Book Info
(Sun Microsystems) A definitive guide to the internals of the Solaris kernel, focusing on core kernel functions, major data structures, and algorithms. An indispensable reference for kernel developers, containing useful information for monitoring and optimizing Solaris systems.

From the Inside Flap
PREFACE

The internals of the UNIX kernel are fairly well-documented, most notably by Goodheart and Cox 10, Bach 1, McKusick et al. 19, and Vahalia 39. These texts have become a common source of reference information for those who want to better understand the internals of UNIX. However little has been written about the specifics of the Solaris kernel.

The paucity of Solaris specific information led us to create our own reference material. As we published information through white papers, magazine columns, and tutorials, the number of folks expressing interest motivated us to produce a complete work that discussed Solaris exclusively. About This Book

This book is about the internals of Sun's Solaris Operating Environment. The rapid growth of Solaris has created a large number of users, software developers, systems administrators, performance analysts, and other members of the technical community, all of whom require in-depth knowledge about the environment in which they work.

Since the focus of this book is the internals of the Solaris kernel, the book provides a great deal of information on the architecture of the kernel and the major data structures and algorithms implemented in the operating system. However, rather than approach the subject matter from a purely academic point of view, we wrote the book with an eye on the practical application of the information contained herein. Thus, we have emphasized the methods and tools that can be used on a Solaris system to extract information that otherwise is not easily accessible with the standard bundled commands and utilities. We want to illustrate how you can apply this knowledge in a meaningful way, as your job or interest dictates.

To maximize the usefulness of the text, we included specific information on Solaris versions 2.5.1, 2.6, and Solaris 7. We cover the major Solaris subsystems, including memory management, process management, threads, files, and file systems. We do not cover details of low-level I/O, device drivers, STREAMS, and networking. For reference material on these topics, see "Writing Device Drivers" 28, the "STREAMS Programming Guide" 29, and "UNIX Network Programming" 32.

The material included in this book is not necessarily presented at an introductory level, although whenever possible we begin discussing a topic with some conceptual background information. We assume that you have some familiarity with operating systems concepts and have used a UNIX-based operating system. Some knowledge of the C programming language is useful but not required.

Because of the variety of hardware platforms on which Solaris runs, it is not practical to discuss the low-level details of all the different processors and architectures, so our hardware focus, when detail is required, is admittedly UltraSPARC-centric. This approach makes the most sense since it represents the current technology and addresses the largest installed base. In general, the concepts put forth when detail is required apply to other processors and platforms supported. The differences are in the specific implementation details, such as per-processor hardware registers.

Throughout the book we refer to specific kernel functions by name as we describe the flow of various code segments. These routines are internal to the operating system and should not be construed as, or confused with, the public interfaces that ship as part of the Solaris product line-the systems calls and library interfaces. The functions referenced throughout the text, unless explicitly noted, are private to the kernel and not callable or in any way usable by application programs. Intended Audience

We hope that this book will serve as a useful reference for a variety of technical staff members working with the Solaris Operating Environment.

Application developers can find information in this book about how Solaris implements functions behind the application programming interfaces. This information helps developers understand performance, scalability, and implementation specifics of each interface when they develop Solaris applications. The system overview section and sections on scheduling, interprocess communication, and file system behavior should be the most useful sections. Device driver and kernel module developers of drivers, STREAMS modules, loadable system calls, etc., can find herein the general architecture and implementation theory of the Solaris Operating Environment. The Solaris kernel framework and facilities portions of the book (especially the locking and synchronization primitives chapters) are particularly relevant. Systems administrators, systems analysts, database administrators, and ERP managers responsible for performance tuning and capacity planning can learn about the behavioral characteristics of the major Solaris subsystems. The file system caching and memory management chapters provide a great deal of information about how Solaris behaves in real-world environments. The algorithms behind Solaris tunable parameters (which are detailed in Appendix A) are covered in depth throughout the book. Technical support staff responsible for the diagnosis, debugging, and support of Solaris will find a wealth of information about implementation details of Solaris. Major data structures and data flow diagrams are provided in each chapter to aid debugging and navigation of Solaris Systems. System users who just want to know more about how the Solaris kernel works will find high-level overviews at the start of each chapter.

