- Appendix A: Tracing System Calls
An introduction to tracing system call execution using strace(1). - Appendix B: Parsing Command-line Options
This appendix describes the use of the getopt() library function to parse command-line arguments. Many of the example programs in the book use getopt(). - Appendix C: Casting the NULL Pointer
Why is it necessary to use a (char *) cast for the NULL pointer given as an argument to variadic functions such as execl()? - Appendix D: Kernel Configuration
A short guide to configuring the Linux kernel. - Appendix E: Further Sources of Information
A survey of various places to look for information on topics related to the book. - Appendix F: Solutions to Selected Exercises
- Bibliography
- Index
It looks like the index will come in at over 50 pages!
2009-11-29
End matter
After the 64 chapters, we have a few pieces chasing up at the end:
2009-11-27
Chapter 64: Pseudoterminals
A pseudoterminal is a virtual device that provides an IPC channel. On one end of the channel is a program that expects to be connected to a terminal device. On the other end is a program that drives the terminal-oriented program by using the channel to send it input and read its output.
This chapter describes the use of pseudoterminals, showing how they are employed in applications such as terminal emulators, the script(1) program, and programs such as ssh, which provide network login services.
64 Pseudoterminals
64.1 Overview
64.2 UNIX 98 Pseudoterminals
64.2.1 Opening an Unused Master: posix_openpt()
64.2.2 Changing Slave Ownership and Permissions: grantpt()
64.2.3 Unlocking the Slave: unlockpt()
64.2.4 Obtaining the Name of the Slave: ptsname()
64.3 Opening a Pseudoterminal Master: ptyMasterOpen()
64.4 Connecting Two Processes with a Pseudoterminal: ptyFork()
64.5 Pseudoterminal I/O
64.6 Implementing script(1)
64.7 Terminal Attributes and Window Size
64.8 BSD Pseudoterminals
64.9 Summary
64.10 Exercises
This chapter describes the use of pseudoterminals, showing how they are employed in applications such as terminal emulators, the script(1) program, and programs such as ssh, which provide network login services.
64 Pseudoterminals
64.1 Overview
64.2 UNIX 98 Pseudoterminals
64.2.1 Opening an Unused Master: posix_openpt()
64.2.2 Changing Slave Ownership and Permissions: grantpt()
64.2.3 Unlocking the Slave: unlockpt()
64.2.4 Obtaining the Name of the Slave: ptsname()
64.3 Opening a Pseudoterminal Master: ptyMasterOpen()
64.4 Connecting Two Processes with a Pseudoterminal: ptyFork()
64.5 Pseudoterminal I/O
64.6 Implementing script(1)
64.7 Terminal Attributes and Window Size
64.8 BSD Pseudoterminals
64.9 Summary
64.10 Exercises
2009-11-25
Chapter 63: Alternative I/O Models
This chapter discusses three alternatives to the conventional file I/O model that we have employed in most programs shown in this book:
63.1 Overview
63.1.1 Level-triggered and Edge-triggered Notification
63.1.2 Employing Nonblocking I/O with Alternative I/O Models
63.2 I/O Multiplexing
63.2.1 The select() System Call
63.2.2 The poll() System Call
63.2.3 When Is a File Descriptor Ready?
63.2.4 Comparison of select() and poll()
63.2.5 Problems with select() and poll()
63.3 Signal-driven I/O
63.3.1 When Is "I/O Possible" Signaled?
63.3.2 Refining the Use of Signal-driven I/O
63.4 The epoll API
63.4.1 Creating an epoll Instance: epoll_create()
63.4.2 Modifying the epoll Interest List: epoll_ctl()
63.4.3 Waiting for Events: epoll_wait()
63.4.4 A Closer Look at epoll Semantics
63.4.5 Performance of epoll Versus I/O Multiplexing
63.4.6 Edge-triggered Notification
63.5 Waiting on Signals and File Descriptors
63.5.1 The pselect() System Call
63.5.2 The Self-pipe Trick
63.6 Summary
63.7 Exercises
- I/O multiplexing (the select() and poll() system calls);
- signal-driven I/O; and
- the Linux-specific epoll API.
63.1 Overview
63.1.1 Level-triggered and Edge-triggered Notification
63.1.2 Employing Nonblocking I/O with Alternative I/O Models
63.2 I/O Multiplexing
63.2.1 The select() System Call
63.2.2 The poll() System Call
63.2.3 When Is a File Descriptor Ready?
63.2.4 Comparison of select() and poll()
63.2.5 Problems with select() and poll()
63.3 Signal-driven I/O
63.3.1 When Is "I/O Possible" Signaled?
63.3.2 Refining the Use of Signal-driven I/O
63.4 The epoll API
63.4.1 Creating an epoll Instance: epoll_create()
63.4.2 Modifying the epoll Interest List: epoll_ctl()
63.4.3 Waiting for Events: epoll_wait()
63.4.4 A Closer Look at epoll Semantics
63.4.5 Performance of epoll Versus I/O Multiplexing
63.4.6 Edge-triggered Notification
63.5 Waiting on Signals and File Descriptors
63.5.1 The pselect() System Call
63.5.2 The Self-pipe Trick
63.6 Summary
63.7 Exercises
2009-11-24
Chapter 62: Terminals
This chapter focuses on the aspects of terminal programming that are particularly relevant to software terminal emulators (i.e., xterm and similar). It gives only brief coverage to serial lines; references for further information about serial programming at the end of this chapter.
62 Terminals
62.1 Overview
62.2 Retrieving and Modifying Terminal Attributes
62.3 The stty Command
62.4 Terminal Special Characters
62.5 Terminal Flags
62.6 Terminal I/O Modes
62.6.1 Canonical Mode
62.6.2 Noncanonical Mode
62.6.3 Cooked, Cbreak, and Raw Modes
62.7 Terminal Line Speed (Bit Rate)
62.8 Terminal Line Control
62.9 Terminal Window Size
62.10 Terminal Identification
62.11 Summary
62.12 Exercises
62 Terminals
62.1 Overview
62.2 Retrieving and Modifying Terminal Attributes
62.3 The stty Command
62.4 Terminal Special Characters
62.5 Terminal Flags
62.6 Terminal I/O Modes
62.6.1 Canonical Mode
62.6.2 Noncanonical Mode
62.6.3 Cooked, Cbreak, and Raw Modes
62.7 Terminal Line Speed (Bit Rate)
62.8 Terminal Line Control
62.9 Terminal Window Size
62.10 Terminal Identification
62.11 Summary
62.12 Exercises
2009-11-23
Copyediting done
Nearly everything is now copyedited. The only piece that is yet to go to the copyeditor is the preface, which I'm still working on.
2009-11-22
Chapter 61: Sockets: Advanced Topics
This chapter considers a range of more advanced topics relating to sockets programming, including the following:
61 Sockets: Advanced Topics
61.1 Partial Reads and Writes on Stream Sockets
61.2 The shutdown() system call
61.3 Socket-specific I/O System Calls: recv() and send()
61.4 The sendfile() System Call
61.5 Retrieving Socket Addresses: getsockname() and getpeername()
61.6 A Closer Look at TCP
61.6.1 Format of a TCP Segment
61.6.2 TCP Sequence Numbers and Acknowledgements
61.6.3 TCP State Machine and State Transition Diagram
61.6.4 TCP Connection Establishment
61.6.5 TCP Connection Termination
61.6.6 Calling shutdown() on a TCP Socket
61.6.7 The TIME_WAIT State
61.7 Monitoring Sockets: netstat
61.8 Using tcpdump to Monitor TCP Traffic
61.9 Socket Options: setsockopt() and getsockopt()
61.10 The SO_REUSEADDR Socket Option
61.11 Inheritance of File Flags and Socket Options across accept()
61.12 TCP Versus UDP
61.13 Advanced Features
61.13.1 Out-of-band Data
61.13.2 The sendmsg() and recvmsg() System Calls
61.13.3 Passing File Descriptors
61.13.4 Receiving Sender Credentials
61.13.5 Sequenced-packet Sockets
61.13.6 SCTP and DCCP Transport-layer Protocols
61.14 Summary
61.15 Exercises
- the circumstances in which partial reads and writes can occur on stream sockets;
- the use of shutdown() to close one half of the bidirectional channel between two connected sockets;
- the recv() and send() I/O system calls, which provide socket-specific functionality not available with read() and write();
- the sendfile() system call, which is used in certain circumstances to efficiently output data on a socket;
- details of the operation of the TCP protocol, with the aim of eliminating some common misunderstandings that lead to mistakes when writing programs that use TCP sockets;
- the use of the netstat and tcpdump commands for monitoring and debugging applications that use sockets; and
- the use of the getsockopt() and setsockopt() system calls to retrieve and modify options affecting the operation of a socket.
61 Sockets: Advanced Topics
61.1 Partial Reads and Writes on Stream Sockets
61.2 The shutdown() system call
61.3 Socket-specific I/O System Calls: recv() and send()
61.4 The sendfile() System Call
61.5 Retrieving Socket Addresses: getsockname() and getpeername()
61.6 A Closer Look at TCP
61.6.1 Format of a TCP Segment
61.6.2 TCP Sequence Numbers and Acknowledgements
61.6.3 TCP State Machine and State Transition Diagram
61.6.4 TCP Connection Establishment
61.6.5 TCP Connection Termination
61.6.6 Calling shutdown() on a TCP Socket
61.6.7 The TIME_WAIT State
61.7 Monitoring Sockets: netstat
61.8 Using tcpdump to Monitor TCP Traffic
61.9 Socket Options: setsockopt() and getsockopt()
61.10 The SO_REUSEADDR Socket Option
61.11 Inheritance of File Flags and Socket Options across accept()
61.12 TCP Versus UDP
61.13 Advanced Features
61.13.1 Out-of-band Data
61.13.2 The sendmsg() and recvmsg() System Calls
61.13.3 Passing File Descriptors
61.13.4 Receiving Sender Credentials
61.13.5 Sequenced-packet Sockets
61.13.6 SCTP and DCCP Transport-layer Protocols
61.14 Summary
61.15 Exercises
2009-11-21
Chapter 60: Sockets: Server Design
This chapter discusses the fundamentals of designing iterative and concurrent servers and describes inetd, a special daemon designed to facilitate the creation of Internet servers.
