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Chapter 9

SYSTEM SERVICES

Introduction

 There are many operations that an application program

must use the operating system to perform
 Such operations include console output, keyboard input,
file services (open,read, write, close, etc.), obtaining the
time or date, requesting memory allocation, and many
others.
 Accessing system services is how the application requests
that the operating system perform some specific operation
(on behalf of the process)
 More specifically, the system call is the interface between
an executing process and the operating system

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Calling System Services

 A system service call is logically similar to calling a

function, where the function code is located within the
operating system
 The function may require privileges to operate which is
why control must be transferred to the operating system.
 When calling system services, arguments are placed in
the standard argument registers.
 System services do not typically use stack-based
arguments. This limits the arguments of a system
services to six (6)
 To call a system service, the first step is to determine
which system service is desired

 The general process is that the system service call code is

placed in the rax register.
 The call code is a number that has been assigned for the
specific system service being requested.
 These are assigned as part of the operating system and
cannot be changed by application programs
 If any are needed, the arguments for system services are
placed in the rdi, rsi, rdx, r10, r8, and r9 registers (in that
order).
 The following table shows the argument locations
which are consistent with the standard calling convention.

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 Each system call will

use a different number
of arguments (from
none up to 6).However,
the system service call
code is always required
 After the call code and
any arguments are set,
the syscall instruction is
executed

System Calls

 Each x86-64 system call has a unique ID number

 Examples:

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Newline Character
 In the context of output, a newline means move the
cursor to the start of the next line.
 The many languages, including C, it is often noted as
“\n” as part of a string
 Nothing is displayed for the newline, but the cursor is
moved to the start of the next line.
 In Unix/Linux systems, the linefeed, abbreviated LF with
an ASCII value of 10 (or 0x0A), is used as the newline
character.
 In Windows systems, the newline is carriage
return, abbreviated as CR with an ASCII value 13 (or
0x0D) followed by the LF.

Console Output
 The system service to output characters to the console is
the system write (SYS_write).
 Like a high-level language characters are written to
standard out (STDOUT) which is the console
 The STDOUT is the default file descriptor for the console
 The arguments for the write system service are as follows:

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 Assuming the following declarations:

 For example to output “Hello World” (it’s traditional) to

the console, the system write (SYS_write) would be
used. The code would be as follows:

Example, Console Output

 This example is a complete program to output

some strings to the console.

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Console Input
 The system service to read characters from the
console is the system read (SYS_read).
 Like a high-level language, for the console,
characters are read from standard input (STDIN).
 We will need to declare an appropriate amount of
space to store the characters being read
 If we request 10 characters to read and the user types
more than 10, the additional characters will be lost
 If the user types less than 10 characters, for example
5 characters, all five characters will be read plus the
newline (LF) for a total of six characters.

 The arguments for the read system service are as

follows:

 Assuming the following declarations:

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Example

 Read a single character from the keyboard, the

system read (SYS_read) would be used. The code
would be as follows:

Example, Console Input

 Read a line of 50 characters from the keyboard, and then
echo the input back to the console to verify that the input
was read correctly
 Since space for the newline (LF) along with a final NULL termination is
included, an input array allowing 52 bytes would be required.

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File Open Operations

 In order to perform file operations such as read and write,

the file must first be opened.
 There are two file open operations, open and open/create.
 After the file is opened, in order to perform file read or
write operations the operating system needs detailed
information about the file, including the complete status
and current read/write location.
 If the file open operation fails, an error code will be
returned.
 If the file open operation succeeds, a file descriptor is
returned.

 The complete set of information about an open

file is stored in an operating system data structure
named File Control Block (FCB)
 File Open
 The file open requires that the file exist in order to be
opened. If the file does not exist, it is an error
 The file open operation also requires the parameter
flag to specify the access mode. The access mode
must include one of the following
 Read-Only Access → O_RDONLY
 Write-Only Access → O_WRONLY
 Read/Write Access → O_RDWR

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 The arguments for the file open system service

are as follows:

 Assuming the following declarations:

 After the system call, the rax register will contain the
return value.
 If the file open operation fails, rax will contain a negative
value (i.e., < 0).
 If the file open operation succeeds, rax contains the file
descriptor
 File Open/Create
 A file open/create operation will create a file
 If the file does not exist, a new file will be created
 If the file already exists, it will be erased and a new file created.
 Since the file is being created, the access mode must include the
file permissions that will be set when the file is created.

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 The arguments for the file open/create system service are

as follows:

 Assuming the following declarations:

 File Read
 A file must be opened with the appropriate file access flags
before it can be read.
 The arguments for the file read system service are as follows:

 Assuming the following declarations:

 If the file read operation does not succeed, a negative value is

returned in the rax register. If the file read operation succeeds,
the number of characters actually read is returned.

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 File Write
 The arguments for the file write system service are as
follows:

 Assuming the following declarations:

 If the file write operation does not succeed, a negative

value is returned in the rax register. If the file write
operation does succeed, the number of characters
actually written is returned.

Example, File Write

 Program writes a short message to a file

 The file created contains a simple message, a URL in
this example.
 The file name and message to be written to the
file are hard-coded

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Example, File Read

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