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authorMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>2017-05-11 08:03:27 -0300
committerMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>2017-05-16 08:00:49 -0300
commitc4fcd7cabb83fcac1e83e17845b1fede5401aa25 (patch)
treed414486838d96dd4b512729d2f99338b61d2614f /Documentation/DocBook
parent25a0da73f24c95d57381bedd9cd89e4929b1bfde (diff)
docs-rst: convert kernel-hacking to ReST
Use pandoc to convert documentation to ReST by calling Documentation/sphinx/tmplcvt script. - Manually adjusted to use ..note and ..warning - Minor fixes for it to be parsed without errors - Use **bold** for emphasis. Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/DocBook')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/DocBook/Makefile2
-rw-r--r--Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl1312
2 files changed, 1 insertions, 1313 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile b/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
index 85916f13d330..7d7482b5ad92 100644
--- a/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
+++ b/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
# list of DOCBOOKS.
DOCBOOKS := z8530book.xml \
- kernel-hacking.xml kernel-locking.xml \
+ kernel-locking.xml \
networking.xml \
filesystems.xml lsm.xml kgdb.xml \
libata.xml mtdnand.xml librs.xml rapidio.xml \
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl b/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl
deleted file mode 100644
index da5c087462b1..000000000000
--- a/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,1312 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
- "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" []>
-
-<book id="lk-hacking-guide">
- <bookinfo>
- <title>Unreliable Guide To Hacking The Linux Kernel</title>
-
- <authorgroup>
- <author>
- <firstname>Rusty</firstname>
- <surname>Russell</surname>
- <affiliation>
- <address>
- <email>rusty@rustcorp.com.au</email>
- </address>
- </affiliation>
- </author>
- </authorgroup>
-
- <copyright>
- <year>2005</year>
- <holder>Rusty Russell</holder>
- </copyright>
-
- <legalnotice>
- <para>
- This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
- it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
- License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
- version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
- version.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
- useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
- warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
- See the GNU General Public License for more details.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
- License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
- Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
- MA 02111-1307 USA
- </para>
-
- <para>
- For more details see the file COPYING in the source
- distribution of Linux.
- </para>
- </legalnotice>
-
- <releaseinfo>
- This is the first release of this document as part of the kernel tarball.
- </releaseinfo>
-
- </bookinfo>
-
- <toc></toc>
-
- <chapter id="introduction">
- <title>Introduction</title>
- <para>
- Welcome, gentle reader, to Rusty's Remarkably Unreliable Guide to Linux
- Kernel Hacking. This document describes the common routines and
- general requirements for kernel code: its goal is to serve as a
- primer for Linux kernel development for experienced C
- programmers. I avoid implementation details: that's what the
- code is for, and I ignore whole tracts of useful routines.
- </para>
- <para>
- Before you read this, please understand that I never wanted to
- write this document, being grossly under-qualified, but I always
- wanted to read it, and this was the only way. I hope it will
- grow into a compendium of best practice, common starting points
- and random information.
- </para>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="basic-players">
- <title>The Players</title>
-
- <para>
- At any time each of the CPUs in a system can be:
- </para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- not associated with any process, serving a hardware interrupt;
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- not associated with any process, serving a softirq or tasklet;
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- running in kernel space, associated with a process (user context);
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- running a process in user space.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>
- There is an ordering between these. The bottom two can preempt
- each other, but above that is a strict hierarchy: each can only be
- preempted by the ones above it. For example, while a softirq is
- running on a CPU, no other softirq will preempt it, but a hardware
- interrupt can. However, any other CPUs in the system execute
- independently.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- We'll see a number of ways that the user context can block
- interrupts, to become truly non-preemptable.
- </para>
-
- <sect1 id="basics-usercontext">
- <title>User Context</title>
-
- <para>
- User context is when you are coming in from a system call or other
- trap: like userspace, you can be preempted by more important tasks
- and by interrupts. You can sleep, by calling
- <function>schedule()</function>.
- </para>
-
- <note>
- <para>
- You are always in user context on module load and unload,
- and on operations on the block device layer.
- </para>
- </note>
-
- <para>
- In user context, the <varname>current</varname> pointer (indicating
- the task we are currently executing) is valid, and
- <function>in_interrupt()</function>
- (<filename>include/linux/interrupt.h</filename>) is <returnvalue>false
- </returnvalue>.
