Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche <jmseyas@dit.upm.es>
-.. note::
- The latest version of this document may be found at:
- :http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html
-
The need for a document like this one became apparent in the
linux-kernel mailing list as the same questions, asking for pointers
to information, appeared again and again.
Enjoy!
-ON-LINE DOCS
-------------
-
- * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition**
+.. note::
- :Author: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Kroah-Hartman
- :URL: http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
- :Description: A 600-page book covering the (2.6.10) driver
- programming API and kernel hacking in general. Available under the
- Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
+ The documents on each section of this document are ordered by its
+ published date, from the newest to the oldest.
- * Title: **The Linux Kernel**
-
- :Author: David A. Rusling.
- :URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/tlk/tlk.html
- :Keywords: everything!, book.
- :Description: On line, 200 pages book describing most aspects of
- the Linux Kernel. Probably, the first reference for beginners.
- Lots of illustrations explaining data structures use and
- relationships in the purest Richard W. Stevens' style. Contents:
- "1.-Hardware Basics, 2.-Software Basics, 3.-Memory Management,
- 4.-Processes, 5.-Interprocess Communication Mechanisms, 6.-PCI,
- 7.-Interrupts and Interrupt Handling, 8.-Device Drivers, 9.-The
- File system, 10.-Networks, 11.-Kernel Mechanisms, 12.-Modules,
- 13.-The Linux Kernel Sources, A.-Linux Data Structures, B.-The
- Alpha AXP Processor, C.-Useful Web and FTP Sites, D.-The GNU
- General Public License, Glossary". In short: a must have.
-
- * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition**
-
- :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet.
- :URL: http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/index.html
- :Keywords: device drivers, modules, debugging, memory, hardware,
- interrupt handling, char drivers, block drivers, kmod, mmap, DMA,
- buses.
- :Description: O'Reilly's popular book, now also on-line under the
- GNU Free Documentation License.
- :Notes: You can also buy it in paper-form from O'Reilly. See below
- under BOOKS (Not on-line).
-
- * Title: **Conceptual Architecture of the Linux Kernel**
-
- :Author: Ivan T. Bowman.
- :URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
- :Keywords: conceptual software architecture, extracted design,
- reverse engineering, system structure.
- :Description: Conceptual software architecture of the Linux kernel,
- automatically extracted from the source code. Very detailed. Good
- figures. Gives good overall kernel understanding.
-
- * Title: **Concrete Architecture of the Linux Kernel**
-
- :Author: Ivan T. Bowman, Saheem Siddiqi, and Meyer C. Tanuan.
- :URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
- :Keywords: concrete architecture, extracted design, reverse
- engineering, system structure, dependencies.
- :Description: Concrete architecture of the Linux kernel,
- automatically extracted from the source code. Very detailed. Good
- figures. Gives good overall kernel understanding. This papers
- focus on lower details than its predecessor (files, variables...).
-
- * Title: **Linux as a Case Study: Its Extracted Software Architecture**
-
- :Author: Ivan T. Bowman, Richard C. Holt and Neil V. Brewster.
- :URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
- :Keywords: software architecture, architecture recovery,
- redocumentation.
- :Description: Paper appeared at ICSE'99, Los Angeles, May 16-22,
- 1999. A mixture of the previous two documents from the same
- author.
+Docs at the Linux Kernel tree
+-----------------------------
- * Title: **Overview of the Virtual File System**
+The DocBook books should be built with ``make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs}``.
+The Sphinx books should be built with ``make {htmldocs | pdfdocs | epubdocs}``.
- :Author: Richard Gooch.
- :URL: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
- :Keywords: VFS, File System, mounting filesystems, opening files,
- dentries, dcache.
- :Description: Brief introduction to the Linux Virtual File System.
- What is it, how it works, operations taken when opening a file or
- mounting a file system and description of important data
- structures explaining the purpose of each of their entries.
+ * Name: **linux/Documentation**
- * Title: **The Linux RAID-1, 4, 5 Code**
+ :Author: Many.
+ :Location: Documentation/
+ :Keywords: text files, Sphinx, DocBook.
+ :Description: Documentation that comes with the kernel sources,
+ inside the Documentation directory. Some pages from this document
+ (including this document itself) have been moved there, and might
+ be more up to date than the web version.
- :Author: Ingo Molnar, Gadi Oxman and Miguel de Icaza.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2391
- :Keywords: RAID, MD driver.