60 Sockets: Server Design
60.1 Iterative and Concurrent Servers
60.2 An Iterative UDP echo Server
60.3 A Concurrent TCP echo Server
60.4 Other Concurrent Server Designs
60.5 The inetd (Internet Superserver) Daemon
60.6 Summary
60.7 Exercises
60 Sockets: Server Design
60.1 Iterative and Concurrent Servers
60.2 An Iterative UDP echo Server
60.3 A Concurrent TCP echo Server
60.4 Other Concurrent Server Designs
60.5 The inetd (Internet Superserver) Daemon
60.6 Summary
60.7 Exercises
2009-11-17
Chapter 59: Sockets: Internet Domains
Having looked at generic sockets concepts and the TCP/IP protocol suite in previous chapters, we are now ready in this chapter to look at programming with sockets in the IPv4 (AF_INET) and IPv6 (AF_INET6) domains.
As noted in Chapter 58, Internet domain socket addresses consist of an IP address and a port number. Although computers use binary representations of IP addresses and port numbers, humans are much better at dealing with names than with numbers. Therefore, we describe the techniques used to identify host computers and ports using names. We also examine the use of library functions to obtain the IP address(es) for a particular hostname and the port number that corresponds to a particular service name. Our discussion of hostnames includes a description of the Domain Name System (DNS), which implements a distributed database that maps hostnames to IP addresses and vice versa.
59 Sockets: Internet Domains
59.1 Internet Domain Sockets
59.2 Network Byte Order
59.3 Data Representation
59.4 Internet Socket Addresses
59.5 Overview of Host and Service Conversion Functions
59.6 IPv6 and IPv4 Address Conversion: inet_pton() and inet_ntop()
59.7 Client-server Example (Datagram Sockets)
59.8 Domain Name System (DNS)
59.9 The /etc/services File
59.10 Protocol-independent Host and Service Conversion
59.10.1 The getaddrinfo() Function
59.10.2 Freeing addrinfo Lists: freeaddrinfo()
59.10.3 Diagnosing Errors: gai_strerror()
59.10.4 The getnameinfo() Function
59.11 Client-server Example (Stream Sockets)
59.12 An Internet Domain Sockets Library
59.13 Obsolete APIs for Host, Service, and Address Conversion
59.13.1 The inet_aton() and inet_ntoa() Functions
59.13.2 The gethostbyname() and gethostbyaddr() Functions
59.13.3 The getservbyname() and getservbyport() Functions
59.14 UNIX Versus Internet Domain Sockets
59.15 Further Information
59.16 Summary
59.17 Exercises
As noted in Chapter 58, Internet domain socket addresses consist of an IP address and a port number. Although computers use binary representations of IP addresses and port numbers, humans are much better at dealing with names than with numbers. Therefore, we describe the techniques used to identify host computers and ports using names. We also examine the use of library functions to obtain the IP address(es) for a particular hostname and the port number that corresponds to a particular service name. Our discussion of hostnames includes a description of the Domain Name System (DNS), which implements a distributed database that maps hostnames to IP addresses and vice versa.
59 Sockets: Internet Domains
59.1 Internet Domain Sockets
59.2 Network Byte Order
59.3 Data Representation
59.4 Internet Socket Addresses
59.5 Overview of Host and Service Conversion Functions
59.6 IPv6 and IPv4 Address Conversion: inet_pton() and inet_ntop()
59.7 Client-server Example (Datagram Sockets)
59.8 Domain Name System (DNS)
59.9 The /etc/services File
59.10 Protocol-independent Host and Service Conversion
59.10.1 The getaddrinfo() Function
59.10.2 Freeing addrinfo Lists: freeaddrinfo()
59.10.3 Diagnosing Errors: gai_strerror()
59.10.4 The getnameinfo() Function
59.11 Client-server Example (Stream Sockets)
59.12 An Internet Domain Sockets Library
59.13 Obsolete APIs for Host, Service, and Address Conversion
59.13.1 The inet_aton() and inet_ntoa() Functions
59.13.2 The gethostbyname() and gethostbyaddr() Functions
59.13.3 The getservbyname() and getservbyport() Functions
59.14 UNIX Versus Internet Domain Sockets
59.15 Further Information
59.16 Summary
59.17 Exercises
2009-11-16
Chapter 58: Sockets: Fundamentals of TCP/IP Networks
This chapter provides an introduction to computer networking concepts and the TCP/IP networking protocols. An understanding of these topics is necessary to make effective use of Internet domain sockets, which are described in the next chapter.
58 Sockets: Fundamentals of TCP/IP Networks
58.1 Internets
58.2 Networking Protocols and Layers
58.3 The Data-link Layer
58.4 The Network Layer: IP
58.5 IP Addresses
58.6 The Transport Layer
58.6.1 Port Numbers
58.6.2 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
58.6.3 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
58.7 Requests for Comments (RFCs)
58.8 Summary
58 Sockets: Fundamentals of TCP/IP Networks
58.1 Internets
58.2 Networking Protocols and Layers
58.3 The Data-link Layer
58.4 The Network Layer: IP
58.5 IP Addresses
58.6 The Transport Layer
58.6.1 Port Numbers
58.6.2 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
58.6.3 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
58.7 Requests for Comments (RFCs)
58.8 Summary
2009-11-14
Chapter 57: Sockets: UNIX Domain
This chapter looks at the use of UNIX domain sockets for communicating between processes on the same host system. We discuss the use of both stream and datagram sockets in the UNIX domain. We also describe the use of file permissions to control access to UNIX domain sockets, the use of socketpair() to create a pair of connected UNIX domain sockets, and the Linux abstract socket namespace.
57 Sockets: UNIX Domain
57.1 UNIX Domain Socket Addresses: struct sockaddr_un
57.2 Stream Sockets in the UNIX Domain
57.3 Datagram Sockets in the UNIX Domain
57.4 UNIX Domain Socket Permissions
57.5 Creating a Connected Socket Pair: socketpair()
57.6 The Linux Abstract Socket Namespace
57.7 Summary
57.8 Exercises
57 Sockets: UNIX Domain
57.1 UNIX Domain Socket Addresses: struct sockaddr_un
57.2 Stream Sockets in the UNIX Domain
57.3 Datagram Sockets in the UNIX Domain
57.4 UNIX Domain Socket Permissions
57.5 Creating a Connected Socket Pair: socketpair()
57.6 The Linux Abstract Socket Namespace
57.7 Summary
57.8 Exercises
2009-11-13
Chapter 56: Sockets: Introduction
Sockets are a method of IPC that allow data to be exchanged between applications, either on the same host (computer) or on different hosts connected by a network. The first widespread implementation of the sockets API appeared with 4.2BSD in 1983, and this API has been ported to virtually every Unix implementation, as well as most other operating systems.
This chapter and the following chapters describe the use of sockets, as follows:
56 Sockets: Introduction
56.1 Overview
56.2 Creating a Socket: socket()
56.3 Binding a Socket to an Address: bind()
56.4 Generic Socket Address Structures: struct sockaddr
56.5 Stream Sockets
56.5.1 Listening for Incoming Connections: listen()
56.5.2 Accepting a Connection: accept()
56.5.3 Connecting to a Peer Socket: connect()
56.5.4 I/O on Stream Sockets
56.5.5 Connection Termination: close()
56.6 Datagram Sockets
56.6.1 Exchanging Datagrams: recvfrom() and sendto()
56.6.2 Using connect() with Datagram Sockets
56.7 Summary
This chapter and the following chapters describe the use of sockets, as follows:
- This chapter provides a general introduction to the sockets API. The following chapters assume an understanding of the general concepts presented here. We don’t present any example code in this chapter. Code examples in the Unix and Internet domains are presented in the following chapters.
- Chapter 57 describes Unix domain sockets, which allow communication between applications on the same host system.
- Chapter 58 introduces various computer networking concepts and describes key features of the TCP/IP networking protocols. It provides background needed for the next chapters.
- Chapter 59 describes Internet domain sockets, which allow applications on different hosts to communicate via a TCP/IP network.
- Chapter 60 discusses the design of servers that use sockets.
- Chapter 61 covers a range of advanced topics, including additional features for socket I/O, a more detailed look at TCP (the protocol used for Internet domain stream sockets), and the use of socket options to retrieve and modify various attributes of sockets.
56 Sockets: Introduction
56.1 Overview
56.2 Creating a Socket: socket()
56.3 Binding a Socket to an Address: bind()
56.4 Generic Socket Address Structures: struct sockaddr
56.5 Stream Sockets
56.5.1 Listening for Incoming Connections: listen()
56.5.2 Accepting a Connection: accept()
56.5.3 Connecting to a Peer Socket: connect()
56.5.4 I/O on Stream Sockets
56.5.5 Connection Termination: close()
56.6 Datagram Sockets
56.6.1 Exchanging Datagrams: recvfrom() and sendto()
56.6.2 Using connect() with Datagram Sockets
56.7 Summary
2009-11-11
Copyedit nearly done!
Chapters 56 to 61 are back from copyedit. And chapters 62 to 64, the appendixes, and the bibliography already also went to the copyeditor and came back for my review (as yet unfinished).
2009-11-06
Chapters 1 to 55
Copyediting is now completed through to chapter 55, and thus is complete for six of the eight logical parts of my book (see this earlier post). So, here's an updated version of the detailed table of contents so far. (Chapters 4 and 38 have seen some light restructuring, so the section headings for those chapters are somewhat different from those shown in earlier postings. Chapter 10 got renamed.)
