Chapter 21: The Linux System

 Linux History  File Systems

 Design Principles  Input and Output
 Kernel Modules  Interprocess Communication
 Process Management  Network Structure
 Scheduling  Security
 Memory Management

實務補充資料： 鳥哥的 Linux 私房菜 (http://linux.vbird.org/)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.1 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Objectives

 To explore the history of the UNIX operating system from

which Linux is derived and the principles which Linux is
designed upon
 To examine the Linux process model and illustrate how
Linux schedules processes and provides interprocess
communication
 To look at memory management in Linux
 To explore how Linux implements file systems and
manages I/O devices

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 History
 Linux is a modern, free operating system based on UNIX
standards
 First developed as a small but self-contained kernel in 1991 by
Linus Torvalds, with the major design goal of UNIX compatibility
 Its history has been one of collaboration by many users from all
around the world, corresponding almost exclusively over the
Internet
 It has been designed to run efficiently and reliably on
common PC hardware, but also runs on a variety of
other platforms
 The core Linux operating system kernel is entirely original, but it
can run much existing free UNIX software, resulting in an entire
UNIX-compatible operating system free from proprietary code
 Many, varying Linux Distributions including the kernel, applications, and
management tools

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 Linux 2.0
 Released in June 1996, 2.0 added two major new
capabilities:
 Support for multiple architectures, including a fully 64-bit native
Alpha port
 Available for Motorola 68000-series processors, Sun Sparc systems,
and for PC and PowerMac systems
 Support for multiprocessor architectures
 Other new features included:
 Improved memory-management code, with a unified cache for file-
system data
 Improved TCP/IP performance
 Support for internal kernel threads, for handling dependencies between
loadable modules, and for automatic loading of modules on demand
 Standardized configuration interface

 2.4 and 2.6 increased SMP support, added journaling file

system, preemptive kernel, 64-bit memory support
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 The Linux System
 Linux uses many tools developed as part of Berkeley’s BSD
operating system, MIT’s X Window System, and the Free
Software Foundation's GNU project
 The main system libraries were started by the GNU project,
with improvements provided by the Linux community
 Linux networking-administration tools were derived from
4.3BSD code; recent BSD derivatives such as Free BSD
have borrowed code from Linux in return
 The Linux system is maintained by a loose network of
developers collaborating over the Internet, with a small
number of public ftp sites acting as de facto standard
repositories. The File System Hierarchy Standard specifies
the overall layout of a standard Linux file system

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 Linux Distributions
 Standard, precompiled sets of packages, or distributions,
include the basic Linux system, system installation and
management utilities, and ready-to-install packages of
common UNIX tools
 The first distributions managed these packages by
simply providing a means of unpacking all the files into
the appropriate places; modern distributions include
advanced package management
 Early distributions included SLS and Slackware
 Red Hat and Debian are popular distributions from commercial
and noncommercial sources, respectively
 The RPM Package file format permits compatibility
among the various Linux distributions
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Linux Licensing
 The Linux kernel is distributed under the GNU General
Public License (GPL), the terms of which are set out by
the Free Software Foundation
 If you release software that includes any component covered by
the GPL, then you must make source code available alongside
any binary distributions

 Linux is free, but not public-domain software

 Copyrights are still held by various authors

 Anyone using Linux, or creating their own derivative of

Linux, may not make the derived product proprietary;
software released under the GPL may not be
redistributed as a binary-only product

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 21.2 Design Principles

 Linux is a multiuser, multitasking system with a full set of

UNIX-compatible tools
 Its file system adheres to traditional UNIX semantics, and it
fully implements the standard UNIX networking model
 Main design goals are speed, efficiency, and standardization
 To avoid the lessons learned in UNIX
 Linux is designed to be compliant with the relevant POSIX
(Portable Operating System Interface for Unix) standards
and threading extensions; at least two Linux distributions
have achieved official POSIX certification
 The Linux programming interface adheres to the SVR4 UNIX
semantics, rather than to BSD behavior

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 Components of a Linux System

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Components of a Linux System (Cont)

 Like most UNIX implementations, Linux is composed of

three main bodies of code: kernel, system libraries, and
system utilities; the most important distinction between
the kernel and all other components