- :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- :Abstract: *A description of the implementation of the RAID-1,
- RAID-4 and RAID-5 personalities of the MD device driver in the
- Linux kernel, providing users with high performance and reliable,
- secondary-storage capability using software*.
+ * Title: **The Kernel Hacking HOWTO**
- * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Modularized Device Drivers**
+ :Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
+ :Location: Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl
+ :Keywords: HOWTO, kernel contexts, deadlock, locking, modules,
+ symbols, return conventions.
+ :Description: From the Introduction: "Please understand that I
+ never wanted to write this document, being grossly underqualified,
+ but I always wanted to read it, and this was the only way. I
+ simply explain some best practices, and give reading entry-points
+ into the kernel sources. I avoid implementation details: that's
+ what the code is for, and I ignore whole tracts of useful
+ routines. This document assumes familiarity with C, and an
+ understanding of what the kernel is, and how it is used. It was
+ originally written for the 2.3 kernels, but nearly all of it
+ applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly different".
- :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1219
- :Keywords: device driver, module, loading/unloading modules,
- allocating resources.
- :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- :Abstract: *This is the first of a series of four articles
- co-authored by Alessandro Rubini and Georg Zezchwitz which present
- a practical approach to writing Linux device drivers as kernel
- loadable modules. This installment presents an introduction to the
- topic, preparing the reader to understand next month's
- installment*.
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Locking HOWTO**
- * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Discovery**
+ :Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
+ :Location: Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
+ :Keywords: locks, locking, spinlock, semaphore, atomic, race
+ condition, bottom halves, tasklets, softirqs.
+ :Description: The title says it all: document describing the
+ locking system in the Linux Kernel either in uniprocessor or SMP
+ systems.
+ :Notes: "It was originally written for the later (>2.3.47) 2.3
+ kernels, but most of it applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly
+ different". Freely redistributable under the conditions of the GNU
+ General Public License.
- :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1220
- :Keywords: character driver, init_module, clean_up module,
- autodetection, mayor number, minor number, file operations,
- open(), close().
- :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- :Abstract: *This article, the second of four, introduces part of
- the actual code to create custom module implementing a character
- device driver. It describes the code for module initialization and
- cleanup, as well as the open() and close() system calls*.
+On-line docs
+------------
- * Title: **On submitting kernel Patches**
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Mailing List Glossary**
- :Author: Andi Kleen
- :URL: http://halobates.de/on-submitting-kernel-patches.pdf
- :Keywords: patches, review process, types of submissions, basic rules, case studies
- :Description: This paper gives several experience values on what types of patches
- there are and how likley they get merged.
- :Abstract:
- [...]. This paper examines some common problems for
- submitting larger changes and some strategies to avoid problems.
+ :Author: various
+ :URL: http://kernelnewbies.org/glossary/
+ :Date: rolling version
+ :Keywords: glossary, terms, linux-kernel.
+ :Description: From the introduction: "This glossary is intended as
+ a brief description of some of the acronyms and terms you may hear
+ during discussion of the Linux kernel".
* Title: **Tracing the Way of Data in a TCP Connection through the Linux Kernel**
+
:Author: Richard Sailer
:URL: https://archive.org/details/linux_kernel_data_flow_short_paper
+ :Date: 2016
:Keywords: Linux Kernel Networking, TCP, tracing, ftrace
:Description: A seminar paper explaining ftrace and how to use it for
understanding linux kernel internals,
Finally this trace-log is used as base for more a exact conceptual
exploration and description of the Linux TCP/IP implementation.*
- * Title: **The Devil's in the Details**
-
- :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz and Alessandro Rubini.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1221
- :Keywords: read(), write(), select(), ioctl(), blocking/non
- blocking mode, interrupt handler.
- :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- :Abstract: *This article, the third of four on writing character
- device drivers, introduces concepts of reading, writing, and using
- ioctl-calls*.
-
- * Title: **Dissecting Interrupts and Browsing DMA**
-
- :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Georg v. Zezschwitz.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1222
- :Keywords: interrupts, irqs, DMA, bottom halves, task queues.
- :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- :Abstract: *This is the fourth in a series of articles about
- writing character device drivers as loadable kernel modules. This
- month, we further investigate the field of interrupt handling.
- Though it is conceptually simple, practical limitations and
- constraints make this an ''interesting'' part of device driver
- writing, and several different facilities have been provided for
- different situations. We also investigate the complex topic of
- DMA*.