- </para>
-
- <caution>
- <para>
- Beware that if you have preemption or softirqs disabled
- (see below), <function>in_interrupt()</function> will return a
- false positive.
- </para>
- </caution>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="basics-hardirqs">
- <title>Hardware Interrupts (Hard IRQs)</title>
-
- <para>
- Timer ticks, <hardware>network cards</hardware> and
- <hardware>keyboard</hardware> are examples of real
- hardware which produce interrupts at any time. The kernel runs
- interrupt handlers, which services the hardware. The kernel
- guarantees that this handler is never re-entered: if the same
- interrupt arrives, it is queued (or dropped). Because it
- disables interrupts, this handler has to be fast: frequently it
- simply acknowledges the interrupt, marks a 'software interrupt'
- for execution and exits.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- You can tell you are in a hardware interrupt, because
- <function>in_irq()</function> returns <returnvalue>true</returnvalue>.
- </para>
- <caution>
- <para>
- Beware that this will return a false positive if interrupts are disabled
- (see below).
- </para>
- </caution>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="basics-softirqs">
- <title>Software Interrupt Context: Softirqs and Tasklets</title>
-
- <para>
- Whenever a system call is about to return to userspace, or a
- hardware interrupt handler exits, any 'software interrupts'
- which are marked pending (usually by hardware interrupts) are
- run (<filename>kernel/softirq.c</filename>).
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Much of the real interrupt handling work is done here. Early in
- the transition to <acronym>SMP</acronym>, there were only 'bottom
- halves' (BHs), which didn't take advantage of multiple CPUs. Shortly
- after we switched from wind-up computers made of match-sticks and snot,
- we abandoned this limitation and switched to 'softirqs'.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/interrupt.h</filename> lists the
- different softirqs. A very important softirq is the
- timer softirq (<filename
- class="headerfile">include/linux/timer.h</filename>): you can
- register to have it call functions for you in a given length of
- time.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Softirqs are often a pain to deal with, since the same softirq
- will run simultaneously on more than one CPU. For this reason,
- tasklets (<filename
- class="headerfile">include/linux/interrupt.h</filename>) are more
- often used: they are dynamically-registrable (meaning you can have
- as many as you want), and they also guarantee that any tasklet
- will only run on one CPU at any time, although different tasklets
- can run simultaneously.
- </para>
- <caution>
- <para>
- The name 'tasklet' is misleading: they have nothing to do with 'tasks',
- and probably more to do with some bad vodka Alexey Kuznetsov had at the
- time.
- </para>
- </caution>
-
- <para>
- You can tell you are in a softirq (or tasklet)
- using the <function>in_softirq()</function> macro
- (<filename class="headerfile">include/linux/interrupt.h</filename>).
- </para>
- <caution>
- <para>
- Beware that this will return a false positive if a bh lock (see below)
- is held.
- </para>
- </caution>
- </sect1>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="basic-rules">
- <title>Some Basic Rules</title>
-
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry>
- <term>No memory protection</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- If you corrupt memory, whether in user context or
- interrupt context, the whole machine will crash. Are you
- sure you can't do what you want in userspace?
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>No floating point or <acronym>MMX</acronym></term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- The <acronym>FPU</acronym> context is not saved; even in user
- context the <acronym>FPU</acronym> state probably won't
- correspond with the current process: you would mess with some
- user process' <acronym>FPU</acronym> state. If you really want
- to do this, you would have to explicitly save/restore the full
- <acronym>FPU</acronym> state (and avoid context switches). It
- is generally a bad idea; use fixed point arithmetic first.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>A rigid stack limit</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Depending on configuration options the kernel stack is about 3K to 6K for most 32-bit architectures: it's
- about 14K on most 64-bit archs, and often shared with interrupts
- so you can't use it all. Avoid deep recursion and huge local
- arrays on the stack (allocate them dynamically instead).