 The kernel is responsible for maintaining the important

abstractions of the operating system
 Kernel code executes in kernel mode with full access to all the
physical resources of the computer
 Implemented as a single, monolithic binary. All kernel code and
data structures are kept in the same single address space, so
that no context switches are necessary for system calls or
hardware interrupt.
 The single address space contains all kernel codes, including all
device drivers, file systems, and networking code

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 Components of a Linux System (Cont)

 The system libraries define a standard set of

functions through which applications interact with the
kernel, and which implement much of the operating-
system functionality that does not need the full
privileges of kernel code

 The system utilities perform individual specialized

management tasks
 Some to invoke initialize and configure some aspects of the
system
 Some may run permanently, known as daemons

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 21.3 Kernel Modules
 Sections of kernel code that can be compiled, loaded, and
unloaded independent of the rest of the kernel
 A kernel module may typically implement a device driver, a
file system, or a networking protocol
 The module interface allows third parties to write and
distribute, on their own terms, device drivers or file systems
that could not be distributed under the GPL
 Kernel modules allow a Linux system to be set up with a
standard, minimal kernel, without any extra device drivers
built in
 Three components to Linux module support:
 The module management
 The driver registration
 A conflict resolution mechanism
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 Module Management
 Supports loading modules into memory and letting them
talk to the rest of the kernel
 Make sure that any reference to the kernel symbols or entry
points are updated to point to the correct locations in the kernel’s
address space

 Module loading is split into two separate sections:

 Managing sections of module code in kernel memory
 Handling symbols that modules are allowed to reference

 The module requestor manages loading requested, but

currently unloaded, modules; it also regularly queries the
kernel to see whether a dynamically loaded module is
still in use, and will unload it when it is no longer actively
needed
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 Driver Registration
 Allows modules to tell the rest of the kernel that a new
driver has become available

 The kernel maintains dynamic tables of all known

drivers, and provides a set of routines to allow drivers to
be added to or removed from these tables at any time

 Registration tables include the following items:

 Device drivers
 File systems
 Network protocols
 Binary format

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 Conflict Resolution

 A mechanism that allows different device drivers to

reserve hardware resources and to protect those
resources from accidental use by another driver

 The conflict resolution module aims to:

 Prevent modules from clashing over access to hardware
resources
 Prevent autoprobes from interfering with existing device drivers
 Resolve conflicts with multiple drivers trying to access the
same hardware

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Logging In

 Once you have completed your system install and

booted your system, you should see a login prompt on
your monitor.
 When you did your Linux install you should have set a
root password.
 You may have also created a user with a password.
Therefore to log in, you will want to type the name of a
user or "root" for the login name and enter the
appropriate password.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Logging In

 If you logged in as a normal user and know the root

password and want to use administration commands,
you may use the command "su" to become a "super
user".
 Some systems also support the "sudo" command, which
allows administrative privileges on a command by
command basis.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Linux Shell levels and the su command

 The command, "su" will allow a normal user to enter a

new shell level as the root user or as another user if they
know the root user's or that user's password
respectively.
 To become the root user, type "su" then you will be
prompted for the root password. To become another
user, type "su username".
 You must enter either that user's password to become
that user.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Linux Shell levels and the su Command

 Every time you use the su command you enter a new

shell level which means you have invoked a new running
copy of the shell program, such as bash.
 You can see this change by typing the command "env"
and looking at the value of the environment variable
"SHLVL".
 This value increments when you use the su command
and decrements when you use the "exit" command to
exit that shell environment.
 You can also see the shell level value by typing "printenv
SHLVL".

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Logging Out

 Use the command "logout" to exit a given session.

 If you have logged in, then typed "su" to become a super

user or another user, you may need to type "exit" until
your SHLVL environment value is 1.

 Then you can type "logout" to exit your session. The

"exit" command will take you back to previous shell
levels.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 The Manual System (.man obtaining help)

 There is also a keyword function in man.

 For example;
 If you are interested in any commands that deal with Postscript,
the printer control language for Adobe
 Type man -k ps or man -k Postscript,
 you’ll get a listing of all commands, system calls, and other
documented parts of unix that have the word “ps” (or “Postscript”) in
their name or short description.
 This can be very useful when you’re looking for a tool to
do something, but you don’t know it’s name-or if it even
exists!

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 THE END

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 21.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009