-
- * Title: **Device Drivers Concluded**
-
- :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1287
- :Keywords: address spaces, pages, pagination, page management,
- demand loading, swapping, memory protection, memory mapping, mmap,
- virtual memory areas (VMAs), vremap, PCI.
- :Description: Finally, the above turned out into a five articles
- series. This latest one's introduction reads: "This is the last of
- five articles about character device drivers. In this final
- section, Georg deals with memory mapping devices, beginning with
- an overall description of the Linux memory management concepts".
-
- * Title: **Network Buffers And Memory Management**
-
- :Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1312
- :Keywords: sk_buffs, network devices, protocol/link layer
- variables, network devices flags, transmit, receive,
- configuration, multicast.
- :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner.
- :Abstract: *Writing a network device driver for Linux is fundamentally
- simple---most of the complexity (other than talking to the
- hardware) involves managing network packets in memory*.
-
- * Title: **Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide**
-
- :Author: Michael K. Johnson.
- :URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/khg.html
- :Keywords: device drivers, files, VFS, kernel interface, character vs
- block devices, hardware interrupts, scsi, DMA, access to user memory,
- memory allocation, timers.
- :Description: A guide designed to help you get up to speed on the
- concepts that are not intuitevly obvious, and to document the internal
- structures of Linux.
-
- * Title: **The Venus kernel interface**
-
- :Author: Peter J. Braam.
- :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/html/kernel-venus-protocol.html
- :Keywords: coda, filesystem, venus, cache manager.
- :Description: "This document describes the communication between
- Venus and kernel level file system code needed for the operation
- of the Coda filesystem. This version document is meant to describe
- the current interface (version 1.0) as well as improvements we
- envisage".
-
- * Title: **Design and Implementation of the Second Extended Filesystem**
-
- :Author: Rémy Card, Theodore Ts'o, Stephen Tweedie.
- :URL: http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2intro.html
- :Keywords: ext2, linux fs history, inode, directory, link, devices,
- VFS, physical structure, performance, benchmarks, ext2fs library,
- ext2fs tools, e2fsck.
- :Description: Paper written by three of the top ext2 hackers.
- Covers Linux filesystems history, ext2 motivation, ext2 features,
- design, physical structure on disk, performance, benchmarks,
- e2fsck's passes description... A must read!
- :Notes: This paper was first published in the Proceedings of the
- First Dutch International Symposium on Linux, ISBN 90-367-0385-9.
-
- * Title: **Analysis of the Ext2fs structure**
-
- :Author: Louis-Dominique Dubeau.
- :URL: http://teaching.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/CITS2002/fs-ext2/
- :Keywords: ext2, filesystem, ext2fs.
- :Description: Description of ext2's blocks, directories, inodes,
- bitmaps, invariants...
-
- * Title: **Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide**
+ * Title: **On submitting kernel Patches**
- :Author: Ori Pomerantz.
- :URL: http://tldp.org/LDP/lkmpg/2.6/html/index.html
- :Keywords: modules, GPL book, /proc, ioctls, system calls,
- interrupt handlers .
- :Description: Very nice 92 pages GPL book on the topic of modules
- programming. Lots of examples.
+ :Author: Andi Kleen
+ :URL: http://halobates.de/on-submitting-kernel-patches.pdf
+ :Date: 2008
+ :Keywords: patches, review process, types of submissions, basic rules, case studies
+ :Description: This paper gives several experience values on what types of patches
+ there are and how likley they get merged.
+ :Abstract:
+ [...]. This paper examines some common problems for
+ submitting larger changes and some strategies to avoid problems.
- * Title: **I/O Event Handling Under Linux**
+ * Title: **Overview of the Virtual File System**
:Author: Richard Gooch.
- :Keywords: IO, I/O, select(2), poll(2), FDs, aio_read(2), readiness
- event queues.
- :Description: From the Introduction: "I/O Event handling is about
- how your Operating System allows you to manage a large number of
- open files (file descriptors in UNIX/POSIX, or FDs) in your
- application. You want the OS to notify you when FDs become active
- (have data ready to be read or are ready for writing). Ideally you
- want a mechanism that is scalable. This means a large number of
- inactive FDs cost very little in memory and CPU time to manage".
+ :URL: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
+ :Date: 2007
+ :Keywords: VFS, File System, mounting filesystems, opening files,
+ dentries, dcache.
+ :Description: Brief introduction to the Linux Virtual File System.