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>The Linux kernel is portable</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Let's keep it that way. Your code should be 64-bit clean,
- and endian-independent. You should also minimize CPU
- specific stuff, e.g. inline assembly should be cleanly
- encapsulated and minimized to ease porting. Generally it
- should be restricted to the architecture-dependent part of
- the kernel tree.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="ioctls">
- <title>ioctls: Not writing a new system call</title>
-
- <para>
- A system call generally looks like this
- </para>
-
- <programlisting>
-asmlinkage long sys_mycall(int arg)
-{
- return 0;
-}
- </programlisting>
-
- <para>
- First, in most cases you don't want to create a new system call.
- You create a character device and implement an appropriate ioctl
- for it. This is much more flexible than system calls, doesn't have
- to be entered in every architecture's
- <filename class="headerfile">include/asm/unistd.h</filename> and
- <filename>arch/kernel/entry.S</filename> file, and is much more
- likely to be accepted by Linus.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- If all your routine does is read or write some parameter, consider
- implementing a <function>sysfs</function> interface instead.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Inside the ioctl you're in user context to a process. When a
- error occurs you return a negated errno (see
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/errno.h</filename>),
- otherwise you return <returnvalue>0</returnvalue>.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- After you slept you should check if a signal occurred: the
- Unix/Linux way of handling signals is to temporarily exit the
- system call with the <constant>-ERESTARTSYS</constant> error. The
- system call entry code will switch back to user context, process
- the signal handler and then your system call will be restarted
- (unless the user disabled that). So you should be prepared to
- process the restart, e.g. if you're in the middle of manipulating
- some data structure.
- </para>
-
- <programlisting>
-if (signal_pending(current))
- return -ERESTARTSYS;
- </programlisting>
-
- <para>
- If you're doing longer computations: first think userspace. If you
- <emphasis>really</emphasis> want to do it in kernel you should
- regularly check if you need to give up the CPU (remember there is
- cooperative multitasking per CPU). Idiom:
- </para>
-
- <programlisting>
-cond_resched(); /* Will sleep */
- </programlisting>
-
- <para>
- A short note on interface design: the UNIX system call motto is
- "Provide mechanism not policy".
- </para>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="deadlock-recipes">
- <title>Recipes for Deadlock</title>
-
- <para>
- You cannot call any routines which may sleep, unless:
- </para>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- You are in user context.
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- You do not own any spinlocks.
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- You have interrupts enabled (actually, Andi Kleen says
- that the scheduling code will enable them for you, but
- that's probably not what you wanted).
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>
- Note that some functions may sleep implicitly: common ones are
- the user space access functions (*_user) and memory allocation
- functions without <symbol>GFP_ATOMIC</symbol>.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- You should always compile your kernel
- <symbol>CONFIG_DEBUG_ATOMIC_SLEEP</symbol> on, and it will warn
- you if you break these rules. If you <emphasis>do</emphasis> break
- the rules, you will eventually lock up your box.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Really.
- </para>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="common-routines">
- <title>Common Routines</title>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-printk">
- <title>
- <function>printk()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/kernel.h</filename>
- </title>
-
- <para>
- <function>printk()</function> feeds kernel messages to the
- console, dmesg, and the syslog daemon. It is useful for debugging
- and reporting errors, and can be used inside interrupt context,
- but use with caution: a machine which has its console flooded with
- printk messages is unusable. It uses a format string mostly
- compatible with ANSI C printf, and C string concatenation to give
- it a first "priority" argument:
- </para>
-
- <programlisting>
-printk(KERN_INFO "i = %u\n", i);
- </programlisting>
-
- <para>
- See <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/kernel.h</filename>;
- for other KERN_ values; these are interpreted by syslog as the
- level. Special case: for printing an IP address use
- </para>
-
- <programlisting>
-__be32 ipaddress;
-printk(KERN_INFO "my ip: %pI4\n", &amp;ipaddress);
- </programlisting>
-
- <para>
- <function>printk()</function> internally uses a 1K buffer and does
- not catch overruns. Make sure that will be enough.
- </para>
-
- <note>
- <para>
- You will know when you are a real kernel hacker
- when you start typoing printf as printk in your user programs :)
- </para>
- </note>
-
- <!--- From the Lions book reader department -->
-
- <note>
- <para>
- Another sidenote: the original Unix Version 6 sources had a
- comment on top of its printf function: "Printf should not be
- used for chit-chat". You should follow that advice.
