Unit testing kernel drivers
I'm looking for a testing framework for the Windows kernel environment. So far, I've found cfix. Has any one tried it? Are there alternatives? ...
kernel
What's the best way to get to know linux or BSD kernel internals?
I'd like to gain better knowledge of operating system internals. Process management, memory management, and stuff like that. I was thinking of learning by getting to know either linux or BSD kernel. Which one kernel is better for learning purposes? What's the best place to start? Can you recommend any good books? ...
How should I configure grub for booting linux kernel from a USB hard drive?
I have a laptop hard drive in an external enclosure which I use as a large pendrive. For an added twist, I have installed Linux on it, so I can boot any machine with my distribution of choice (e.g. for data recovery or repairing a b0rked system or just using a borrowed laptop without destroying the preinstalled Windows). The problem is t...
How to get started in operating system development
One thing I've always wanted to do is develop my very own operating system (not necessarily fancy like Linux or Windows, but better than a simple boot loader which I've already done). I'm having a hard time finding resources/guides that take you past writing a simple "Hello World" OS. I know lots of people will probably recommend I l...
Task Schedulers
Had an interesting discussion with some colleagues about the best scheduling strategies for realtime tasks, but not everyone had a good understanding of the common or useful scheduling strategies. For your answer, please choose one strategy and go over it in some detail, rather than giving a little info on several strategies. If you ha...
Where do the Linux TCP/IP hackers 'live'?
Over the past year or so my production platform has been plagued by an odd TCP/IP issue. I've spent zillions of hours working with competent & knowledgeable sysadmins, scouring the net, reading source code, been jerked around by RH's pathetic support, and crying tears of blood! To no avail. (Google 'unkn-4' and you'll see many posts w...
Developing drivers with no info
How does the open-source/free software community develop drivers for products that offer no documentation? ...
User Initiated Kernel dump in Windows XP
I remember watching a webcast from Mark Russinovich showing the sequence of keyboard keys for a user initiated kernel dump. Can somebody refresh my memory on the exact order of the keys. Please note this is for XP. ...
Learning kernel hacking and embedded development at home?
I was always attracted to the world of kernel hacking and embedded systems. Has anyone got good tutorials (+easily available hardware) on starting to mess with such stuff? Something like kits for writing drivers etc, which come with good documentation and are affordable? Thanks! ...
'bad address' error from copy_to_user
I am attempting to copy a custom struct from kernel space to user space. inside user space errno returns 'bad address'. What is the usual cause of a bad address error? if(copy_to_user(info, &kernel_info, sizeof(struct prinfo))) ...
C# driver development?
Before I jump headlong into C#... I've always felt that C, or maybe C++, was best for developing drivers on Windows. I'm not keen on the idea of developing a driver on a .NET machine. But .NET seems to be the way MS is heading for applications development, and so I'm now wondering: Are people are using C# to develop drivers? Do you ...
How can I programatically manage iptables rules on the fly?
I need to query existing rules, as well as being able to easily add and delete rules. I haven't found any APIs for doing this, is there something that I'm missing? The closest I've come to a solution is using iptables-save | iptables-xml for querying, and manually calling the iptables command itself to add/delete rules. Another solution...
Unknown ioctl 2062, 2065, 2066 from vmmon when starting a VM (VMware server 1.0.7 for Linux)
VMware server 1.0.7 installed with vmware-package Debian GNU/Linux testing (lenny) Kernel 2.6.26-1-686 vmware-any-any-update117d had to change VMMON_VERSION from 168 to 138 in vmmon-only/include/iocontrols.h to make vmware-server recognize vmmon When trying to start a VM, vmmon complains in dmesg: Sep 21 03:20:04 pita kernel: [ 2701....
VMware server 1.0.7 modules incompatible with kernel 2.6.26 -- patched, where to submit?
VMware server 1.0.7 installed with vmware-package Debian GNU/Linux testing (lenny) Kernel 2.6.26-1-686 There were several compile problems when trying to build the binary kernel modules from the vmware-server-kernel-source package made by vmware-package from the VMware server tarball. Recently VMware has updated their kernel module so...
What is the difference between vmalloc and kmalloc?
I've googled around and found most people advocating the use of kmalloc, as you're guaranteed to get contiguous physical blocks of memory. However, it also seems as though kmalloc can fail if a contiguous physical block that you want can't be found. What are the advantages of having a contiguous block of memory? Specifically, why would I...
Licensing and using the Linux kernel
I would like to write my own OS, and would like to temporarily jump over the complicated task of writing the kernel and come back to it later by using the Linux kernel in the mean time. However, I would like to provide the OS as closed source for now. What license is the Linux kernel under and is it possible to use it for release with ...
Is there a good description of the "system call" mechanism used in OSes?
I am looking for a good primer or technical description of the System Call mechanism that is used by operating systems to transition from user space to the kernel to invoke functions such as "open", "read", "write", etc... Is there anything other than the Wikipedia entry? Websites, pdfs, books, source code, all are welcome :) ...
What are some interesting, small Linux kernel projects to help learn the source?
What small projects would you suggest to a novice with the kernel, but someone who has plenty of systems and C experience? The aim is to develop a familiarity with the kernel source code, and a facility for experimentation with crazy ideas. I'm trying to think of some manageable small tasks (for example, add a syscall), but what would y...
How to diagnosis app crash from OS X error log?
Short Q.: What does this exception mean? "EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)" Full Q.: How can I use this error log info (and thread particulars that I omitted here) to diagnosis this app crash? (NB: I have no expertise with crash logs or OS kernels.) In this case, my email client (Eudora) crashes immediately on launch, every time, after no appar...
Is it idiomatic Ruby to add an assert( ) method to Ruby's Kernel class?
I'm expanding my Ruby understanding by coding an equivalent of Kent Beck's xUnit in Ruby. Python (which Kent writes in) has an assert() method in the language which is used extensively. Ruby does not. I think it should be easy to add this but is Kernel the right place to put it? BTW, I know of the existence of the various Unit framew...