+ What is it, how it works, operations taken when opening a file or
+ mounting a file system and description of important data
+ structures explaining the purpose of each of their entries.
- * Title: **The Kernel Hacking HOWTO**
+ * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition**
- :Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
- :Location: in kernel tree, Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl
- (must be built as "make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs})
- :Keywords: HOWTO, kernel contexts, deadlock, locking, modules,
- symbols, return conventions.
- :Description: From the Introduction: "Please understand that I
- never wanted to write this document, being grossly underqualified,
- but I always wanted to read it, and this was the only way. I
- simply explain some best practices, and give reading entry-points
- into the kernel sources. I avoid implementation details: that's
- what the code is for, and I ignore whole tracts of useful
- routines. This document assumes familiarity with C, and an
- understanding of what the kernel is, and how it is used. It was
- originally written for the 2.3 kernels, but nearly all of it
- applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly different".
+ :Author: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Kroah-Hartman
+ :URL: http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
+ :Date: 2005
+ :Description: A 600-page book covering the (2.6.10) driver
+ programming API and kernel hacking in general. Available under the
+ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
+ :note: You can also :ref:`purchase a copy from O'Reilly or elsewhere <ldd3_published>`.
* Title: **Writing an ALSA Driver**
:Author: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
:URL: http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/writing-an-alsa-driver/index.html
+ :Date: 2005
:Keywords: ALSA, sound, soundcard, driver, lowlevel, hardware.
:Description: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture for developers,
both at kernel and user-level sides. ALSA is the Linux kernel
sound architecture in the 2.6 kernel version.
- * Title: **Linux Kernel Mailing List Glossary**
+ * Title: **Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide**
- :Author: various
- :URL: http://kernelnewbies.org/glossary/
- :Keywords: glossary, terms, linux-kernel.
- :Description: From the introduction: "This glossary is intended as
- a brief description of some of the acronyms and terms you may hear
- during discussion of the Linux kernel".
+ :Author: David Hinds.
+ :URL: http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-PROG.html
+ :Date: 2003
+ :Keywords: PCMCIA.
+ :Description: "This document describes how to write kernel device
+ drivers for the Linux PCMCIA Card Services interface. It also
+ describes how to write user-mode utilities for communicating with
+ Card Services.
- * Title: **Linux Kernel Locking HOWTO**
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide**
- :Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
- :Location: in kernel tree, Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
- (must be built as "make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs})
- :Keywords: locks, locking, spinlock, semaphore, atomic, race
- condition, bottom halves, tasklets, softirqs.
- :Description: The title says it all: document describing the
- locking system in the Linux Kernel either in uniprocessor or SMP
- systems.
- :Notes: "It was originally written for the later (>2.3.47) 2.3
- kernels, but most of it applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly
- different". Freely redistributable under the conditions of the GNU
- General Public License.
+ :Author: Ori Pomerantz.
+ :URL: http://tldp.org/LDP/lkmpg/2.6/html/index.html
+ :Date: 2001
+ :Keywords: modules, GPL book, /proc, ioctls, system calls,
+ interrupt handlers .
+ :Description: Very nice 92 pages GPL book on the topic of modules
+ programming. Lots of examples.
* Title: **Global spinlock list and usage**
:Author: Rick Lindsley.
:URL: http://lse.sourceforge.net/lockhier/global-spin-lock
+ :Date: 2001
:Keywords: spinlock.
:Description: This is an attempt to document both the existence and
usage of the spinlocks in the Linux 2.4.5 kernel. Comprehensive
access them, how each lock is acquired, under what conditions it
is held, whether interrupts can occur or not while it is held...
+ * Title: **A Linux vm README**
+
+ :Author: Kanoj Sarcar.
+ :URL: http://kos.enix.org/pub/linux-vmm.html
+ :Date: 2001
+ :Keywords: virtual memory, mm, pgd, vma, page, page flags, page
+ cache, swap cache, kswapd.
+ :Description: Telegraphic, short descriptions and definitions
+ relating the Linux virtual memory implementation.
+
+ * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 1: Video-Capture Device**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/406
+ :Date: 2000
+ :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
+ camera driver.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 2: Video-capture Devices**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/429
+ :Date: 2000
+ :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
+ camera driver, control, query capabilities, capability, facility.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Linux IP Networking. A Guide to the Implementation and Modification of the Linux Protocol Stack.**
+
+ :Author: Glenn Herrin.
