Announcements:

• See the course blog for more fun.
• See to a past offering for a look at this offerings future.
• Grading policy will include homeworks and projects.
• Final exam scheduled for 2-4:30, Wednesday December 6.

Textbooks

• Windows Internals, Russinovich and Solomon.
• Linux Kernel Development, Love.

Notes

• Introduction:
  • Unix history
  • The UNIX Time-sharing System, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thomson (1974). (citeseer)
  • Hints for Computer System Design, Butler Lampson (1983) (citeseer)
  • Definition of an operating system.
  • Building the linux kernel.
• Processes, Scheduling and Synchronization
  • Review of stacks, IP's, SP's, frames.
  • Review interrupts, exceptions, traps, etc.
    • Synchronous (Internal) versus async (external);
    • programmed versus error (for internal);
    • precise (restartable) versus imprecise (non-restartable) (for errors).
  • Protection, MMU, processor modes.
    • Kernel trap: entry.S
    • In NT:Systems calls and traps; Call gates
  • Process Control Block
    • struct task_struct
  • Kernel and User space, Context Switching.
  • Threads
  • Scheduling.
    • schedule task switching routine.
    • 2.4 linux scheduler
    • O(1) scheduler
    • Interview with Ingo Molnar.
  • Synchronization
    • Peterson's Algorithm
    • Spinlocks
    • Semaphores
    • Monitors
  • Necessary conditions for Deadlock
    • Mutual Exclusion
    • Holding locks
    • No Preemption
    • Circular Wait
  • Preventing Deadlock,
    • using sharable resource,
    • dropping locks on sleep
    • Taking locks in a consistent order
  • Avoiding deadlock
    • Banker's Algorithm
• Virtual Memory
  • Introduction to Virtual Memory.
  • User management of Memory: Linking loading book
  • i386 paging details
  • Mel Gorman notes of Linux VM.
  • Linux Memory Management
  • 64-bit Linux
    • Itanium architecture, Eranian and Mosberger.
    • x86-64 architecture, Andi Kleen
  • Resources:
    • Linux MM Wiki
    • Rik van Riel interview at KernelTrap
  • User memory allocation:
    • VAT, virtual address allocations.
    • Buddy System
    • Slab
    • heap storage, e.g. malloc
• File Systems and Disk Systems
  • General discussion
  • Case studies:
    • FAT
    • Microsoft skinny on Fat
    • unix inode: ext2
    • NTFS,
      • Linux-NTFS, a reverse engineering of the details.
      • Microsoft library article.
    • ext3, a journaling file system (based on ext2). (see also XFS)
  • Logical Volumes
  • Global and Network file systemes.
    • NFS
      • 4.4BSD NFS
      • Understanding NFS from OnLamp.com.
    • SMB/CIFS
      • SMB: Implementing CIFS Christopher Hertel.
      • CIFS: A common internet file system, Leach and Perry
      • more cifs docs (SNIA Technical Proposal).
    • Global File Sysems
  • File system drivers, redirectors, and Virtual File Systems.
  • Disk Systems
    • RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks
    • SANS: Storage Area Networks
• Protection
  • General Remarks, Access control matrix, ACLS and Capabilites.
  • Protection Butler Lampson.
  • Unix Protection Demystifing Suid Wagner, et al.
  • The Melissa Virus, and others
  • Stack smashing, see also Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit, Aleph One.
• Software Engineering
  • Open Source Movement,
    • The Cathedral and the Bazaar Eric Raymond.
    • The Hi-Tech Gift Economy, Richard Barbrook.
    • Homesteading the Noosphere, Eric Raymond
    • Linux: A Bazaar at the Edge of Chaos, Ko Kuwabara
  • Release Engineering
    • A modest proposal -- We need a patch penguin, Rob Landley, email archives.
    • The Linux managing model, Federico Iannacci, First Monday.
    • Free BSD RelEng Charter, FreeBSD site.
    • FreeBSD Release Engineering, Murray Stokely, FreeBSD site.
    • Version Management Tools: CVS to BK in the Linux Kernel, Shaikh and Cornford. A look inside release engineering under the Cult Of Linus.
    • Release criteria for the Linux kernel David G. Glance, in First Monday.
  • Vulnerability Management.
    • FreeBSD security information
    • Vlunerability disclosure policies
  • Hackers and hacking
    • The Hacker Ethic, Pekka Himanen
    • 2600
    • Phrack
    • Hacker Definition Controversy

  Readings and Exercises

  1. Read the linux book, chapters 1 through 3.
  2. Five paragraph essay defending or refuting the statement: The browser is part of the operating system.
     Due: Wed 30 Aug.
  3. Read the linux book, chapters 4 through 6.
  4. Build a linux kernel.
     Due: Wed 13 Sept.
  5. Modify the kernel to include the new system call notnice, a variant of nice but allows the user to change the priority of any process. We will develop this in stages. More
     Due: stage one: Wed 20 Sept.
     Due: stage two and three: Wed 27 Sept.
  6. Read Windows Internals, chapters 1, 2, 5 and 6.
  7. Write a short summary contrasting windows scheduling to linux scheduling. Be specfic on the details such as number of levels, methods to establish priority, classes of processes such as real-time and system.
     Due: Friday 22.
     Example answer
  8. Read Linux book, chapters 8, 9 and 10.
  9. Writing: find 4 locks in the code of the linux kernel and tell what data they protect and why.
     Due: Friday 29.
  10. Read the NT book, chapter 7, and the Linux book, chapter 11.
  11. Read about file systems in the Linux and NT books.
  12. Submit an essay considering the use of Long Filenames in FAT. You might also investigate the lawsuits surrounding patents on this issue (see Wikipedia/FAT)
  13. Design a FAT file system and implement it in Linux using FUSE.
      Hint: FAT-FUSE
      Another Hint: fastfat.c
  14. Reading Linux and NT books on file drivers and virtual file systems.
  15. Read NT book chapter on NT protection.
  16. Due Friday 17, the FAT FUSE file systems.
  17. Read Protection Butler Lampson.
  18. Read the following papers:
      1. The Cathedral and the Bazaar Eric Raymond.
      2. The Linux manageing model, Federic Iannacci. First Monday
      3. Transcript of Stallman's NYU speech
      4. FreeBSD Release Engineering, by Murray Stokely
      5. A modest proposal - we need a patch penguin, by Rob Landley
      6. Version management tools: CVS to BK in the Linux Kernel, Maha Shaikh and Tony Cornford
      7. Release management with open source projects, Justin Erenkrantz.

  References

  • SysInternals
  • Fedora home page
  • Gentoo home page
  • Windows Data Types
  • Unix 6th ed by Lions.
  • Kernelnewbies Wiki
  • The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense, Peter Szor.
  • FreeBSD release engineering, see also the FreeBSD Handbook, Appendix A.3. VM in Linux
  • Inline Assembler Reference
  • Computer Forensics, Cybercrime and Steganography Good for details of file systems.

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