1 History and Standards [~20 pages]
1.1 A Brief History of UNIX and C
1.2 A Brief History of Linux
1.2.1 The GNU Project
1.2.2 The Linux Kernel
1.3 Standardization
1.3.1 The C Programming Language
1.3.2 The First POSIX Standards
1.3.3 X/Open Company and The Open Group
1.3.4 SUSv3 and POSIX.1-2001
1.3.5 SUSv4 and POSIX.1-2008
1.3.6 UNIX Standards Timeline
1.3.7 Implementation Standards
1.3.8 Linux, Standards, and the Linux Standard Base
1.4 Summary
2 Fundamental Concepts [~20 pages]
2.1 The Core Operating System: The Kernel
2.2 The Shell
2.3 Users and Groups
2.4 Single Directory Hierarchy, Directories, Links, and Files
2.5 File I/O Model
2.6 Programs
2.7 Processes
2.8 Memory Mappings
2.9 Static and Shared Libraries
2.10 Interprocess Communication and Synchronization
2.11 Signals
2.12 Threads
2.13 Process Groups and Shell Job Control
2.14 Sessions, Controlling Terminals, and Controlling Processes
2.15 Pseudoterminals
2.16 Date and Time
2.17 Client-server Architecture
2.18 Realtime
2.19 The /proc File System
2.20 Summary
3 System Programming Concepts [~25 pages]
3.1 System Calls
3.2 Library Functions
3.3 The Standard C Library; The GNU C Library (glibc)
3.4 Handling Errors from System Calls and Library Functions
3.5 Notes on the Example Programs in This Book
3.5.1 Command-line Options and Arguments
3.5.2 Common Functions and Header Files
3.6 Portability Issues
3.6.1 Feature Test Macros
3.6.2 System Data Types
3.6.3 Miscellaneous Portability Issues
3.7 Summary
3.8 Exercises
4 File I/O: The Universal I/O Model [~20 pages]
4.1 Overview
4.2 Universality of I/O
4.3 Opening a File: open()
4.3.1 The open() flags Argument
4.3.2 Errors from open()
4.3.3 The creat() System Call
4.4 Reading from a File: read()
4.5 Writing to a File: write()
4.6 Closing a File: close()
4.7 Changing the Current File Offset: lseek()
4.8 Operations Outside the Universal I/O Model: ioctl()
4.9 Summary
4.10 Exercises
5 File I/O: Further Details [~25 pages]
5.1 Atomicity and Race Conditions
5.2 File Control Operations: fcntl()
5.3 Open File Status Flags
5.4 Relationship Between File Descriptors and Open Files
5.5 Duplicating File Descriptors
5.6 File I/O at a Specified Offset: pread() and pwrite()
5.7 Scatter-gather I/O: readv() and writev()
5.8 Truncating a File: truncate() and ftruncate()
5.9 Nonblocking I/O
5.10 I/O on Large Files
5.11 The /dev/fd Directory
5.12 Creating Temporary Files
5.13 Summary
5.14 Exercises
6 Processes [~25 pages]
6.1 Processes and Programs
6.2 Process ID and Parent Process ID
6.3 Memory Layout of a Process
6.4 Virtual Memory Management
6.5 The Stack and Stack Frames
6.6 Command-line Arguments (argc, argv)
6.7 Environment List
6.8 Performing a Nonlocal Goto: setjmp() and longjmp()
6.9 Summary
6.10 Exercises
7 Memory Allocation [~15 pages]
7.1 Allocating Memory on the Heap
7.1.1 Adjusting the Program Break: brk() and sbrk()
7.1.2 Allocating Memory on the Heap: malloc() and free()
7.1.3 Implementation of malloc() and free()
7.1.4 Other Methods of Allocating Memory on the Heap
7.2 Allocating Memory on the Stack: alloca()
7.3 Summary
7.4 Exercises
8 Users and Groups [~15 pages]
8.1 The Password File: /etc/passwd
8.2 The Shadow Password File: /etc/shadow
8.3 The Group File: /etc/group
8.4 Retrieving User and Group Information
8.5 Password Encryption and User Authentication
8.6 Summary
8.7 Exercises
9 Process Credentials [~20 pages]
9.1 Real User ID and Real Group ID
9.2 Effective User ID and Effective Group ID
9.3 Set-user-ID and Set-group-ID Programs
9.4 Saved Set-user-ID and Saved Set-group-ID
9.5 File System User ID and File System Group ID
9.6 Supplementary Group IDs
9.7 Retrieving and Modifying Process Credentials
9.7.1 Retrieving and Modifying Real, Effective, and Saved Set IDs
9.7.2 Retrieving and Modifying File System IDs
9.7.3 Retrieving and Modifying Supplementary Group IDs
9.7.4 Summary of Calls for Modifying Process Credentials
9.7.5 Example: Displaying Process Credentials
9.8 Summary
9.9 Exercises
10 Time [~25 pages]
10.1 Calendar Time
10.2 Time-Conversion Functions
10.2.1 Converting time_t to Printable Form
10.2.2 Converting Between time_t and Broken-down Time
10.2.3 Converting Between Broken-down Time and Printable Form
10.3 Timezones
10.4 Locales
10.5 Updating the System Clock
10.6 The Software Clock (Jiffies)
10.7 Process Time
10.8 Summary
10.9 Exercises
11 System Limits and Options [~10 pages]
11.1 System Limits
11.2 Retrieving System Limits (and Options) at Run Time
11.3 Retrieving File-related Limits (and Options) at Run Time
11.4 Indeterminate Limits
11.5 System Options
11.6 Summary
11.7 Exercises
12 System and Process Information [~10 pages]
12.1 The /proc File System
12.1.1 Obtaining Information about a Process: /proc/PID
12.1.2 System Information under /proc
12.1.3 Accessing /proc Files
12.2 System Identification: uname()
12.3 Summary
12.4 Exercises
13 File I/O Buffering [~20 pages]
13.1 Kernel Buffering of File I/O: The Buffer Cache
13.2 Buffering in the stdio Library
13.3 Controlling Kernel Buffering of File I/O
13.4 Summary of I/O Buffering
13.5 Giving the Kernel Hints about I/O Patterns: posix_fadvise()
13.6 Bypassing the Buffer Cache: Direct I/O
13.7 Mixing Library Functions and System Calls for File I/O
13.8 Summary
13.9 Exercises
14 File Systems [~30 pages]
14.1 Device Special Files (Devices)
14.2 Disks and Partitions
14.3 File Systems
14.4 I-nodes
14.5 The Virtual File System (VFS)
14.6 Journaling File Systems
14.7 Single Directory Hierarchy and Mount Points
14.8 Mounting and Unmounting File Systems
14.8.1 Mounting a File System: mount()
14.8.2 Unmounting a File System: umount() and umount2()
14.9 Advanced Mount Features
14.9.1 Mounting a File System at Multiple Mount Points
14.9.2 Stacking Multiple Mounts on the Same Mount Point
14.9.3 Mount Flags That Are Per-mount Options
14.9.4 Bind Mounts
14.9.5 Recursive Bind Mounts
14.10 A Virtual Memory File System: tmpfs
14.11 Obtaining Information about a File System: statvfs()
14.12 Summary
14.13 Exercises
15 File Attributes [~30 pages]
15.1 Retrieving File Information: stat()
15.2 File Timestamps
15.2.1 Changing File Timestamps with utime() and utimes()
15.2.2 Changing File Timestamps with utimensat() and futimens()
15.3 File Ownership
15.3.1 Ownership of New Files
15.3.2 Changing File Ownership: chown(), fchown(), and lchown()
15.4 File Permissions
15.4.1 Permissions on Regular Files
15.4.2 Permissions on Directories
15.4.3 Permission Checking Algorithm
15.4.4 Checking File Accessibility: access()
15.4.5 Set-user-ID, Set-group-ID, and Sticky Bits
15.4.6 The Process File Mode Creation Mask: umask()
15.4.7 Changing File Permissions: chmod() and fchmod()
15.5 I-node Flags (ext2 Extended File Attributes)
15.6 Summary
15.7 Exercises
16 Extended Attributes [~8 pages]
16.1 Overview
16.2 Extended Attribute Implementation Details
16.3 System Calls for Manipulating Extended Attributes
16.4 Summary
16.5 Exercises
17 Access Control Lists [~20 pages]
17.1 Overview
17.2 ACL Permission-Checking Algorithm
17.3 Long and Short Text Forms for ACLs
17.4 The ACL_MASK Entry and the ACL Group Class
17.5 The getfacl and setfacl Commands
17.6 Default ACLs and File Creation
17.7 ACL Implementation Limits
17.8 The ACL API
17.9 Summary
17.10 Exercises
18 Directories and Links [~35 pages]
18.1 Directories and (Hard) Links
18.2 Symbolic (Soft) Links
18.3 Creating and Removing (Hard) Links: link() and unlink()
18.4 Changing the Name of a File: rename()
18.5 Working with Symbolic Links: symlink() and readlink()
18.6 Creating and Removing Directories: mkdir() and rmdir()
18.7 Removing a File or Directory: remove()
18.8 Reading Directories: opendir() and readdir()
18.9 File Tree Walking: nftw()
18.10 The Current Working Directory of a Process
18.11 Operating Relative to a Directory File Descriptor
18.12 Changing the Root Directory of a Process: chroot()
18.13 Resolving a Pathname: realpath()
18.14 Parsing Pathname Strings: dirname() and basename()
18.15 Summary
18.16 Exercises
19 Monitoring File Events [~12 pages]
19.1 Overview
19.2 The inotify API
19.3 inotify Events
19.4 Reading inotify Events
19.5 Queue Limits and /proc Files
19.6 An Older System for Monitoring File Events: dnotify
19.7 Summary
19.8 Exercises
20 Signals: Fundamental Concepts [~30 pages]
20.1 Concepts and Overview
20.2 Signal Types and Default Actions