+ :URL: http://www.cs.unh.edu/cnrg/gherrin
+ :Date: 2000
+ :Keywords: network, networking, protocol, IP, UDP, TCP, connection,
+ socket, receiving, transmitting, forwarding, routing, packets,
+ modules, /proc, sk_buff, FIB, tags.
+ :Description: Excellent paper devoted to the Linux IP Networking,
+ explaining anything from the kernel's to the user space
+ configuration tools' code. Very good to get a general overview of
+ the kernel networking implementation and understand all steps
+ packets follow from the time they are received at the network
+ device till they are delivered to applications. The studied kernel
+ code is from 2.2.14 version. Provides code for a working packet
+ dropper example.
+
* Title: **How To Make Sure Your Driver Will Work On The Power Macintosh**
:Author: Paul Mackerras.
:URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/261
+ :Date: 1999
:Keywords: Mac, Power Macintosh, porting, drivers, compatibility.
:Description: The title says it all.
:Author: Alan Cox.
:URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/284
+ :Date: 1999
:Keywords: SCSI, device, driver.
:Description: The title says it all.
- * Title: **Advanced SCSI Drivers And Other Tales**
+ * Title: **Advanced SCSI Drivers And Other Tales**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/307
+ :Date: 1999
+ :Keywords: SCSI, device, driver, advanced.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Writing Linux Mouse Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/330
+ :Date: 1999
+ :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **More on Mouse Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/356
+ :Date: 1999
+ :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm, races, asynchronous I/O.
+ :Description: The title still says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Writing Video4linux Radio Driver**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/381
+ :Date: 1999
+ :Keywords: video4linux, driver, radio, radio devices.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **I/O Event Handling Under Linux**
+
+ :Author: Richard Gooch.
+ :URL: http://web.mit.edu/~yandros/doc/io-events.html
+ :Date: 1999
+ :Keywords: IO, I/O, select(2), poll(2), FDs, aio_read(2), readiness
+ event queues.
+ :Description: From the Introduction: "I/O Event handling is about
+ how your Operating System allows you to manage a large number of
+ open files (file descriptors in UNIX/POSIX, or FDs) in your
+ application. You want the OS to notify you when FDs become active
+ (have data ready to be read or are ready for writing). Ideally you
+ want a mechanism that is scalable. This means a large number of
+ inactive FDs cost very little in memory and CPU time to manage".
+
+ * Title: **(nearly) Complete Linux Loadable Kernel Modules. The definitive guide for hackers, virus coders and system administrators.**
+
+ :Author: pragmatic/THC.
+ :URL: http://packetstormsecurity.org/docs/hack/LKM_HACKING.html
+ :Date: 1999
+ :Keywords: syscalls, intercept, hide, abuse, symbol table.
+ :Description: Interesting paper on how to abuse the Linux kernel in
+ order to intercept and modify syscalls, make
+ files/directories/processes invisible, become root, hijack ttys,
+ write kernel modules based virus... and solutions for admins to
+ avoid all those abuses.
+ :Notes: For 2.0.x kernels. Gives guidances to port it to 2.2.x
+ kernels.
+
+ * Name: **Linux Virtual File System**
+
+ :Author: Peter J. Braam.
+ :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/talks/linuxvfs/
+ :Date: 1998
+ :Keywords: slides, VFS, inode, superblock, dentry, dcache.
+ :Description: Set of slides, presumably from a presentation on the
+ Linux VFS layer. Covers version 2.1.x, with dentries and the
+ dcache.
+
+ * Title: **The Venus kernel interface**
+
+ :Author: Peter J. Braam.
+ :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/html/kernel-venus-protocol.html
+ :Date: 1998
+ :Keywords: coda, filesystem, venus, cache manager.
+ :Description: "This document describes the communication between
+ Venus and kernel level file system code needed for the operation
+ of the Coda filesystem. This version document is meant to describe
+ the current interface (version 1.0) as well as improvements we
+ envisage".
+
+ * Title: **Design and Implementation of the Second Extended Filesystem**
+
+ :Author: Rémy Card, Theodore Ts'o, Stephen Tweedie.
+ :URL: http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2intro.html
+ :Date: 1998
+ :Keywords: ext2, linux fs history, inode, directory, link, devices,
+ VFS, physical structure, performance, benchmarks, ext2fs library,
+ ext2fs tools, e2fsck.
+ :Description: Paper written by three of the top ext2 hackers.