- </para>
- </note>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-copy">
- <title>
- <function>copy_[to/from]_user()</function>
- /
- <function>get_user()</function>
- /
- <function>put_user()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/uaccess.h</filename>
- </title>
-
- <para>
- <emphasis>[SLEEPS]</emphasis>
- </para>
-
- <para>
- <function>put_user()</function> and <function>get_user()</function>
- are used to get and put single values (such as an int, char, or
- long) from and to userspace. A pointer into userspace should
- never be simply dereferenced: data should be copied using these
- routines. Both return <constant>-EFAULT</constant> or 0.
- </para>
- <para>
- <function>copy_to_user()</function> and
- <function>copy_from_user()</function> are more general: they copy
- an arbitrary amount of data to and from userspace.
- <caution>
- <para>
- Unlike <function>put_user()</function> and
- <function>get_user()</function>, they return the amount of
- uncopied data (ie. <returnvalue>0</returnvalue> still means
- success).
- </para>
- </caution>
- [Yes, this moronic interface makes me cringe. The flamewar comes up every year or so. --RR.]
- </para>
- <para>
- The functions may sleep implicitly. This should never be called
- outside user context (it makes no sense), with interrupts
- disabled, or a spinlock held.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-kmalloc">
- <title><function>kmalloc()</function>/<function>kfree()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/slab.h</filename></title>
-
- <para>
- <emphasis>[MAY SLEEP: SEE BELOW]</emphasis>
- </para>
-
- <para>
- These routines are used to dynamically request pointer-aligned
- chunks of memory, like malloc and free do in userspace, but
- <function>kmalloc()</function> takes an extra flag word.
- Important values:
- </para>
-
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry>
- <term>
- <constant>
- GFP_KERNEL
- </constant>
- </term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- May sleep and swap to free memory. Only allowed in user
- context, but is the most reliable way to allocate memory.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>
- <constant>
- GFP_ATOMIC
- </constant>
- </term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Don't sleep. Less reliable than <constant>GFP_KERNEL</constant>,
- but may be called from interrupt context. You should
- <emphasis>really</emphasis> have a good out-of-memory
- error-handling strategy.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>
- <constant>
- GFP_DMA
- </constant>
- </term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Allocate ISA DMA lower than 16MB. If you don't know what that
- is you don't need it. Very unreliable.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
-
- <para>
- If you see a <errorname>sleeping function called from invalid
- context</errorname> warning message, then maybe you called a
- sleeping allocation function from interrupt context without
- <constant>GFP_ATOMIC</constant>. You should really fix that.
- Run, don't walk.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- If you are allocating at least <constant>PAGE_SIZE</constant>
- (<filename class="headerfile">include/asm/page.h</filename>) bytes,
- consider using <function>__get_free_pages()</function>
-
- (<filename class="headerfile">include/linux/mm.h</filename>). It
- takes an order argument (0 for page sized, 1 for double page, 2
- for four pages etc.) and the same memory priority flag word as
- above.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- If you are allocating more than a page worth of bytes you can use
- <function>vmalloc()</function>. It'll allocate virtual memory in
- the kernel map. This block is not contiguous in physical memory,
- but the <acronym>MMU</acronym> makes it look like it is for you
- (so it'll only look contiguous to the CPUs, not to external device
- drivers). If you really need large physically contiguous memory
- for some weird device, you have a problem: it is poorly supported
- in Linux because after some time memory fragmentation in a running
- kernel makes it hard. The best way is to allocate the block early
- in the boot process via the <function>alloc_bootmem()</function>
- routine.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Before inventing your own cache of often-used objects consider
- using a slab cache in
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/slab.h</filename>
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-current">
- <title><function>current</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/asm/current.h</filename></title>
-
- <para>
- This global variable (really a macro) contains a pointer to
- the current task structure, so is only valid in user context.
- For example, when a process makes a system call, this will
- point to the task structure of the calling process. It is
- <emphasis>not NULL</emphasis> in interrupt context.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-udelay">
- <title><function>mdelay()</function>/<function>udelay()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/asm/delay.h</filename>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/delay.h</filename>
- </title>
-
- <para>
- The <function>udelay()</function> and <function>ndelay()</function> functions can be used for small pauses.