20.3 Changing Signal Dispositions: signal()
20.4 Introduction to Signal Handlers
20.5 Sending Signals: kill()
20.6 Checking for the Existence of a Process
20.7 Other Ways of Sending Signals: raise() and killpg()
20.8 Displaying Signal Descriptions
20.9 Signal Sets
20.10 The Signal Mask (Blocking Signal Delivery)
20.11 Pending Signals
20.12 Signals Are Not Queued
20.13 Changing Signal Dispositions: sigaction()
20.14 Waiting for a Signal: pause()
20.15 Summary
20.16 Exercises
21 Signals: Signal Handlers [~25 pages]
21.1 Designing Signal Handlers
21.1.1 Signals Are Not Queued (Revisited)
21.1.2 Reentrant and Async-signal-safe Functions
21.1.3 Global Variables and the sig_atomic_t Data Type
21.2 Other Methods of Terminating a Signal Handler
21.2.1 Performing a Nonlocal Goto from a Signal Handler
21.2.2 Terminating a Process Abnormally: abort()
21.3 Handling a Signal on an Alternate Stack: sigaltstack()
21.4 The SA_SIGINFO Flag
21.5 Interruption and Restarting of System Calls
21.6 Summary
21.7 Exercises
22 Signals: Advanced Features [~30 pages]
22.1 Core Dump Files
22.2 Special Cases for Signal Delivery, Disposition, and Handling
22.3 Interruptible and Uninterruptible Process Sleep States
22.4 Hardware-generated Signals
22.5 Synchronous and Asynchronous Signal Generation
22.6 Timing and Order of Signal Delivery
22.7 Implementation and Portability of signal()
22.8 Realtime Signals
22.8.1 Sending Realtime Signals
22.8.2 Handling Realtime Signals
22.9 Waiting for a Signal Using a Mask: sigsuspend()
22.10 Synchronously Waiting for a Signal
22.11 Fetching Signals via a File Descriptor
22.12 Interprocess Communication with Signals
22.13 Earlier Signal APIs (System V and BSD)
22.14 Summary
22.15 Exercises
23 Timers and Sleeping [~30 pages]
23.1 Interval Timers
23.2 Scheduling and Accuracy of Timers
23.3 Setting Timeouts on Blocking Operations
23.4 Suspending Execution for a Fixed Interval (Sleeping)
23.4.1 Low-resolution Sleeping: sleep()
23.4.2 High-resolution Sleeping: nanosleep()
23.5 POSIX Clocks
23.5.1 Retrieving the Value of a Clock: timer_gettime()
23.5.2 Updating the Value of a Clock: timer_gettime()
23.5.3 Obtaining the Clock ID of a Specific Process or Thread
23.5.4 Improved High-resolution Sleeping: clock_nanosleep()
23.6 POSIX Interval Timers
23.6.1 Creating a Timer: timer_create()
23.6.2 Arming and Disarming a Timer: timer_settime()
23.6.3 Retrieving the Current Value of a Timer: timer_gettime()
23.6.4 Deleting a Timer: timer_delete()
23.6.5 Notification via a Signal (SIGEV_SIGNAL)
23.6.6 Timer Overruns
23.6.7 Notification via a Thread (SIGEV_THREAD)
23.7 Timers That Notify via File Descriptors: the timerfd API
23.8 Summary
23.9 Exercises
24 Process Creation [~20 pages]
24.1 Overview of fork(), exit(), wait(), and execve()
24.2 Creating a New Process: fork()
24.2.1 File Sharing Between Parent and Child
24.2.2 Memory Semantics of fork()
24.3 The vfork() System Call
24.4 Race Conditions after fork()
24.5 Avoiding Race Conditions by Synchronizing with Signals
24.6 Summary
25 Process Termination [~10 pages]
25.1 Terminating a Process: _exit() and exit()
25.2 Details of Process Termination
25.3 Exit Handlers
25.4 Interactions Between fork(), stdio Buffers, and _exit()
25.5 Summary
25.6 Exercises
26 Monitoring Child Processes [~20 pages]
26.1 Waiting on a Child Process
26.1.1 The wait() System Call
26.1.2 The waitpid() System Call
26.1.3 The Wait Status Value
26.1.4 Process Termination from a Signal Handler
26.1.5 The waitid() System Call
26.1.6 The wait3() and wait4() System Calls
26.2 Orphans and Zombies
26.3 The SIGCHLD Signal
26.3.1 Establishing a Handler for SIGCHLD
26.3.2 Delivery of SIGCHLD for Stopped Children
26.3.3 Ignoring Dead Child Processes
26.4 Summary
26.5 Exercises
27 Program Execution [~20 pages]
27.1 Executing a New Program: execve()
27.2 The exec() Library Functions
27.2.1 The PATH Environment Variable
27.2.2 Specifying Program Arguments As a List
27.2.3 Passing the Caller's Environment to the New Program
27.2.4 Executing a File Referred to by a Descriptor: fexecve()
27.3 Interpreter Scripts
27.4 File Descriptors and exec()
27.5 Signals and exec()
27.6 Executing a Shell Command: system()
27.7 Implementing system()
27.8 Summary
27.9 Exercises
28 Process Creation and Program Execution in More Detail [~25 pages]
28.1 Process Accounting
28.2 The clone() System Call
28.2.1 The clone() flags Argument
28.2.2 Extensions to waitpid() for Cloned Children
28.3 Speed of Process Creation
28.4 Effect of exec() and fork() on Process Attributes
28.5 Summary
28.6 Exercises
29 Threads: Introduction [~15 pages]
29.1 Overview
29.2 Background Details of the Pthreads API
29.3 Thread Creation
29.4 Thread Termination
29.5 Thread IDs
29.6 Joining with a Terminated Thread: pthread_join()
29.7 Detaching a Thread: pthread_detach()
29.8 Thread Attributes
29.9 Threads Versus Processes
29.10 Summary
29.11 Exercises
30 Threads: Thread Synchronization [~25 pages]
30.1 Protecting Accesses to Shared Variables: Mutexes
30.1.1 Statically Allocated Mutexes
30.1.2 Locking and Unlocking a Mutex
30.1.3 Performance of Mutexes
30.1.4 Mutex Deadlocks
30.1.5 Dynamically Initializing a Mutex
30.1.6 Mutex Attributes
30.1.7 Mutex Types
30.2 Signaling Changes of State: Condition Variables
30.2.1 Statically Allocated Condition Variables
30.2.2 Signaling and Waiting on Condition Variables
30.2.3 Testing a Condition Variable’s Predicate
30.2.4 Example Program: Joining Any Terminated Thread
30.2.5 Dynamically Allocated Condition Variables
30.3 Summary
30.4 Exercises
31 Threads: Thread Safety and Per-thread Storage [~15 pages]
31.1 Thread Safety (and Reentrancy Revisited)
31.2 One-time Initialization
31.3 Thread-specific Data
31.3.1 Thread-specific Data from the Library Function’s Perspective
31.3.2 Overview of the Thread-specific Data API
31.3.3 Details of the Thread-specific Data API
31.3.4 Employing the Thread-specific Data API
31.3.5 Thread-specific Data Implementation Limits
31.4 Thread-local Storage
31.5 Summary
31.6 Exercises
32 Threads: Thread Cancellation [~10 pages]
32.1 Canceling a Thread
32.2 Cancellation State and Type
32.3 Cancellation Points
32.4 Testing for Thread Cancellation
32.5 Cleanup Handlers
32.6 Asynchronous Cancelability
32.7 Summary
32.8 Exercises
33 Threads: Further Details [~15 pages]
33.1 Thread Stacks
33.2 Threads and Signals
33.2.1 How the UNIX Signal Model Maps to Threads
33.2.2 Manipulating the Thread Signal Mask
33.2.3 Sending a Signal to a Thread
33.2.4 Dealing with Asynchronous Signals Sanely
33.3 Threads and Process Control
33.4 Thread Implementation Models
33.5 Linux Implementations of POSIX Threads
33.5.1 LinuxThreads
33.5.2 NPTL
33.5.3 Which Threading Implementation?
33.6 Advanced Features of the Pthreads API
33.7 Summary
33.8 Exercises
34 Process Groups, Sessions, and Job Control [~35 pages]
34.1 Overview
34.2 Process Groups
34.3 Sessions
34.4 Controlling Terminals and Controlling Processes
34.5 Foreground and Background Process Groups
34.6 The SIGHUP Signal
34.6.1 Handling of SIGHUP by the Shell
34.6.2 SIGHUP and Termination of the Controlling Process
34.7 Job Control
34.7.1 Using Job Control within the Shell
34.7.2 Implementing Job Control
34.7.3 Handling Job-control Signals
34.7.4 Orphaned Process Groups (and SIGHUP Revisited)
34.8 Summary
34.9 Exercises
35 Process Priorities and Scheduling [~20 pages]
35.1 Process Priorities (Nice Values)
35.2 Overview of Realtime Process Scheduling
35.2.1 The SCHED_RR Policy
35.2.2 The SCHED_FIFO Policy
35.2.3 The SCHED_BATCH and SCHED_IDLE Policies
35.3 Realtime Process Scheduling API
35.3.1 Realtime Priority Ranges
35.3.2 Modifying and Retrieving Policies and Priorities
35.3.3 Relinquishing the CPU
35.3.4 The SCHED_RR Time Slice
35.4 CPU Affinity
35.5 Summary
35.6 Exercises
36 Process Resources [~15 pages]
36.1 Process Resource Usage: getrusage()
36.2 Process Resource Limits: getrlimit() and setrlimit()
36.3 Details of Specific Resource Limits
36.4 Summary
36.5 Exercises
37 Daemons [~15 pages]
37.1 Overview
37.2 Creating a Daemon
37.3 Guidelines for Writing Daemons
37.4 Using SIGHUP to Reinitialize a Daemon
37.5 Logging Messages and Errors Using syslog
37.5.1 Overview
37.5.2 The syslog API
37.5.3 The /etc/syslog.conf File
37.6 Summary
37.7 Exercises
38 Writing Secure Privileged Programs [~15 pages]
38.1 Is a Set-user-ID or Set-group-ID Program Required?
