Aimed at programmers, this book shows how the Linux operating system actually works so that they can start to program the Linux kernel. The CD-ROM contains the Slackware distrubtion 3.1 together with its complete source code and much more.

Learn how to write high-quality kernel module code, solve common Linux kernel programming issues, and understand the fundamentals of Linux kernel internals Key Features Discover how to write kernel code using the Loadable Kernel Module framework Explore industry-grade techniques to perform efficient memory allocation and data synchronization within the kernel Understand the essentials of key internals topics such as kernel architecture, memory management, CPU scheduling, and kernel synchronization Book DescriptionLinux Kernel Programming is a comprehensive introduction for those new to Linux kernel and module development. This easy-to-follow guide will have you up and running with writing kernel code in next-to-no time. This book uses the latest 5.4 Long-Term Support (LTS) Linux kernel, which will be maintained from November 2019 through to December 2025. By working with the 5.4 LTS kernel throughout the book, you can be confident that your knowledge will continue to be valid for years to come. You’ll start the journey by learning how to build the kernel from the source. Next, you’ll write your first kernel module using the powerful Loadable Kernel Module (LKM) framework. The following chapters will cover key kernel internals topics including Linux kernel architecture, memory management, and CPU scheduling. During the course of this book, you’ll delve into the fairly complex topic of concurrency within the kernel, understand the issues it can cause, and learn how they can be addressed with various locking technologies (mutexes, spinlocks, atomic, and refcount operators). You’ll also benefit from more advanced material on cache effects, a primer on lock-free techniques within the kernel, deadlock avoidance (with lockdep), and kernel lock debugging techniques. By the end of this kernel book, you’ll have a detailed understanding of the fundamentals of writing Linux kernel module code for real-world projects and products.What you will learn Write high-quality modular kernel code (LKM framework) for 5.x kernels Configure and build a kernel from source Explore the Linux kernel architecture Get to grips with key internals regarding memory management within the kernel Understand and work with various dynamic kernel memory alloc/dealloc APIs Discover key internals aspects regarding CPU scheduling within the kernel Gain an understanding of kernel concurrency issues Find out how to work with key kernel synchronization primitives Who this book is for This book is for Linux programmers beginning to find their way with Linux kernel development. If you’re a Linux kernel and driver developer looking to overcome frequent and common kernel development issues, or understand kernel intervals, you’ll find plenty of useful information. You’ll need a solid foundation of Linux CLI and C programming before you can jump in.

To thoroughly understand what makes Linux tick and why it's so efficient, you need to delve deep into the heart of the operating system--into the Linux kernel itself. The kernel is Linux--in the case of the Linux operating system, it's the only bit of software to which the term "Linux" applies. The kernel handles all the requests or completed I/O operations and determines which programs will share its processing time, and in what order. Responsible for the sophisticated memory management of the whole system, the Linux kernel is the force behind the legendary Linux efficiency. The new edition of Understanding the Linux Kernel takes you on a guided tour through the most significant data structures, many algorithms, and programming tricks used in the kernel. Probing beyond the superficial features, the authors offer valuable insights to people who want to know how things really work inside their machine. Relevant segments of code are dissected and discussed line by line. The book covers more than just the functioning of the code, it explains the theoretical underpinnings for why Linux does things the way it does. The new edition of the book has been updated to cover version 2.4 of the kernel, which is quite different from version 2.2: the virtual memory system is entirely new, support for multiprocessor systems is improved, and whole new classes of hardware devices have been added. The authors explore each new feature in detail. Other topics in the book include: Memory management including file buffering, process swapping, and Direct memory Access (DMA) The Virtual Filesystem and the Second Extended Filesystem Process creation and scheduling Signals, interrupts, and the essential interfaces to device drivers Timing Synchronization in the kernel Interprocess Communication (IPC) Program execution Understanding the Linux Kernel, Second Edition will acquaint you with all the inner workings of Linux, but is more than just an academic exercise. You'll learn what conditions bring out Linux's best performance, and you'll see how it meets the challenge of providing good system response during process scheduling, file access, and memory management in a wide variety of environments. If knowledge is power, then this book will help you make the most of your Linux system.

Benvenuti describes the relationship between the Internet's TCP/IP implementation and the Linux Kernel so that programmers and advanced administrators can modify and fine-tune their network environment.

Find an introduction to the architecture, concepts and algorithms of the Linux kernel in Professional Linux Kernel Architecture, a guide to the kernel sources and large number of connections among subsystems. Find an introduction to the relevant structures and functions exported by the kernel to userland, understand the theoretical and conceptual aspects of the Linux kernel and Unix derivatives, and gain a deeper understanding of the kernel. Learn how to reduce the vast amount of information contained in the kernel sources and obtain the skills necessary to understand the kernel sources.

Summary: The Linux Kernel Book allows you to delve into the heart of this operating system by means of an in-depth treatment of the internal functioning of the kernel. Each chapter deals in detail with the system components, including: process management, memory management, IPC Systems V, signals, pipes, POSIX tty, file systems, loadable modules, and administration.

"Linux internals simplified" is a book which discusses the basics of Linux kernel internals in a code driven approach. It picks the major subsystems of the kernel which are important, and tries to simplify its internal working and data structures. As such, this book is aimed at engineers who wish to start learning about the Linux kernel.This book starts with the basic steps to acquire the Linux kernel code. It then shows ways of customizing the build options and lastly kernel compilation. Next it looks at a number of hacking tools which will help one to debug and trace in a live Linux system. Practical examples of ftrace, kprobes and crash tool are discussed. These tools are useful in trying to understand the way the Linux system works. Chapter 3 discusses the details of a running process in a Linux system. It touches topics such as address spaces of a running process, user and kernel spaces, system calls, Linux process descriptor, Linux process creation, and so on. This chapter builds a foundation of a program in execution in the Linux system.Once the reader knows about the running processes, chapter 4 discusses about the Linux process scheduling subsystem. This chapter discusses different data structures and code paths of the Linux scheduler, which controls the scheduling of processes in the Linux system. Chapter 5 discusses Interrupts, which play a significant role in the Linux operating system. The chapter discusses edge and level triggered interrupts, interrupt handlers and their registration, shared interrupt handlers, and so on. It also shows the ftrace of the do_irq function.Chapter 6 discusses the signal subsystem. It starts with a little introduction of the design of the signal subsystem. It then traces the code execution of delivering and handling of signals in the Linux kernel. The chapter then discusses signal overloading and how it is performed, while exploring the kernel code which handles this. Chapter 7 covers Linux synchronization primitives, and why they are needed. It shows the detailed implementation of primitives like atomic variables, spinlocks, semaphores and mutexes in the Linux kernel.Chapter 8 discusses various ways of Linux kernel memory allocation. It discusses Buddy allocator, Resource map allocator and Slab allocator. It discusses various APIs used for these allocators (alloc_page/s, kmem_cache_alloc, kmalloc etc.). It also discusses how user space malloc results in memory allocation in the Linux kernel.Chapter 9 discusses the Linux dynamic modules, Linux character driver framework, internal functions which are used while creating a character driver, UDEV events and IOCTL interface. It also discusses Linux device model. It discusses example of bus, device and device_driver components. It illustrates device model when used in PCI BUS. Chapter 10 covers the subsystem related to block IOs. It starts with an introduction of filesystem and its purpose. It then traces the path an IO takes, right from the "write()" system call, to the moment it gets written to the disk. The chapter covers basic data structures and design elements while going down the IO stack.