+ Covers Linux filesystems history, ext2 motivation, ext2 features,
+ design, physical structure on disk, performance, benchmarks,
+ e2fsck's passes description... A must read!
+ :Notes: This paper was first published in the Proceedings of the
+ First Dutch International Symposium on Linux, ISBN 90-367-0385-9.
+
+ * Title: **The Linux RAID-1, 4, 5 Code**
+
+ :Author: Ingo Molnar, Gadi Oxman and Miguel de Icaza.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2391
+ :Date: 1997
+ :Keywords: RAID, MD driver.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *A description of the implementation of the RAID-1,
+ RAID-4 and RAID-5 personalities of the MD device driver in the
+ Linux kernel, providing users with high performance and reliable,
+ secondary-storage capability using software*.
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide**
+
+ :Author: Michael K. Johnson.
+ :URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/khg.html
+ :Date: 1997
+ :Keywords: device drivers, files, VFS, kernel interface, character vs
+ block devices, hardware interrupts, scsi, DMA, access to user memory,
+ memory allocation, timers.
+ :Description: A guide designed to help you get up to speed on the
+ concepts that are not intuitevly obvious, and to document the internal
+ structures of Linux.
+
+ * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Modularized Device Drivers**
- :Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/307
- :Keywords: SCSI, device, driver, advanced.
- :Description: The title says it all.
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1219
+ :Date: 1996
+ :Keywords: device driver, module, loading/unloading modules,
+ allocating resources.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This is the first of a series of four articles
+ co-authored by Alessandro Rubini and Georg Zezchwitz which present
+ a practical approach to writing Linux device drivers as kernel
+ loadable modules. This installment presents an introduction to the
+ topic, preparing the reader to understand next month's
+ installment*.
- * Title: **Writing Linux Mouse Drivers**
+ * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Discovery**
- :Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/330
- :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm.
- :Description: The title says it all.
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1220
+ :Date: 1996
+ :Keywords: character driver, init_module, clean_up module,
+ autodetection, mayor number, minor number, file operations,
+ open(), close().
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This article, the second of four, introduces part of
+ the actual code to create custom module implementing a character
+ device driver. It describes the code for module initialization and
+ cleanup, as well as the open() and close() system calls*.
- * Title: **More on Mouse Drivers**
+ * Title: **The Devil's in the Details**
- :Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/356
- :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm, races, asynchronous I/O.
- :Description: The title still says it all.
+ :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz and Alessandro Rubini.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1221
+ :Date: 1996
+ :Keywords: read(), write(), select(), ioctl(), blocking/non
+ blocking mode, interrupt handler.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This article, the third of four on writing character
+ device drivers, introduces concepts of reading, writing, and using
+ ioctl-calls*.
- * Title: **Writing Video4linux Radio Driver**
+ * Title: **Dissecting Interrupts and Browsing DMA**
- :Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/381
- :Keywords: video4linux, driver, radio, radio devices.
- :Description: The title says it all.
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Georg v. Zezschwitz.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1222
+ :Date: 1996
+ :Keywords: interrupts, irqs, DMA, bottom halves, task queues.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This is the fourth in a series of articles about
+ writing character device drivers as loadable kernel modules. This
+ month, we further investigate the field of interrupt handling.
+ Though it is conceptually simple, practical limitations and
+ constraints make this an ''interesting'' part of device driver
+ writing, and several different facilities have been provided for
+ different situations. We also investigate the complex topic of
+ DMA*.
- * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 1: Video-Capture Device**
+ * Title: **Device Drivers Concluded**
- :Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/406
- :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
- camera driver.
- :Description: The title says it all.
+ :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1287
+ :Date: 1996
+ :Keywords: address spaces, pages, pagination, page management,
+ demand loading, swapping, memory protection, memory mapping, mmap,
+ virtual memory areas (VMAs), vremap, PCI.
+ :Description: Finally, the above turned out into a five articles
+ series. This latest one's introduction reads: "This is the last of
+ five articles about character device drivers. In this final
+ section, Georg deals with memory mapping devices, beginning with
+ an overall description of the Linux memory management concepts".
- * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 2: Video-capture Devices**
+ * Title: **Network Buffers And Memory Management**
:Author: Alan Cox.
- :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/429
- :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
- camera driver, control, query capabilities, capability, facility.
- :Description: The title says it all.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1312
+ :Date: 1996
+ :Keywords: sk_buffs, network devices, protocol/link layer
+ variables, network devices flags, transmit, receive,
+ configuration, multicast.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner.