38.2 Operate with Least Privilege
38.3 Be Careful when Executing a Program
38.4 Avoid Exposing Sensitive Information
38.5 Confine the Process
38.6 Beware of Signals and Race Conditions
38.7 Pitfalls when Performing File Operations and File I/O
38.8 Don’t Trust Inputs or the Environment
38.9 Beware of Buffer Overruns
38.10 Beware of Denial-of-service Attacks
38.11 Check for Failures; Fail Safely
38.12 Summary
38.13 Exercises
39 Capabilities [~20 pages]
39.1 Rationale for Capabilities
39.2 The Linux Capabilities
39.3 Process and File Capabilities
39.3.1 Process Capabilities
39.3.2 File Capabilities
39.3.3 Purpose of the Process Permitted and Effective Capability Sets
39.3.4 Purpose of the File Permitted and Effective Capability Sets
39.3.5 Purpose of the Process and File Inheritable Sets
39.3.6 Assigning and Viewing File Capabilities from the Shell
39.4 The Modern Capabilities Implementation
39.5 Transformation of Process Capabilities during exec()
39.5.1 Capability Bounding Set
39.5.2 Preserving root Semantics
39.6 Effect on Process Capabilities of Changing User IDs
39.7 Changing Process Capabilities Programmatically
39.8 Creating Capabilities-only Environments
39.9 Discovering the Capabilities Required by a Program
39.10 Older Kernels and Systems without File Capabilities
39.11 Summary
39.12 Exercises
40 Login Accounting [~15 pages]
40.1 Overview of the utmp and wtmp Files
40.2 The utmpx API
40.3 The utmpx Structure
40.4 Retrieving Information from the utmp and wtmp Files
40.5 Retrieving the Login Name: getlogin()
40.6 Updating the utmp and wtmp Files for a Login Session
40.7 The lastlog File
40.8 Summary
40.9 Exercises
41 Fundamentals of Shared Libraries [~25 pages]
41.1 Object Libraries
41.2 Static Libraries
41.3 Overview of Shared Libraries
41.4 Creating and Using Shared Libraries--A First Pass
41.4.1 Creating a Shared Library
41.4.2 Position-independent Code
41.4.3 Using a Shared Library
41.4.4 The Shared Library Soname
41.5 Useful Tools for Working with Shared Libraries
41.6 Shared Library Versions and Naming Conventions
41.7 Installing Shared Libraries
41.8 Compatible Versus Incompatible Libraries
41.9 Upgrading Shared Libraries
41.10 Specifying Library Search Directories in an Object File
41.11 Finding Shared Libraries at Run Time
41.12 Run-time Symbol Resolution
41.13 Using a Static Library Instead of a Shared Library
41.14 Summary
41.15 Exercises
42 Advanced Features of Shared Libraries [~20 pages]
42.1 Dynamically Loaded Libraries
42.1.1 Opening a Shared Library
42.1.2 Diagnosing Errors from the dlopen API
42.1.3 Obtaining the Address of a Symbol: dlsym()
42.1.4 Closing a Shared Library: dlclose()
42.1.5 Obtaining Information about Loaded Symbols: dladdr()
42.1.6 Accessing Symbols in the Main Program
42.2 Controlling Symbol Visibility
42.3 Linker Version Scripts
42.3.1 Controlling Symbol Visibility with Version Scripts
42.3.2 Symbol Versioning
42.4 Initialization and Finalization Functions
42.5 Preloading Shared Libraries
42.6 Monitoring the Dynamic Linker: LD_DEBUG
42.7 Summary
42.8 Exercises
43 Interprocess Communication Overview [~12 pages]
43.1 A Taxonomy of IPC Facilities
43.2 Communication Facilities
43.3 Synchronization Facilities
43.4 Comparing IPC Facilities
43.5 Summary
43.6 Exercises
44 Pipes and FIFOs [~35 pages]
44.1 Overview
44.2 Creating and Using Pipes
44.3 Pipes As a Method of Process Synchronization
44.4 Using Pipes to Connect Filters
44.5 Talking to a Shell Command via a Pipe: popen() and pclose()
44.6 Pipes and stdio Buffering
44.7 FIFOs
44.8 A Client-server Application Using FIFOs
44.9 Nonblocking I/O
44.10 Semantics of read() and write() on Pipes and FIFOs
44.11 Summary
44.12 Exercises
45 Introduction to System V IPC [~15 pages]
45.1 API Overview
45.2 IPC Keys
45.3 Associated Data Structure and Object Permissions
45.4 IPC Identifiers and Client-server Applications
45.5 Algorithm Employed by System V IPC get Calls
45.6 The ipcs and ipcrm Commands
45.7 Obtaining a List of All IPC Objects
45.8 IPC Limits
45.9 Summary
45.10 Exercises
46 System V Message Queues [~25 pages]
46.1 Creating or Opening a Message Queue: msgget()
46.2 Exchanging Messages
46.2.1 Sending Messages: msgsnd()
46.2.2 Receiving Messages: msgrcv()
46.3 Message Queue Control Operations: msgctl()
46.4 Message Queue Associated Data Structure
46.5 Message Queue Limits
46.6 Displaying All Message Queues on the System
46.7 Client-server Programming with Message Queues
46.8 A File-server Application Using Message Queues
46.9 Disadvantages of System V Message Queues
46.10 Summary
46.11 Exercises
47 System V Semaphores [~30 pages]
47.1 Overview
47.2 Creating or Opening a Semaphore Set: semget()
47.3 Semaphore Control Operations: semctl()
47.4 Semaphore Associated Data Structure
47.5 Semaphore Initialization
47.6 Semaphore Operations: semop()
47.7 Handling of Multiple Blocked Semaphore Operations
47.8 Semaphore Undo Values
47.9 Implementing a Binary Semaphores Protocol
47.10 Semaphore Limits
47.11 Disadvantages of System V Semaphores
47.12 Summary
47.13 Exercises
48 System V Shared Memory [~20 pages]
48.1 Overview
48.2 Creating or Opening a Shared Memory Segment: shmget()
48.3 Using Shared Memory: shmat() and shmdt()
48.4 Example: Transferring Data Via Shared Memory
48.5 Location of Shared Memory Segments in Virtual Memory
48.6 Storing Pointers in Shared Memory
48.7 Shared Memory Control Operations: shmctl()
48.8 Shared Memory Associated Data Structure
48.9 Shared Memory Limits
48.10 Summary
48.11 Exercises
49 Memory Mappings [~30 pages]
49.1 Overview
49.2 Creating a Mapping: mmap()
49.3 Unmapping a Mapped Region: munmap()
49.4 File Mappings
49.4.1 Private (MAP_PRIVATE) File Mappings
49.4.2 Shared (MAP_SHARED) File Mappings
49.4.3 Boundary Cases
49.4.4 Memory Protection and File Access Mode Interactions
49.5 Synchronizing a Mapped Region: msync()
49.6 Additional mmap() Flags
49.7 Anonymous Mappings
49.8 Remapping a Mapped Region: mremap()
49.9 The MAP_NORESERVE Flag and Swap Space Overcommitting
49.10 The MAP_FIXED Flag
49.11 Nonlinear Mappings: remap_file_pages()
49.12 Summary
49.13 Exercises
50 Virtual Memory Operations [~12 pages]
50.1 Changing Memory Protection: mprotect()
50.2 Memory Locking: mlock() and mlockall()
50.3 Determining Memory Residence: mincore()
50.4 Advising Future Memory Usage Patterns: madvise()
50.5 Summary
50.6 Exercises
51 Introduction to POSIX IPC [~6 pages]
51.1 API Overview
51.2 Comparison of System V IPC and POSIX IPC
51.3 Summary
52 POSIX Message Queues [~25 pages]
52.1 Overview
52.2 Opening, Closing, and Unlinking a Message Queue
52.3 Relationship between Descriptors and Message Queues
52.4 Message Queue Attributes
52.5 Exchanging Messages
52.5.1 Sending Messages: mq_send()
52.5.2 Receiving Messages: mq_receive()
52.5.3 Sending and Receiving Messages with a Timeout
52.6 Message Notification
52.6.1 Receiving Notification Using a Signal (SIGEV_SIGNAL)
52.6.2 Receiving Notification Using a Thread (SIGEV_THREAD)
52.7 Linux-specific Features
52.8 Message Queue Limits
52.9 Comparison of POSIX and System V Message Queues
52.10 Summary
52.11 Exercises
53 POSIX Semaphores [~18 pages]
53.1 Overview
53.2 Named Semaphores
53.2.1 Opening a Named Semaphore
53.2.2 Closing a Semaphore
53.2.3 Removing a Named Semaphore
53.3 Semaphore Operations
53.3.1 Waiting on a Semaphore
53.3.2 Posting a Semaphore
53.3.3 Retrieving the Current Value of a Semaphore
53.4 Unnamed Semaphores
53.4.1 Initializing an Unnamed Semaphore
53.4.2 Destroying an Unnamed Semaphore
53.5 Comparisons with Other Synchronization Techniques
53.6 Semaphore Limits
53.7 Summary
53.8 Exercises
54 POSIX Shared Memory [~10 pages]
54.1 Overview
54.2 Creating Shared Memory Objects: shm_open()
54.3 Using Shared Memory Objects
54.4 Removing Shared Memory Objects: shm_unlink()
54.5 Comparisons between Shared Memory APIs
54.6 Summary
54.7 Exercises
55 File Locking [~35 pages]
55.1 Overview
55.2 File Locking with flock()
55.2.1 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.2.2 Limitations of flock()
55.3 Record Locking with fcntl()
55.3.1 Deadlock
55.3.2 Example: An Interactive Locking Program
55.3.3 Example: A Library of Locking Functions
55.3.4 Lock Limits and Performance
55.3.5 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.3.6 Lock Starvation and Priority of Queued Lock Requests