In addition to the various technical staff members listed above, we also believe that members of the academic community will find the book of value in studying how a volume, production kernel implements major subsystems and solves the problems inherent in operating systems development. How This Book Is Organized

We organized Solaras Internals into several logical parts, each part grouping several chapters containing related information. Our goal was to provide a building block approach to the material, where later sections build on information provided in earlier chapters. However, for readers familiar with particular aspects of operating systems design and implementation, the individual parts and chapters can stand on their own in terms of the subject matter they cover.

Part One: Introduction to Solaris Internals Chapter 1 — An Introduction to Solaris Chapter 2 — Kernel Services Chapter 3 — Kernel Synchronization Primitives Chapter 4 — Kernel Bootstrap and Initialization Part Two: The Solaris Memory System Chapter 5 — Solaris Memory Architecture Chapter 6 — Kernel Memory Chapter 7 — Memory Monitoring Part Three: Threads, Processes, and IPC Chapter 8 — The Solaris Multithreaded Process Architecture Chapter 9 — The Solaris Kernel Dispatcher Chapter 10 — Interprocess Communication Part Four: Files and File Systems Chapter 11 — Solaris Files and File I/O Chapter 12 — File System Overview Chapter 13 — File System Framework Chapter 14 — The UNIX File System Chapter 15 — Solaris File System Cache

Solaris Source Code

In February 2000, Sun announced the availability of Solaris source. This book provides the essential companion to the Solaris source and can be used as a guide to the Solaris kernel framework and architecture.

It should also be noted that the source available from Sun is the Solaris 8 source. Although this book covers Solaris versions up to and including Solaris 7, almost all of the material is relevant to Solaris 8. Updates and Related Material

To complement this book, we created a Web site where we will place updated material, tools we refer to, and links to related material on the topics covered. The Web site is available at solarisinternals. A Note from the Authors

We certainly hope that you get as much out of reading Solaris Internals as we did from writing it. We welcome comments, suggestions, and questions from readers.

add to del.icio.us                 Digg Freebookzone.com!

You may use anyone of the download options

eBook Version	Buy this book from Amazon

Missing Link?, Report It and you may wish to  Buy  this book from amazon



Similar Book titles in Solaris OS section:
Solaris Common Desktop Environment: Programmer's Guide
Solaris Transition Guide
Trusted Solaris 2.5.1 Transition Guide
Intermediate System Administration for the Solaris 9 Operating Environment SA-239 Student Guide
pthreads and Solaris threads: A comparison of two user level threads APIs
Solaris 8 Reference Manual Collection
Solaris 10 - The Complete Reference


Similar Book titles in Other sections:

Section: CS -> Hardware
Computer Architecture Tutorial
Advanced Computer Architecture Notes
Advanced Computer Architecture Tutorials


Section: CS -> Theory
An Architecture for Combinator Graph Reduction
PC Architecture


Section: DB -> Datawarehousing
Database Systems: Concepts, Languages and Architectures


Section: Computer Hardware
BigAdmin - Solaris 8 (x86 Platform) 2/02 HCL


Section: Device Drivers
Network Interface Guide: Solaris 8
UDI Core Specification Version 1.01 Volume I (Chapters 1-18)
UDI Core Specification Version 1.01 Volume II (Chapters 19-33)
Writing Device Drivers Book for the Solaris 8 OS
Writing Device Drivers Book for the Solaris 9 OS
Show all..


Section: Microprocessor
Alpha Architecture Handbook Version 4
Assembly Language Programming Tools for the IA-64 Architecture
Extensible Firmware Interface: booting the new generation of Intel Architecture platforms
IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual Volume 2: Instruction Set Reference
IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual Volume 3: System Programming Guide
Show all..


