[svlug] Code walkthrough notes

[Richard L. Halpert]

I would be interested in trying to lead a discussion of threading and SMP in
a couple months time.  Maybe after we've had at least one walkthrough in
each of the mentioned areas:

>   Scheduler
>   Memory Management
>   File System
>   Device Drivers
>   Networking
>   Boot / init
>   Interrupt handling
>   ipc
>   system calls

I don't know much about threading and SMP in the kernel just yet, but I have
been researching concurrency in languages for two years, so with enough time
to prepare I'm sure I could lead a decent walkthrough.

Any thoughts from the organizers?  Paul?  Perhaps we should start assembling
a list of people who've volunteered to lead a session.

-Richard

On Nov 8, 2007 11:50 PM, Larry Colen <lrc at red4est.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 08, 2007 at 11:49:13PM -0700, Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote:
> # >    Kernel debugging (gdb extensions?)
> #
> # kdb + crash + serial console?
>
> Ayup.
>
> Back in 2000 I worked on a kernel hacking project where the other guy
> on the project had added the serial console kernel debugging
> extensions. I didn't do it, so I didn't get the details, it just
> magically worked for me.
>
> One cool thing that I did, was do most of my debugging on a virtual
> machine running under VMWare. I ran a cable from the host machine's
> serial port to the target machine's serial port.
>
> It worked wonderfully. I could "checkpoint" my debugging
> progress. Save state. And when the target crashed, I didn't crash my
> dev box.
>
> # > When Paul asked for discussion topics, I suggest starting with high
> # > level structure. He asked me to layout what I consider to be the
> # > primary structural elements, so here's my quick and dirty outline. I
> # > highly encourage people to post their suggestions as to a better list.
> # >
> # >   Scheduler
> # >   Memory Management
> # >   File System
> # >   Device Drivers
> # >   Networking
> # >   Boot / init
> # >   Interrupt handling
> # >   ipc
> # >   system calls
> #
> # * Protection and security mechanisms to protect against hostile local
> users?
> # * System calls and kernel interfaces?
> # * Mechanisms to protect against syscall/kern proxying (interface
> # shims) by malicious code?
> # * Virtual computing and why Xen has been so intrusive (xen-patches in
> # mainline), while kvm is not (very few kvm patches)?
> # * Threading implementation and issues?
> # * SMP details?
> # * Most efficient ways to debug OOPS and AIEEEEE!!!   ??????
> # * 64-bit specific issues?
> # * Real-time kernel optimizations?
> # * How to slim the kernel for cell phones, mobiles devices, and embedded
> systems?
> # * Micro-kernel versus macro-kernel :-)
>
> A lot of these are good and useful things to know about. But, some of
> them are esoteric, or specialized enough that we may want to hold off
> going into details, unless we get someone who knows a lot about some
> of them who wants to volunteer to talk about them.
>
>
> --
>       Too much of a good thing is better than too much of a bad thing.
> Larry Colen             lrc at red4est.com
> http://www.red4est.com/lrc
>
>
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>
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