+ :Abstract: *Writing a network device driver for Linux is fundamentally
+ simple---most of the complexity (other than talking to the
+ hardware) involves managing network packets in memory*.
- * Title: **Linux IP Networking. A Guide to the Implementation and Modification of the Linux Protocol Stack.**
+ * Title: **Analysis of the Ext2fs structure**
- :Author: Glenn Herrin.
- :URL: http://www.cs.unh.edu/cnrg/gherrin
- :Keywords: network, networking, protocol, IP, UDP, TCP, connection,
- socket, receiving, transmitting, forwarding, routing, packets,
- modules, /proc, sk_buff, FIB, tags.
- :Description: Excellent paper devoted to the Linux IP Networking,
- explaining anything from the kernel's to the user space
- configuration tools' code. Very good to get a general overview of
- the kernel networking implementation and understand all steps
- packets follow from the time they are received at the network
- device till they are delivered to applications. The studied kernel
- code is from 2.2.14 version. Provides code for a working packet
- dropper example.
+ :Author: Louis-Dominique Dubeau.
+ :URL: http://teaching.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/CITS2002/fs-ext2/
+ :Date: 1994
+ :Keywords: ext2, filesystem, ext2fs.
+ :Description: Description of ext2's blocks, directories, inodes,
+ bitmaps, invariants...
- * Title: **Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide**
+Published books
+---------------
- :Author: David Hinds.
- :URL: http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-PROG.html
- :Keywords: PCMCIA.
- :Description: "This document describes how to write kernel device
- drivers for the Linux PCMCIA Card Services interface. It also
- describes how to write user-mode utilities for communicating with
- Card Services.
+ * Title: **Linux Treiber entwickeln**
- * Title: **A Linux vm README**
+ :Author: Jürgen Quade, Eva-Katharina Kunst
+ :Publisher: dpunkt.verlag
+ :Date: Oct 2015 (4th edition)
+ :Pages: 688
+ :ISBN: 978-3-86490-288-8
+ :Note: German. The third edition from 2011 is
+ much cheaper and still quite up-to-date.
- :Author: Kanoj Sarcar.
- :URL: http://kos.enix.org/pub/linux-vmm.html
- :Keywords: virtual memory, mm, pgd, vma, page, page flags, page
- cache, swap cache, kswapd.
- :Description: Telegraphic, short descriptions and definitions
- relating the Linux virtual memory implementation.
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Networking: Implementation and Theory**
- * Title: **(nearly) Complete Linux Loadable Kernel Modules. The definitive guide for hackers, virus coders and system administrators.**
+ :Author: Rami Rosen
+ :Publisher: Apress
+ :Date: December 22, 2013
+ :Pages: 648
+ :ISBN: 978-1430261964
- :Author: pragmatic/THC.
- :URL: http://packetstormsecurity.org/docs/hack/LKM_HACKING.html
- :Keywords: syscalls, intercept, hide, abuse, symbol table.
- :Description: Interesting paper on how to abuse the Linux kernel in
- order to intercept and modify syscalls, make
- files/directories/processes invisible, become root, hijack ttys,
- write kernel modules based virus... and solutions for admins to
- avoid all those abuses.
- :Notes: For 2.0.x kernels. Gives guidances to port it to 2.2.x
- kernels.