55.4 Mandatory Locking
55.5 The /proc/locks File
55.6 Running Just One Instance of a Program
55.7 Older Locking Techniques
55.8 Summary
55.9 Exercises
1 History and Standards [~20 pages]
1.1 A Brief History of UNIX and C
1.2 A Brief History of Linux
1.2.1 The GNU Project
1.2.2 The Linux Kernel
1.3 Standardization
1.3.1 The C Programming Language
1.3.2 The First POSIX Standards
1.3.3 X/Open Company and The Open Group
1.3.4 SUSv3 and POSIX.1-2001
1.3.5 SUSv4 and POSIX.1-2008
1.3.6 UNIX Standards Timeline
1.3.7 Implementation Standards
1.3.8 Linux, Standards, and the Linux Standard Base
1.4 Summary
2 Fundamental Concepts [~20 pages]
2.1 The Core Operating System: The Kernel
2.2 The Shell
2.3 Users and Groups
2.4 Single Directory Hierarchy, Directories, Links, and Files
2.5 File I/O Model
2.6 Programs
2.7 Processes
2.8 Memory Mappings
2.9 Static and Shared Libraries
2.10 Interprocess Communication and Synchronization
2.11 Signals
2.12 Threads
2.13 Process Groups and Shell Job Control
2.14 Sessions, Controlling Terminals, and Controlling Processes
2.15 Pseudoterminals
2.16 Date and Time
2.17 Client-server Architecture
2.18 Realtime
2.19 The /proc File System
2.20 Summary
3 System Programming Concepts [~25 pages]
3.1 System Calls
3.2 Library Functions
3.3 The Standard C Library; The GNU C Library (glibc)
3.4 Handling Errors from System Calls and Library Functions
3.5 Notes on the Example Programs in This Book
3.5.1 Command-line Options and Arguments
3.5.2 Common Functions and Header Files
3.6 Portability Issues
3.6.1 Feature Test Macros
3.6.2 System Data Types
3.6.3 Miscellaneous Portability Issues
3.7 Summary
3.8 Exercises
4 File I/O: The Universal I/O Model [~20 pages]
4.1 Overview
4.2 Universality of I/O
4.3 Opening a File: open()
4.3.1 The open() flags Argument
4.3.2 Errors from open()
4.3.3 The creat() System Call
4.4 Reading from a File: read()
4.5 Writing to a File: write()
4.6 Closing a File: close()
4.7 Changing the Current File Offset: lseek()
4.8 Operations Outside the Universal I/O Model: ioctl()
4.9 Summary
4.10 Exercises
5 File I/O: Further Details [~25 pages]
5.1 Atomicity and Race Conditions
5.2 File Control Operations: fcntl()
5.3 Open File Status Flags
5.4 Relationship Between File Descriptors and Open Files
5.5 Duplicating File Descriptors
5.6 File I/O at a Specified Offset: pread() and pwrite()
5.7 Scatter-gather I/O: readv() and writev()
5.8 Truncating a File: truncate() and ftruncate()
5.9 Nonblocking I/O
5.10 I/O on Large Files
5.11 The /dev/fd Directory
5.12 Creating Temporary Files
5.13 Summary
5.14 Exercises
6 Processes [~25 pages]
6.1 Processes and Programs
6.2 Process ID and Parent Process ID
6.3 Memory Layout of a Process
6.4 Virtual Memory Management
6.5 The Stack and Stack Frames
6.6 Command-line Arguments (argc, argv)
6.7 Environment List
6.8 Performing a Nonlocal Goto: setjmp() and longjmp()
6.9 Summary
6.10 Exercises
7 Memory Allocation [~15 pages]
7.1 Allocating Memory on the Heap
7.1.1 Adjusting the Program Break: brk() and sbrk()
7.1.2 Allocating Memory on the Heap: malloc() and free()
7.1.3 Implementation of malloc() and free()
7.1.4 Other Methods of Allocating Memory on the Heap
7.2 Allocating Memory on the Stack: alloca()
7.3 Summary
7.4 Exercises
8 Users and Groups [~15 pages]
8.1 The Password File: /etc/passwd
8.2 The Shadow Password File: /etc/shadow
8.3 The Group File: /etc/group
8.4 Retrieving User and Group Information
8.5 Password Encryption and User Authentication
8.6 Summary
8.7 Exercises
9 Process Credentials [~20 pages]
9.1 Real User ID and Real Group ID
9.2 Effective User ID and Effective Group ID
9.3 Set-user-ID and Set-group-ID Programs
9.4 Saved Set-user-ID and Saved Set-group-ID
9.5 File System User ID and File System Group ID
9.6 Supplementary Group IDs
9.7 Retrieving and Modifying Process Credentials
9.7.1 Retrieving and Modifying Real, Effective, and Saved Set IDs
9.7.2 Retrieving and Modifying File System IDs
9.7.3 Retrieving and Modifying Supplementary Group IDs
9.7.4 Summary of Calls for Modifying Process Credentials
9.7.5 Example: Displaying Process Credentials
9.8 Summary
9.9 Exercises
10 Time [~25 pages]
10.1 Calendar Time
10.2 Time-Conversion Functions
10.2.1 Converting time_t to Printable Form
10.2.2 Converting Between time_t and Broken-down Time
10.2.3 Converting Between Broken-down Time and Printable Form
10.3 Timezones
10.4 Locales
10.5 Updating the System Clock
10.6 The Software Clock (Jiffies)
10.7 Process Time
10.8 Summary
10.9 Exercises
11 System Limits and Options [~10 pages]
11.1 System Limits
11.2 Retrieving System Limits (and Options) at Run Time
11.3 Retrieving File-related Limits (and Options) at Run Time
11.4 Indeterminate Limits
11.5 System Options
11.6 Summary
11.7 Exercises
12 System and Process Information [~10 pages]
12.1 The /proc File System
12.1.1 Obtaining Information about a Process: /proc/PID
12.1.2 System Information under /proc
12.1.3 Accessing /proc Files
12.2 System Identification: uname()
12.3 Summary
12.4 Exercises
13 File I/O Buffering [~20 pages]
13.1 Kernel Buffering of File I/O: The Buffer Cache
13.2 Buffering in the stdio Library
13.3 Controlling Kernel Buffering of File I/O
13.4 Summary of I/O Buffering
13.5 Giving the Kernel Hints about I/O Patterns: posix_fadvise()
13.6 Bypassing the Buffer Cache: Direct I/O
13.7 Mixing Library Functions and System Calls for File I/O
13.8 Summary
13.9 Exercises
14 File Systems [~30 pages]
14.1 Device Special Files (Devices)
14.2 Disks and Partitions
14.3 File Systems
14.4 I-nodes
14.5 The Virtual File System (VFS)
14.6 Journaling File Systems
14.7 Single Directory Hierarchy and Mount Points
14.8 Mounting and Unmounting File Systems
14.8.1 Mounting a File System: mount()
14.8.2 Unmounting a File System: umount() and umount2()
14.9 Advanced Mount Features
14.9.1 Mounting a File System at Multiple Mount Points
14.9.2 Stacking Multiple Mounts on the Same Mount Point
14.9.3 Mount Flags That Are Per-mount Options
14.9.4 Bind Mounts
14.9.5 Recursive Bind Mounts
14.10 A Virtual Memory File System: tmpfs
14.11 Obtaining Information about a File System: statvfs()
14.12 Summary
14.13 Exercises
15 File Attributes [~30 pages]
15.1 Retrieving File Information: stat()
15.2 File Timestamps
15.2.1 Changing File Timestamps with utime() and utimes()
15.2.2 Changing File Timestamps with utimensat() and futimens()
15.3 File Ownership
15.3.1 Ownership of New Files
15.3.2 Changing File Ownership: chown(), fchown(), and lchown()
15.4 File Permissions
15.4.1 Permissions on Regular Files
15.4.2 Permissions on Directories
15.4.3 Permission Checking Algorithm
15.4.4 Checking File Accessibility: access()
15.4.5 Set-user-ID, Set-group-ID, and Sticky Bits
15.4.6 The Process File Mode Creation Mask: umask()
15.4.7 Changing File Permissions: chmod() and fchmod()
15.5 I-node Flags (ext2 Extended File Attributes)
15.6 Summary
15.7 Exercises
16 Extended Attributes [~8 pages]
16.1 Overview
16.2 Extended Attribute Implementation Details
16.3 System Calls for Manipulating Extended Attributes
16.4 Summary
16.5 Exercises
17 Access Control Lists [~20 pages]
17.1 Overview
17.2 ACL Permission-Checking Algorithm
17.3 Long and Short Text Forms for ACLs
17.4 The ACL_MASK Entry and the ACL Group Class
17.5 The getfacl and setfacl Commands
17.6 Default ACLs and File Creation
17.7 ACL Implementation Limits
17.8 The ACL API
17.9 Summary
17.10 Exercises
18 Directories and Links [~35 pages]
18.1 Directories and (Hard) Links
18.2 Symbolic (Soft) Links
18.3 Creating and Removing (Hard) Links: link() and unlink()
18.4 Changing the Name of a File: rename()
18.5 Working with Symbolic Links: symlink() and readlink()
18.6 Creating and Removing Directories: mkdir() and rmdir()
18.7 Removing a File or Directory: remove()
18.8 Reading Directories: opendir() and readdir()
18.9 File Tree Walking: nftw()
18.10 The Current Working Directory of a Process
18.11 Operating Relative to a Directory File Descriptor
18.12 Changing the Root Directory of a Process: chroot()
18.13 Resolving a Pathname: realpath()
18.14 Parsing Pathname Strings: dirname() and basename()
18.15 Summary
18.16 Exercises
19 Monitoring File Events [~12 pages]
19.1 Overview
19.2 The inotify API
19.3 inotify Events
19.4 Reading inotify Events
19.5 Queue Limits and /proc Files
19.6 An Older System for Monitoring File Events: dnotify
19.7 Summary
19.8 Exercises
20 Signals: Fundamental Concepts [~30 pages]
20.1 Concepts and Overview
20.2 Signal Types and Default Actions
20.3 Changing Signal Dispositions: signal()
20.4 Introduction to Signal Handlers
20.5 Sending Signals: kill()
20.6 Checking for the Existence of a Process
20.7 Other Ways of Sending Signals: raise() and killpg()
20.8 Displaying Signal Descriptions
20.9 Signal Sets
20.10 The Signal Mask (Blocking Signal Delivery)
20.11 Pending Signals
20.12 Signals Are Not Queued
20.13 Changing Signal Dispositions: sigaction()
20.14 Waiting for a Signal: pause()
20.15 Summary
20.16 Exercises
21 Signals: Signal Handlers [~25 pages]
21.1 Designing Signal Handlers
21.1.1 Signals Are Not Queued (Revisited)
21.1.2 Reentrant and Async-signal-safe Functions
21.1.3 Global Variables and the sig_atomic_t Data Type
21.2 Other Methods of Terminating a Signal Handler
