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Linux Kernel Programming

Linux Kernel Programming

By : Kaiwan N. Billimoria
4.9 (35)
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Linux Kernel Programming

Linux Kernel Programming

4.9 (35)
By: Kaiwan N. Billimoria

Overview of this book

The 2nd Edition of Linux Kernel Programming is an updated, comprehensive guide for new programmers to the Linux kernel. This book uses the recent 6.1 Long-Term Support (LTS) Linux kernel series, which will be maintained until Dec 2026, and also delves into its many new features. Further, the Civil Infrastructure Project has pledged to maintain and support this 6.1 Super LTS (SLTS) kernel right until August 2033, keeping this book valid for years to come! You’ll begin this exciting journey by learning how to build the kernel from source. In a step by step manner, you will then learn how to write your first kernel module by leveraging the kernel’s powerful Loadable Kernel Module (LKM) framework. With this foundation, you will delve into key kernel internals topics including Linux kernel architecture, memory management, and CPU (task) scheduling. You’ll finish with understanding the deep issues of concurrency, and gain insight into how they can be addressed with various synchronization/locking technologies (e.g., mutexes, spinlocks, atomic/refcount operators, rw-spinlocks and even lock-free technologies such as per-CPU and RCU). By the end of this book, you’ll have a much better understanding of the fundamentals of writing the Linux kernel and kernel module code that can straight away be used in real-world projects and products.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
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14
Other Books You May Enjoy
15
Index

Understanding and using the kernel vmalloc() API

As we learned in the previous chapter, ultimately there is just one engine for memory allocation within the kernel – the page (or buddy system) allocator. Layered on top is the slab allocator (or slab cache) machinery. In addition to these two layers, there is another completely virtual address space within the kernel’s virtual address space from where virtual pages can be allocated at will – this is called the kernel vmalloc region.

Within the kernel segment or VAS is the vmalloc address space, aka the vmalloc region, extending from VMALLOC_START to VMALLOC_END-1 (the precise addresses and the space available are arch-dependant; incidentally, we covered all this in some detail in Chapter 7, Memory Management Internals – Essentials, under the Examining the kernel segment section). It’s a completely virtual region to begin with, that is, its virtual pages are initially not mapped to any physical...

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