- Do not use large values with them as you risk
- overflow - the helper function <function>mdelay()</function> is useful
- here, or consider <function>msleep()</function>.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-endian">
- <title><function>cpu_to_be32()</function>/<function>be32_to_cpu()</function>/<function>cpu_to_le32()</function>/<function>le32_to_cpu()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/asm/byteorder.h</filename>
- </title>
-
- <para>
- The <function>cpu_to_be32()</function> family (where the "32" can
- be replaced by 64 or 16, and the "be" can be replaced by "le") are
- the general way to do endian conversions in the kernel: they
- return the converted value. All variations supply the reverse as
- well: <function>be32_to_cpu()</function>, etc.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- There are two major variations of these functions: the pointer
- variation, such as <function>cpu_to_be32p()</function>, which take
- a pointer to the given type, and return the converted value. The
- other variation is the "in-situ" family, such as
- <function>cpu_to_be32s()</function>, which convert value referred
- to by the pointer, and return void.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-local-irqs">
- <title><function>local_irq_save()</function>/<function>local_irq_restore()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/irqflags.h</filename>
- </title>
-
- <para>
- These routines disable hard interrupts on the local CPU, and
- restore them. They are reentrant; saving the previous state in
- their one <varname>unsigned long flags</varname> argument. If you
- know that interrupts are enabled, you can simply use
- <function>local_irq_disable()</function> and
- <function>local_irq_enable()</function>.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-softirqs">
- <title><function>local_bh_disable()</function>/<function>local_bh_enable()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/interrupt.h</filename></title>
-
- <para>
- These routines disable soft interrupts on the local CPU, and
- restore them. They are reentrant; if soft interrupts were
- disabled before, they will still be disabled after this pair
- of functions has been called. They prevent softirqs and tasklets
- from running on the current CPU.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-processorids">
- <title><function>smp_processor_id</function>()
- <filename class="headerfile">include/asm/smp.h</filename></title>
-
- <para>
- <function>get_cpu()</function> disables preemption (so you won't
- suddenly get moved to another CPU) and returns the current
- processor number, between 0 and <symbol>NR_CPUS</symbol>. Note
- that the CPU numbers are not necessarily continuous. You return
- it again with <function>put_cpu()</function> when you are done.
- </para>
- <para>
- If you know you cannot be preempted by another task (ie. you are
- in interrupt context, or have preemption disabled) you can use
- smp_processor_id().
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-init">
- <title><type>__init</type>/<type>__exit</type>/<type>__initdata</type>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/init.h</filename></title>
-
- <para>
- After boot, the kernel frees up a special section; functions
- marked with <type>__init</type> and data structures marked with
- <type>__initdata</type> are dropped after boot is complete: similarly
- modules discard this memory after initialization. <type>__exit</type>
- is used to declare a function which is only required on exit: the
- function will be dropped if this file is not compiled as a module.
- See the header file for use. Note that it makes no sense for a function
- marked with <type>__init</type> to be exported to modules with
- <function>EXPORT_SYMBOL()</function> - this will break.
- </para>
-
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-init-again">
- <title><function>__initcall()</function>/<function>module_init()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/init.h</filename></title>
- <para>
- Many parts of the kernel are well served as a module
- (dynamically-loadable parts of the kernel). Using the
- <function>module_init()</function> and
- <function>module_exit()</function> macros it is easy to write code
- without #ifdefs which can operate both as a module or built into
- the kernel.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- The <function>module_init()</function> macro defines which
- function is to be called at module insertion time (if the file is
- compiled as a module), or at boot time: if the file is not
- compiled as a module the <function>module_init()</function> macro
- becomes equivalent to <function>__initcall()</function>, which
- through linker magic ensures that the function is called on boot.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- The function can return a negative error number to cause
- module loading to fail (unfortunately, this has no effect if
- the module is compiled into the kernel). This function is
- called in user context with interrupts enabled, so it can sleep.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-moduleexit">
- <title> <function>module_exit()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/init.h</filename> </title>
-
- <para>
- This macro defines the function to be called at module removal
- time (or never, in the case of the file compiled into the
- kernel). It will only be called if the module usage count has
- reached zero. This function can also sleep, but cannot fail:
- everything must be cleaned up by the time it returns.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Note that this macro is optional: if it is not present, your
- module will not be removable (except for 'rmmod -f').