+ * Title: **Embedded Linux Primer: A practical Real-World Approach, 2nd Edition**
-BOOKS: (Not on-line)
---------------------
+ :Author: Christopher Hallinan
+ :Publisher: Pearson
+ :Date: November, 2010
+ :Pages: 656
+ :ISBN: 978-0137017836
- * Title: **Linux Device Drivers**
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Edition**
- :Author: Alessandro Rubini
- :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates
- :Date: 1998
- :Pages: 439
- :ISBN: 1-56592-292-1
+ :Author: Robert Love
+ :Publisher: Addison-Wesley
+ :Date: July, 2010
+ :Pages: 440
+ :ISBN: 978-0672329463
- * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition**
+ * Title: **Essential Linux Device Drivers**
- :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet
- :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates
- :Date: 2001
- :Pages: 586
- :ISBN: 0-59600-008-1
- :Notes: Further information in
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive2/
+ :Author: Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran
+ :Published: Prentice Hall
+ :Date: April, 2008
+ :Pages: 744
+ :ISBN: 978-0132396554
+
+.. _ldd3_published:
* Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition**
:Date: 1997
:ISBN: 0-201-33143-8 (second edition)
- * Title: **The Design of the UNIX Operating System**
-
- :Author: Maurice J. Bach
- :Publisher: Prentice Hall
- :Date: 1986
- :Pages: 471
- :ISBN: 0-13-201757-1
-
- * Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD UNIX Operating System**
+ * Title: **Programmation Linux 2.0 API systeme et fonctionnement du noyau**
- :Author: Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J
- Karels, John S. Quarterman
- :Publisher: Addison-Wesley
- :Date: 1989 (reprinted with corrections on October, 1990)
- :ISBN: 0-201-06196-1
+ :Author: Remy Card, Eric Dumas, Franck Mevel
+ :Publisher: Eyrolles
+ :Date: 1997
+ :Pages: 520
+ :ISBN: 2-212-08932-5
+ :Notes: French
* Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD UNIX Operating System**
:Date: 1996
:ISBN: 0-201-54979-4
- * Title: **Programmation Linux 2.0 API systeme et fonctionnement du noyau**
-
- :Author: Remy Card, Eric Dumas, Franck Mevel
- :Publisher: Eyrolles
- :Date: 1997
- :Pages: 520
- :ISBN: 2-212-08932-5
- :Notes: French
-
* Title: **Unix internals -- the new frontiers**
:Author: Uresh Vahalia
:Author: Bill O. Gallmeister
:Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc
:Date: 1995
- :Pages: ???
+ :Pages: 552
:ISBN: I-56592-074-0
:Notes: Though not being directly about Linux, Linux aims to be
POSIX. Good reference.
:Pages: 432
:ISBN: 0-201-63338-8
- * Title: **Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Edition**
+ * Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD UNIX Operating System**
- :Author: Robert Love
+ :Author: Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J
+ Karels, John S. Quarterman
:Publisher: Addison-Wesley
- :Date: July, 2010
- :Pages: 440
- :ISBN: 978-0672329463
-
- * Title: **Linux Kernel Networking: Implementation and Theory**
-
- :Author: Rami Rosen
- :Publisher: Apress
- :Date: December 22, 2013
- :Pages: 648
- :ISBN: 978-1430261964
+ :Date: 1989 (reprinted with corrections on October, 1990)
+ :ISBN: 0-201-06196-1
- * Title: **Linux Treiber entwickeln**
+ * Title: **The Design of the UNIX Operating System**
- :Author: Jürgen Quade, Eva-Katharina Kunst
- :Publisher: dpunkt.verlag
- :Date: Oct 2015 (4th edition)
- :Pages: 688
- :ISBN: 978-3-86490-288-8
- :Note: German. The third edition from 2011 is
- much cheaper and still quite up-to-date.
+ :Author: Maurice J. Bach
+ :Publisher: Prentice Hall
+ :Date: 1986
+ :Pages: 471
+ :ISBN: 0-13-201757-1
-MISCELLANEOUS
+Miscellaneous
-------------
- * Name: **linux/Documentation**
-
- :Author: Many.
- :URL: Just look inside your kernel sources.
- :Keywords: anything, DocBook.
- :Description: Documentation that comes with the kernel sources,
- inside the Documentation directory. Some pages from this document
- (including this document itself) have been moved there, and might
- be more up to date than the web version.
-
- * Name: **Linux Kernel Source Reference**
-
- :Author: Thomas Graichen.
- :URL: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=96446640102205&w=4
- :Keywords: CVS, web, cvsweb, browsing source code.
- :Description: Web interface to a CVS server with the kernel
- sources. "Here you can have a look at any file of the Linux kernel
- sources of any version starting from 1.0 up to the (daily updated)
- current version available. Also you can check the differences
- between two versions of a file".
-
* Name: **Cross-Referencing Linux**
:URL: http://lxr.free-electrons.com/
summarizing developers' work, bug fixes, new features and versions
produced during the week. Published every Thursday.
- * Name: **Linux Virtual File System**
-
- :Author: Peter J. Braam.
- :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/talks/linuxvfs/
- :Keywords: slides, VFS, inode, superblock, dentry, dcache.
- :Description: Set of slides, presumably from a presentation on the
- Linux VFS layer. Covers version 2.1.x, with dentries and the
- dcache.
-
* Name: **The home page of Linux-MM**
:Author: The Linux-MM team.
-------
-Document last updated on Mon 2016-Sep-19
+Document last updated on Tue 2016-Sep-20
+
+This document is based on:
+ http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html