This patch separates the character and block driver communication
protocols. The old character protocol remains the same, but a new
block protocol is introduced. The libdriver library is replaced by
two new libraries: libchardriver and libblockdriver. Their exposed
API, and drivers that use them, have been updated accordingly.
Together, libbdev and libblockdriver now completely abstract away
the message format used by the block protocol. As the memory driver
is both a character and a block device driver, it now implements its
own message loop.
The most important semantic change made to the block protocol is that
it is no longer possible to return both partial results and an error
for a single transfer. This simplifies the interaction between the
caller and the driver, as the I/O vector no longer needs to be copied
back. Also, drivers are now no longer supposed to decide based on the
layout of the I/O vector when a transfer should be cut short. Put
simply, transfers are now supposed to either succeed completely, or
result in an error.
After this patch, the state of the various pieces is as follows:
- block protocol: stable
- libbdev API: stable for synchronous communication
- libblockdriver API: needs slight revision (the drvlib/partition API
in particular; the threading API will also change shortly)
- character protocol: needs cleanup
- libchardriver API: needs cleanup accordingly
- driver restarts: largely unsupported until endpoint changes are
reintroduced
As a side effect, this patch eliminates several bugs, hacks, and gcc
-Wall and -W warnings all over the place. It probably introduces a
few new ones, too.
Update warning: this patch changes the protocol between MFS and disk
drivers, so in order to use old/new images, the MFS from the ramdisk
must be used to mount all file systems.
VFS CHANGES:
- dmap table no longer statically initialized in VFS
- Dropped FSSIGNON svrctl call no longer used by INET
INET CHANGES:
- INET announces its presence to VFS just like any other driver
RS CHANGES:
- The boot image dev table contains all the data to initialize VFS' dmap table
- RS interface supports asynchronous up and update operations now
- RS interface extended to support driver style and flags
Safecopies renders the NWIOQUERYPARAM ioctl useless. This functionality
is now replaced with /dev/ipstat. Write the request to the device and
read the answer in one read request.
'who', indicating caller number in pm and fs and some other servers, has
been removed in favour of 'who_e' (endpoint) and 'who_p' (proc nr.).
In both PM and FS, isokendpt() convert endpoints to process slot
numbers, returning OK if it was a valid and consistent endpoint number.
okendpt() does the same but panic()s if it doesn't succeed. (In PM,
this is pm_isok..)
pm and fs keep their own records of process endpoints in their proc tables,
which are needed to make kernel calls about those processes.
message field names have changed.
fs drivers are endpoints.
fs now doesn't try to get out of driver deadlock, as the protocol isn't
supposed to let that happen any more. (A warning is printed if ELOCKED
is detected though.)
fproc[].fp_task (indicating which driver the process is suspended on)
became an int.
PM and FS now get endpoint numbers of initial boot processes from the
kernel. These happen to be the same as the old proc numbers, to let
user processes reach them with the old numbers, but FS and PM don't know
that. All new processes after INIT, even after the generation number
wraps around, get endpoint numbers with generation 1 and higher, so
the first instances of the boot processes are the only processes ever
to have endpoint numbers in the old proc number range.
More return code checks of sys_* functions have been added.
IS has become endpoint-aware. Ditched the 'text' and 'data' fields
in the kernel dump (which show locations, not sizes, so aren't terribly
useful) in favour of the endpoint number. Proc number is still visible.
Some other dumps (e.g. dmap, rs) show endpoint numbers now too which got
the formatting changed.
PM reading segments using rw_seg() has changed - it uses other fields
in the message now instead of encoding the segment and process number and
fd in the fd field. For that it uses _read_pm() and _write_pm() which to
_taskcall()s directly in pm/misc.c.
PM now sys_exit()s itself on panic(), instead of sys_abort().
RS also talks in endpoints instead of process numbers.