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="routines-module-use-counters">
- <title> <function>try_module_get()</function>/<function>module_put()</function>
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/module.h</filename></title>
-
- <para>
- These manipulate the module usage count, to protect against
- removal (a module also can't be removed if another module uses one
- of its exported symbols: see below). Before calling into module
- code, you should call <function>try_module_get()</function> on
- that module: if it fails, then the module is being removed and you
- should act as if it wasn't there. Otherwise, you can safely enter
- the module, and call <function>module_put()</function> when you're
- finished.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Most registerable structures have an
- <structfield>owner</structfield> field, such as in the
- <structname>file_operations</structname> structure. Set this field
- to the macro <symbol>THIS_MODULE</symbol>.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <!-- add info on new-style module refcounting here -->
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="queues">
- <title>Wait Queues
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/wait.h</filename>
- </title>
- <para>
- <emphasis>[SLEEPS]</emphasis>
- </para>
-
- <para>
- A wait queue is used to wait for someone to wake you up when a
- certain condition is true. They must be used carefully to ensure
- there is no race condition. You declare a
- <type>wait_queue_head_t</type>, and then processes which want to
- wait for that condition declare a <type>wait_queue_t</type>
- referring to themselves, and place that in the queue.
- </para>
-
- <sect1 id="queue-declaring">
- <title>Declaring</title>
-
- <para>
- You declare a <type>wait_queue_head_t</type> using the
- <function>DECLARE_WAIT_QUEUE_HEAD()</function> macro, or using the
- <function>init_waitqueue_head()</function> routine in your
- initialization code.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="queue-waitqueue">
- <title>Queuing</title>
-
- <para>
- Placing yourself in the waitqueue is fairly complex, because you
- must put yourself in the queue before checking the condition.
- There is a macro to do this:
- <function>wait_event_interruptible()</function>
-
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/wait.h</filename> The
- first argument is the wait queue head, and the second is an
- expression which is evaluated; the macro returns
- <returnvalue>0</returnvalue> when this expression is true, or
- <returnvalue>-ERESTARTSYS</returnvalue> if a signal is received.
- The <function>wait_event()</function> version ignores signals.
- </para>
-
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="queue-waking">
- <title>Waking Up Queued Tasks</title>
-
- <para>
- Call <function>wake_up()</function>
-
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/wait.h</filename>;,
- which will wake up every process in the queue. The exception is
- if one has <constant>TASK_EXCLUSIVE</constant> set, in which case
- the remainder of the queue will not be woken. There are other variants
- of this basic function available in the same header.
- </para>
- </sect1>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="atomic-ops">
- <title>Atomic Operations</title>
-
- <para>
- Certain operations are guaranteed atomic on all platforms. The
- first class of operations work on <type>atomic_t</type>
-
- <filename class="headerfile">include/asm/atomic.h</filename>; this
- contains a signed integer (at least 32 bits long), and you must use
- these functions to manipulate or read atomic_t variables.
- <function>atomic_read()</function> and
- <function>atomic_set()</function> get and set the counter,
- <function>atomic_add()</function>,
- <function>atomic_sub()</function>,
- <function>atomic_inc()</function>,
- <function>atomic_dec()</function>, and
- <function>atomic_dec_and_test()</function> (returns
- <returnvalue>true</returnvalue> if it was decremented to zero).
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Yes. It returns <returnvalue>true</returnvalue> (i.e. != 0) if the
- atomic variable is zero.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Note that these functions are slower than normal arithmetic, and
- so should not be used unnecessarily.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- The second class of atomic operations is atomic bit operations on an
- <type>unsigned long</type>, defined in
-
- <filename class="headerfile">include/linux/bitops.h</filename>. These
- operations generally take a pointer to the bit pattern, and a bit
- number: 0 is the least significant bit.
- <function>set_bit()</function>, <function>clear_bit()</function>
- and <function>change_bit()</function> set, clear, and flip the
- given bit. <function>test_and_set_bit()</function>,
- <function>test_and_clear_bit()</function> and
- <function>test_and_change_bit()</function> do the same thing,
- except return true if the bit was previously set; these are
- particularly useful for atomically setting flags.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- It is possible to call these operations with bit indices greater
- than BITS_PER_LONG. The resulting behavior is strange on big-en