21.2.1 Performing a Nonlocal Goto from a Signal Handler
21.2.2 Terminating a Process Abnormally: abort()
21.3 Handling a Signal on an Alternate Stack: sigaltstack()
21.4 The SA_SIGINFO Flag
21.5 Interruption and Restarting of System Calls
21.6 Summary
21.7 Exercises
22 Signals: Advanced Features [~30 pages]
22.1 Core Dump Files
22.2 Special Cases for Signal Delivery, Disposition, and Handling
22.3 Interruptible and Uninterruptible Process Sleep States
22.4 Hardware-generated Signals
22.5 Synchronous and Asynchronous Signal Generation
22.6 Timing and Order of Signal Delivery
22.7 Implementation and Portability of signal()
22.8 Realtime Signals
22.8.1 Sending Realtime Signals
22.8.2 Handling Realtime Signals
22.9 Waiting for a Signal Using a Mask: sigsuspend()
22.10 Synchronously Waiting for a Signal
22.11 Fetching Signals via a File Descriptor
22.12 Interprocess Communication with Signals
22.13 Earlier Signal APIs (System V and BSD)
22.14 Summary
22.15 Exercises
23 Timers and Sleeping [~30 pages]
23.1 Interval Timers
23.2 Scheduling and Accuracy of Timers
23.3 Setting Timeouts on Blocking Operations
23.4 Suspending Execution for a Fixed Interval (Sleeping)
23.4.1 Low-resolution Sleeping: sleep()
23.4.2 High-resolution Sleeping: nanosleep()
23.5 POSIX Clocks
23.5.1 Retrieving the Value of a Clock: timer_gettime()
23.5.2 Updating the Value of a Clock: timer_gettime()
23.5.3 Obtaining the Clock ID of a Specific Process or Thread
23.5.4 Improved High-resolution Sleeping: clock_nanosleep()
23.6 POSIX Interval Timers
23.6.1 Creating a Timer: timer_create()
23.6.2 Arming and Disarming a Timer: timer_settime()
23.6.3 Retrieving the Current Value of a Timer: timer_gettime()
23.6.4 Deleting a Timer: timer_delete()
23.6.5 Notification via a Signal (SIGEV_SIGNAL)
23.6.6 Timer Overruns
23.6.7 Notification via a Thread (SIGEV_THREAD)
23.7 Timers That Notify via File Descriptors: the timerfd API
23.8 Summary
23.9 Exercises
24 Process Creation [~20 pages]
24.1 Overview of fork(), exit(), wait(), and execve()
24.2 Creating a New Process: fork()
24.2.1 File Sharing Between Parent and Child
24.2.2 Memory Semantics of fork()
24.3 The vfork() System Call
24.4 Race Conditions after fork()
24.5 Avoiding Race Conditions by Synchronizing with Signals
24.6 Summary
25 Process Termination [~10 pages]
25.1 Terminating a Process: _exit() and exit()
25.2 Details of Process Termination
25.3 Exit Handlers
25.4 Interactions Between fork(), stdio Buffers, and _exit()
25.5 Summary
25.6 Exercises
26 Monitoring Child Processes [~20 pages]
26.1 Waiting on a Child Process
26.1.1 The wait() System Call
26.1.2 The waitpid() System Call
26.1.3 The Wait Status Value
26.1.4 Process Termination from a Signal Handler
26.1.5 The waitid() System Call
26.1.6 The wait3() and wait4() System Calls
26.2 Orphans and Zombies
26.3 The SIGCHLD Signal
26.3.1 Establishing a Handler for SIGCHLD
26.3.2 Delivery of SIGCHLD for Stopped Children
26.3.3 Ignoring Dead Child Processes
26.4 Summary
26.5 Exercises
27 Program Execution [~20 pages]
27.1 Executing a New Program: execve()
27.2 The exec() Library Functions
27.2.1 The PATH Environment Variable
27.2.2 Specifying Program Arguments As a List
27.2.3 Passing the Caller's Environment to the New Program
27.2.4 Executing a File Referred to by a Descriptor: fexecve()
27.3 Interpreter Scripts
27.4 File Descriptors and exec()
27.5 Signals and exec()
27.6 Executing a Shell Command: system()
27.7 Implementing system()
27.8 Summary
27.9 Exercises
28 Process Creation and Program Execution in More Detail [~25 pages]
28.1 Process Accounting
28.2 The clone() System Call
28.2.1 The clone() flags Argument
28.2.2 Extensions to waitpid() for Cloned Children
28.3 Speed of Process Creation
28.4 Effect of exec() and fork() on Process Attributes
28.5 Summary
28.6 Exercises
29 Threads: Introduction [~15 pages]
29.1 Overview
29.2 Background Details of the Pthreads API
29.3 Thread Creation
29.4 Thread Termination
29.5 Thread IDs
29.6 Joining with a Terminated Thread: pthread_join()
29.7 Detaching a Thread: pthread_detach()
29.8 Thread Attributes
29.9 Threads Versus Processes
29.10 Summary
29.11 Exercises
30 Threads: Thread Synchronization [~25 pages]
30.1 Protecting Accesses to Shared Variables: Mutexes
30.1.1 Statically Allocated Mutexes
30.1.2 Locking and Unlocking a Mutex
30.1.3 Performance of Mutexes
30.1.4 Mutex Deadlocks
30.1.5 Dynamically Initializing a Mutex
30.1.6 Mutex Attributes
30.1.7 Mutex Types
30.2 Signaling Changes of State: Condition Variables
30.2.1 Statically Allocated Condition Variables
30.2.2 Signaling and Waiting on Condition Variables
30.2.3 Testing a Condition Variable’s Predicate
30.2.4 Example Program: Joining Any Terminated Thread
30.2.5 Dynamically Allocated Condition Variables
30.3 Summary
30.4 Exercises
31 Threads: Thread Safety and Per-thread Storage [~15 pages]
31.1 Thread Safety (and Reentrancy Revisited)
31.2 One-time Initialization
31.3 Thread-specific Data
31.3.1 Thread-specific Data from the Library Function’s Perspective
31.3.2 Overview of the Thread-specific Data API
31.3.3 Details of the Thread-specific Data API
31.3.4 Employing the Thread-specific Data API
31.3.5 Thread-specific Data Implementation Limits
31.4 Thread-local Storage
31.5 Summary
31.6 Exercises
32 Threads: Thread Cancellation [~10 pages]
32.1 Canceling a Thread
32.2 Cancellation State and Type
32.3 Cancellation Points
32.4 Testing for Thread Cancellation
32.5 Cleanup Handlers
32.6 Asynchronous Cancelability
32.7 Summary
32.8 Exercises
33 Threads: Further Details [~15 pages]
33.1 Thread Stacks
33.2 Threads and Signals
33.2.1 How the UNIX Signal Model Maps to Threads
33.2.2 Manipulating the Thread Signal Mask
33.2.3 Sending a Signal to a Thread
33.2.4 Dealing with Asynchronous Signals Sanely
33.3 Threads and Process Control
33.4 Thread Implementation Models
33.5 Linux Implementations of POSIX Threads
33.5.1 LinuxThreads
33.5.2 NPTL
33.5.3 Which Threading Implementation?
33.6 Advanced Features of the Pthreads API
33.7 Summary
33.8 Exercises
34 Process Groups, Sessions, and Job Control [~35 pages]
34.1 Overview
34.2 Process Groups
34.3 Sessions
34.4 Controlling Terminals and Controlling Processes
34.5 Foreground and Background Process Groups
34.6 The SIGHUP Signal
34.6.1 Handling of SIGHUP by the Shell
34.6.2 SIGHUP and Termination of the Controlling Process
34.7 Job Control
34.7.1 Using Job Control within the Shell
34.7.2 Implementing Job Control
34.7.3 Handling Job-control Signals
34.7.4 Orphaned Process Groups (and SIGHUP Revisited)
34.8 Summary
34.9 Exercises
35 Process Priorities and Scheduling [~20 pages]
35.1 Process Priorities (Nice Values)
35.2 Overview of Realtime Process Scheduling
35.2.1 The SCHED_RR Policy
35.2.2 The SCHED_FIFO Policy
35.2.3 The SCHED_BATCH and SCHED_IDLE Policies
35.3 Realtime Process Scheduling API
35.3.1 Realtime Priority Ranges
35.3.2 Modifying and Retrieving Policies and Priorities
35.3.3 Relinquishing the CPU
35.3.4 The SCHED_RR Time Slice
35.4 CPU Affinity
35.5 Summary
35.6 Exercises
36 Process Resources [~15 pages]
36.1 Process Resource Usage: getrusage()
36.2 Process Resource Limits: getrlimit() and setrlimit()
36.3 Details of Specific Resource Limits
36.4 Summary
36.5 Exercises
37 Daemons [~15 pages]
37.1 Overview
37.2 Creating a Daemon
37.3 Guidelines for Writing Daemons
37.4 Using SIGHUP to Reinitialize a Daemon
37.5 Logging Messages and Errors Using syslog
37.5.1 Overview
37.5.2 The syslog API
37.5.3 The /etc/syslog.conf File
37.6 Summary
37.7 Exercises
38 Writing Secure Privileged Programs [~15 pages]
38.1 Is a Set-user-ID or Set-group-ID Program Required?
38.2 Operate with Least Privilege
38.3 Be Careful when Executing a Program
38.4 Avoid Exposing Sensitive Information
38.5 Confine the Process
38.6 Beware of Signals and Race Conditions
38.7 Pitfalls when Performing File Operations and File I/O
38.8 Don’t Trust Inputs or the Environment
38.9 Beware of Buffer Overruns
38.10 Beware of Denial-of-service Attacks
38.11 Check for Failures; Fail Safely
38.12 Summary
38.13 Exercises
39 Capabilities [~20 pages]
39.1 Rationale for Capabilities
39.2 The Linux Capabilities
39.3 Process and File Capabilities
39.3.1 Process Capabilities
39.3.2 File Capabilities
39.3.3 Purpose of the Process Permitted and Effective Capability Sets
39.3.4 Purpose of the File Permitted and Effective Capability Sets
39.3.5 Purpose of the Process and File Inheritable Sets
39.3.6 Assigning and Viewing File Capabilities from the Shell
39.4 The Modern Capabilities Implementation
39.5 Transformation of Process Capabilities during exec()
39.5.1 Capability Bounding Set
39.5.2 Preserving root Semantics
39.6 Effect on Process Capabilities of Changing User IDs
39.7 Changing Process Capabilities Programmatically
39.8 Creating Capabilities-only Environments
39.9 Discovering the Capabilities Required by a Program
39.10 Older Kernels and Systems without File Capabilities
39.11 Summary
39.12 Exercises
40 Login Accounting [~15 pages]
40.1 Overview of the utmp and wtmp Files
40.2 The utmpx API
40.3 The utmpx Structure
40.4 Retrieving Information from the utmp and wtmp Files
40.5 Retrieving the Login Name: getlogin()
