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.
kernel (sys task). The main reason is that these would have to become
cpu local variables on SMP. Once the system task is not a task but a
genuine part of the kernel there is even less reason to have these
extra variables as proc_ptr will already contain all neccessary
information. In addition converting who_e to the process pointer and
back again all the time will be avoided.
Although proc_ptr will contain all important information, accessing it
as a cpu local variable will be fairly expensive, hence the value
would be assigned to some on stack local variable. Therefore it is
better to add the 'caller' argument to the syscall handlers to pass
the value on stack anyway. It also clearly denotes on who's behalf is
the syscall being executed.
This patch also ANSIfies the syscall function headers.
Last but not least, it also fixes a potential bug in virtual_copy_f()
in case the check is disabled. So far the function in case of a
failure could possible reuse an old who_p in case this function had
not been called from the system task.
virtual_copy_f() takes the caller as a parameter too. In case the
checking is disabled, the caller must be NULL and non NULL if it is
enabled as we must be able to suspend the caller.
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.
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.
