For now, the kernel only fills in the IPC call used by the
sender.
Syslib changes:
- sef_receive() has been split into sef_receive() (with the original semantics)
and sef_receive_status() which exposes the status code to userland.
- Ideally, every sys process should gradually switch to sef_receive_status()
and use is_ipc_notify() as a dependable way to check for notify.
- SEF has been modified to use is_ipc_notify() and demonstrate how to use the
new status code.
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.
swapcontext, and makecontext).
- Fix VM to not erroneously think the stack segment and data segment have
collided when a user-space thread invokes brk().
- Add test51 to test ucontext functionality.
- Add man pages for ucontext system calls.
-Convert the include directory over to using bsdmake
syntax
-Update/add mkfiles
-Modify install(1) so that it can create symlinks
-Update makefiles to use new install(1) options
-Rename /usr/include/ibm to /usr/include/i386
-Create /usr/include/machine symlink to arch header files
-Move vm_i386.h to its new home in the /usr/include/i386
-Update source files to #include the header files at their
new homes.
-Add new gnu-includes target for building GCC headers