40.6 Updating the utmp and wtmp Files for a Login Session
40.7 The lastlog File
40.8 Summary
40.9 Exercises
41 Fundamentals of Shared Libraries [~25 pages]
41.1 Object Libraries
41.2 Static Libraries
41.3 Overview of Shared Libraries
41.4 Creating and Using Shared Libraries--A First Pass
41.4.1 Creating a Shared Library
41.4.2 Position-independent Code
41.4.3 Using a Shared Library
41.4.4 The Shared Library Soname
41.5 Useful Tools for Working with Shared Libraries
41.6 Shared Library Versions and Naming Conventions
41.7 Installing Shared Libraries
41.8 Compatible Versus Incompatible Libraries
41.9 Upgrading Shared Libraries
41.10 Specifying Library Search Directories in an Object File
41.11 Finding Shared Libraries at Run Time
41.12 Run-time Symbol Resolution
41.13 Using a Static Library Instead of a Shared Library
41.14 Summary
41.15 Exercises
42 Advanced Features of Shared Libraries [~20 pages]
42.1 Dynamically Loaded Libraries
42.1.1 Opening a Shared Library
42.1.2 Diagnosing Errors from the dlopen API
42.1.3 Obtaining the Address of a Symbol: dlsym()
42.1.4 Closing a Shared Library: dlclose()
42.1.5 Obtaining Information about Loaded Symbols: dladdr()
42.1.6 Accessing Symbols in the Main Program
42.2 Controlling Symbol Visibility
42.3 Linker Version Scripts
42.3.1 Controlling Symbol Visibility with Version Scripts
42.3.2 Symbol Versioning
42.4 Initialization and Finalization Functions
42.5 Preloading Shared Libraries
42.6 Monitoring the Dynamic Linker: LD_DEBUG
42.7 Summary
42.8 Exercises
43 Interprocess Communication Overview [~12 pages]
43.1 A Taxonomy of IPC Facilities
43.2 Communication Facilities
43.3 Synchronization Facilities
43.4 Comparing IPC Facilities
43.5 Summary
43.6 Exercises
44 Pipes and FIFOs [~35 pages]
44.1 Overview
44.2 Creating and Using Pipes
44.3 Pipes As a Method of Process Synchronization
44.4 Using Pipes to Connect Filters
44.5 Talking to a Shell Command via a Pipe: popen() and pclose()
44.6 Pipes and stdio Buffering
44.7 FIFOs
44.8 A Client-server Application Using FIFOs
44.9 Nonblocking I/O
44.10 Semantics of read() and write() on Pipes and FIFOs
44.11 Summary
44.12 Exercises
45 Introduction to System V IPC [~15 pages]
45.1 API Overview
45.2 IPC Keys
45.3 Associated Data Structure and Object Permissions
45.4 IPC Identifiers and Client-server Applications
45.5 Algorithm Employed by System V IPC get Calls
45.6 The ipcs and ipcrm Commands
45.7 Obtaining a List of All IPC Objects
45.8 IPC Limits
45.9 Summary
45.10 Exercises
46 System V Message Queues [~25 pages]
46.1 Creating or Opening a Message Queue: msgget()
46.2 Exchanging Messages
46.2.1 Sending Messages: msgsnd()
46.2.2 Receiving Messages: msgrcv()
46.3 Message Queue Control Operations: msgctl()
46.4 Message Queue Associated Data Structure
46.5 Message Queue Limits
46.6 Displaying All Message Queues on the System
46.7 Client-server Programming with Message Queues
46.8 A File-server Application Using Message Queues
46.9 Disadvantages of System V Message Queues
46.10 Summary
46.11 Exercises
47 System V Semaphores [~30 pages]
47.1 Overview
47.2 Creating or Opening a Semaphore Set: semget()
47.3 Semaphore Control Operations: semctl()
47.4 Semaphore Associated Data Structure
47.5 Semaphore Initialization
47.6 Semaphore Operations: semop()
47.7 Handling of Multiple Blocked Semaphore Operations
47.8 Semaphore Undo Values
47.9 Implementing a Binary Semaphores Protocol
47.10 Semaphore Limits
47.11 Disadvantages of System V Semaphores
47.12 Summary
47.13 Exercises
48 System V Shared Memory [~20 pages]
48.1 Overview
48.2 Creating or Opening a Shared Memory Segment: shmget()
48.3 Using Shared Memory: shmat() and shmdt()
48.4 Example: Transferring Data Via Shared Memory
48.5 Location of Shared Memory Segments in Virtual Memory
48.6 Storing Pointers in Shared Memory
48.7 Shared Memory Control Operations: shmctl()
48.8 Shared Memory Associated Data Structure
48.9 Shared Memory Limits
48.10 Summary
48.11 Exercises
49 Memory Mappings [~30 pages]
49.1 Overview
49.2 Creating a Mapping: mmap()
49.3 Unmapping a Mapped Region: munmap()
49.4 File Mappings
49.4.1 Private (MAP_PRIVATE) File Mappings
49.4.2 Shared (MAP_SHARED) File Mappings
49.4.3 Boundary Cases
49.4.4 Memory Protection and File Access Mode Interactions
49.5 Synchronizing a Mapped Region: msync()
49.6 Additional mmap() Flags
49.7 Anonymous Mappings
49.8 Remapping a Mapped Region: mremap()
49.9 The MAP_NORESERVE Flag and Swap Space Overcommitting
49.10 The MAP_FIXED Flag
49.11 Nonlinear Mappings: remap_file_pages()
49.12 Summary
49.13 Exercises
50 Virtual Memory Operations [~12 pages]
50.1 Changing Memory Protection: mprotect()
50.2 Memory Locking: mlock() and mlockall()
50.3 Determining Memory Residence: mincore()
50.4 Advising Future Memory Usage Patterns: madvise()
50.5 Summary
50.6 Exercises
51 Introduction to POSIX IPC [~6 pages]
51.1 API Overview
51.2 Comparison of System V IPC and POSIX IPC
51.3 Summary
52 POSIX Message Queues [~25 pages]
52.1 Overview
52.2 Opening, Closing, and Unlinking a Message Queue
52.3 Relationship between Descriptors and Message Queues
52.4 Message Queue Attributes
52.5 Exchanging Messages
52.5.1 Sending Messages: mq_send()
52.5.2 Receiving Messages: mq_receive()
52.5.3 Sending and Receiving Messages with a Timeout
52.6 Message Notification
52.6.1 Receiving Notification Using a Signal (SIGEV_SIGNAL)
52.6.2 Receiving Notification Using a Thread (SIGEV_THREAD)
52.7 Linux-specific Features
52.8 Message Queue Limits
52.9 Comparison of POSIX and System V Message Queues
52.10 Summary
52.11 Exercises
53 POSIX Semaphores [~18 pages]
53.1 Overview
53.2 Named Semaphores
53.2.1 Opening a Named Semaphore
53.2.2 Closing a Semaphore
53.2.3 Removing a Named Semaphore
53.3 Semaphore Operations
53.3.1 Waiting on a Semaphore
53.3.2 Posting a Semaphore
53.3.3 Retrieving the Current Value of a Semaphore
53.4 Unnamed Semaphores
53.4.1 Initializing an Unnamed Semaphore
53.4.2 Destroying an Unnamed Semaphore
53.5 Comparisons with Other Synchronization Techniques
53.6 Semaphore Limits
53.7 Summary
53.8 Exercises
54 POSIX Shared Memory [~10 pages]
54.1 Overview
54.2 Creating Shared Memory Objects: shm_open()
54.3 Using Shared Memory Objects
54.4 Removing Shared Memory Objects: shm_unlink()
54.5 Comparisons between Shared Memory APIs
54.6 Summary
54.7 Exercises
55 File Locking [~35 pages]
55.1 Overview
55.2 File Locking with flock()
55.2.1 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.2.2 Limitations of flock()
55.3 Record Locking with fcntl()
55.3.1 Deadlock
55.3.2 Example: An Interactive Locking Program
55.3.3 Example: A Library of Locking Functions
55.3.4 Lock Limits and Performance
55.3.5 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.3.6 Lock Starvation and Priority of Queued Lock Requests
55.4 Mandatory Locking
55.5 The /proc/locks File
55.6 Running Just One Instance of a Program
55.7 Older Locking Techniques
55.8 Summary
55.9 Exercises
2009-11-02
Chapter 55: File locking
Previous chapters have covered various techniques that processes can use to synchronize their actions, including signals (Chapters 20, 21, and 22) and semaphores (Chapters 47 and 53). In this chapter, we look at further synchronization techniques designed specifically for use with files.
55 File Locking
55.1 Overview
55.2 File Locking with flock()
55.2.1 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.2.2 Limitations of flock()
55.3 Record Locking with fcntl()
55.3.1 Deadlock
55.3.2 Example: An Interactive Locking Program
55.3.3 Example: A Library of Locking Functions
55.3.4 Lock Limits and Performance
55.3.5 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.3.6 Lock Starvation and Priority of Queued Lock Requests
55.4 Mandatory Locking
55.5 The /proc/locks File
55.6 Running Just One Instance of a Program
55.7 Older Locking Techniques
55.8 Summary
55.9 Exercises
55 File Locking
55.1 Overview
55.2 File Locking with flock()
55.2.1 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.2.2 Limitations of flock()
55.3 Record Locking with fcntl()
55.3.1 Deadlock
55.3.2 Example: An Interactive Locking Program
55.3.3 Example: A Library of Locking Functions
55.3.4 Lock Limits and Performance
55.3.5 Semantics of Lock Inheritance and Release
55.3.6 Lock Starvation and Priority of Queued Lock Requests
55.4 Mandatory Locking
55.5 The /proc/locks File
55.6 Running Just One Instance of a Program
55.7 Older Locking Techniques
55.8 Summary
55.9 Exercises
2009-11-01
Chapter 54: POSIX Shared Memory
This chapter describes POSIX shared memory, and compares it with the other shared memory APIs available on Linux: System V shared memory (Chapter 48) and shared file mappings (Chapter 49).
54 POSIX Shared Memory
54.1 Overview
54.2 Creating Shared Memory Objects: shm_open()
54.3 Using Shared Memory Objects
54.4 Removing Shared Memory Objects: shm_unlink()
54.5 Comparisons between Shared Memory APIs
54.6 Summary
54.7 Exercises
54 POSIX Shared Memory
54.1 Overview
54.2 Creating Shared Memory Objects: shm_open()
54.3 Using Shared Memory Objects
54.4 Removing Shared Memory Objects: shm_unlink()
54.5 Comparisons between Shared Memory APIs
54.6 Summary
54.7 Exercises
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