Section: Peripherals
EISA System Architecture Second Edition
SCSI Architecture Model - 2 (SAM-2)


Section: Internet
Extreme Exploits Advanced Defenses Against Hardcore Hacks


Section: Miscellaneous
Design and Architecture of a Portable and Extensible Multiplayer 3D Game Engine


Section: Microsoft Certifications
MCAD MCSD Microsoft .NET Core Requirements
Analyzing Requirements And Defining Solution Architectures MCSD Training
Microsoft Windows Architecture For Developers Training Kit


Section: Microsoft .(dot) net
Application Architecture for .NET: Designing Applications and Services
Exam 70-300 - Analyzing Requirements and Defining Microsoft .NET Solution Architectures


Section: Microsoft Windows Servers
Microsoft Windows 2k Server Resource Kit TCP/IP Core Network Guide


Section: Microsoft Visual Basic
Hardcore Visual Basic: Version 5.0


Section: Windows Development
Windows NT File System Internals: A Developers Guide


Section: Networking
Internet Routing Architectures (2nd Edition)
Programming Principles in Java: Architectures and Interfaces
IP Storage Networking Straight to the Core


Section: GNU/Linux OS
Linux Kernel 2.4 Internals
The Linux Kernel
Understanding the Linux Kernel, 2nd Edition
The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide 2.6
The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide 2.4
Show all..


Section: Embedded and RTOS
VxWorks for Pentium Architecture Supplement


Section: OS Theory
Spring Concepts, Internals Architecture and Programming
Exokernel and networking papers
a.out Architecture-Dependent File Format
The Interaction of Architecture and Operating System Design


Section: Unix OS
Unix in a Nutshell: System V & Solaris 2.0


Section: Assembly Language
The ARM Instruction Set Architecture
Intel Architecture Software Developer’s Manual


Section: Other Programming
Seamless Object-Oriented Software Architecture: Analysis and Design of Reliable Systems


Section: Redbooks Draft
Enterprise Security Architecture using IBM ISS Security Solutions
Enterprise Security Architecture Using IBM Tivoli Security Solutions
z/TPF and WebSphere Application Server in a Service Oriented Architecture
High Available Architectures and Capacity Planning with WebSphere Remote Server V6
IBM System Storage DS8000 Architecture and Implementation
Show all..


Section: Redbooks
Domino 7 for Sun Solaris 10
Enterprise Security Architecture Using IBM Tivoli Security Solutions
IBM System Storage DS6000 Series: Architecture and Implementation
High Available Architectures and Capacity Planning with WebSphere Remote Server V6
IBM System Storage DS8000 Series: Architecture and Implementation
Show all..


Section: Redpapers
Running Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 on X3 Architecture Servers
The Role of IBM System z in the design of a Service Oriented Architecture
IBM System p5 Quad-Core Module Based on POWER5+ Technology: Technical Overview and Introduction
The Value of the IBM System z and z/OS in Service-Oriented Architecture
Implementing Sun Solaris on IBM BladeCenter Servers
Show all..


Section: Redpapers Draft
The Value of the Mainframe in Service Oriented Architecture
Implementing Sun Solaris on IBM BladeCenter Servers
SystemTap: Instrumenting the Linux Kernel for Analyzing Performance and Funtional Problems
SystemTap: Instrumenting the Linux Kernel for Analyzing Performance and Functional Problems


Section: Software Engineering
Principles for Evaluating the Quality Attributes of a Software Architecture
The Architecture Based Design Method
Software Architecture in Practice, 2nd Edition


Section: Web Programming
Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages
Core JavaScript 1.4 Guide
Core JavaScript 1.4 Reference
Core JavaScript 1.5 Guide
Core JavaScript 1.5 Reference
Show all..


Section: Web Technology
Teach Yourself CorelDraw 8 in 24 Hours
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web


Similar Books from Amazon :