Advanced Kernel Programming

This is the home page for the "Advanced Kernel Programming" course. Here, you can find information about the lessons and all the material used during the course

For the previous editions of the course, check the old websites: 2019/2020.

Lessons:

• First lesson: 2023/05/16, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • Introduction to the course
  • Recall some concepts about OS Kernels
  • The Linux Kernel; summary of Linux Kernel Programming and Linux modules
• Second lesson: 2023/05/17, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • Some examples and experiments with the Linux kernel and Linux kernel modules
• Third lesson: 2023/05/22, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • Competitive and cooperative synchronization in the Linux kernel
  • Blocking a task; TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE vs TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE
• Fourth lesson: 2023/05/23, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • Introduction to the Linux CPU scheduler
  • The CPU scheduler code in the Linux kernel
• Fifth lesson: 2023/05/29, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • SCHED_DEADLINE
  • Introduction to Linux memory management
• Sixth lesson: 2023/05/30, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • The Linux virtual memory subsystem
• Seventh lesson 2023/06/08, Yellow room, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)
  • Virtual memory in userspace processes:
    • A user memory address space is composed of Virtual Memory Areas (also called memory mappings)
    • Example of anonymous mapping
    • Example of memory-mapping of a file
    • Example of memory-mappable device file
    • Example of shared memory mapping, used by two different userspace programs: sender and receiver
  • Introduction to the Linux network subsystem
• Eighth lesson 2023/06/09, White room, 9:30 -> 12:00 (video of the first part and second part of the lesson)

Interesting Kernel CallChains:

• Some callchains related to the scheduler
• How page faults are handled
• Some more details about mm_populate()

Downloads:

• The linux kernel source
• A minimal fs to boot it
• Examples about Linux kernel modules: hello world and examples on misc devices
• Examples about synchronization; more correct cooperative synchronization
• Program to schedule threads/processes as SCHED_DEADLINE

Interesting Papers:

• Bonwick, Jeff. "The slab allocator: An object-caching kernel memory allocator." USENIX summer. Vol. 16. 1994.
• Bonwick, Jeff, and Jonathan Adams. "Magazines and Vmem: Extending the Slab Allocator to Many CPUs and Arbitrary Resources." USENIX Annual Technical Conference, General Track. 2001.
• Mogul, Jeffrey C., and K. K. Ramakrishnan. "Eliminating receive livelock in an interrupt-driven kernel." ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 15.3 (1997): 217-252.