Table of Contents, Show Frames, No Frames

# Chapter 14
The Linux Kernel Sources

`` This chapter describes where in the Linux kernel sources you should start looking for particular kernel functions.

This book does not depend on a knowledge of the 'C' programming language or require that you have the Linux kernel sources available in order to understand how the Linux kernel works. That said, it is a fruitful exercise to look at the kernel sources to get an in-depth understanding of the Linux operating system. This chapter gives an overview of the kernel sources; how they are arranged and where you might start to look for particular code.

## Where to Get The Linux Kernel Sources

All of the major Linux distributions ( Craftworks, Debian, Slackware, Red Hat etcetera) include the kernel sources in them. Usually the Linux kernel that got installed on your Linux system was built from those sources. By their very nature these sources tend to be a little out of date so you may want to get the latest sources from one of the web sites mentioned in chapter www-appendix. They are kept on `ftp://ftp.cs.helsinki.fi` and all of the other web sites shadow them. This makes the Helsinki web site the most up to date, but sites like MIT and Sunsite are never very far behind.

If you do not have access to the web, there are many CD ROM vendors who offer snapshots of the world's major web sites at a very reasonable cost. Some even offer a subscription service with quarterly or even monthly updates. Your local Linux User Group is also a good source of sources.

The Linux kernel sources have a very simple numbering system. Any even number kernel (for example `2.0.30`) is a stable, released, kernel and any odd numbered kernel (for example `2.1.42` is a development kernel. This book is based on the stable `2.0.30` source tree. Development kernels have all of the latest features and support all of the latest devices. Although they can be unstable, which may not be exactly what you want it, is important that the Linux community tries the latest kernels. That way they are tested for the whole community. Remember that it is always worth backing up your system thoroughly if you do try out non-production kernels.

Changes to the kernel sources are distributed as patch files. The patch utility is used to apply a series of edits to a set of source files. So, for example, if you have the 2.0.29 kernel source tree and you wanted to move to the 2.0.30 source tree, you would obtain the 2.0.30 patch file and apply the patches (edits) to that source tree:

    $ cd /usr/src/linux
    $ patch -p1 < patch-2.0.30

This saves copying whole source trees, perhaps over slow serial connections. A good source of kernel patches (official and unofficial) is the `http://www.linuxhq.com` web site.

## How The Kernel Sources Are Arranged

At the very top level of the source tree `/usr/src/linux` you will see a number of directories:

arch
  The `arch` subdirectory contains all of the architecture specific kernel code. It has further subdirectories, one per supported architecture, for example `i386` and `alpha`.
include
  The `include` subdirectory contains most of the include files needed to build the kernel code. It too has further subdirectories including one for every architecture supported. The `include/asm` subdirectory is a soft link to the real include directory needed for this architecture, for example `include/asm-i386`. To change architectures you need to edit the kernel makefile and rerun the Linux kernel configuration program.
init
  This directory contains the initialization code for the kernel and it is a very good place to start looking at how the kernel works.
mm
  This directory contains all of the memory management code. The architecture specific memory management code lives down in `arch/*/mm/`, for example `arch/i386/mm/fault.c`.
drivers
  All of the system's device drivers live in this directory. They are further sub-divided into classes of device driver, for example `block`.
ipc
  This directory contains the kernels inter-process communications code.
modules
  This is simply a directory used to hold built modules.
fs
  All of the file system code. This is further sub-divided into directories, one per supported file system, for example `vfat` and `ext2`.
kernel
  The main kernel code. Again, the architecture specific kernel code is in `arch/*/kernel`.
net
  The kernel's networking code.
lib
  This directory contains the kernel's library code. The architecture specific library code can be found in `arch/*/lib/`.
scripts
  This directory contains the scripts (for example awk and tk scripts) that are used when the kernel is configured.

## Where to Start Looking

A large complex program like the Linux kernel can be rather daunting to look at. It is rather like a large ball of string with no end showing. Looking at one part of the kernel often leads to looking at several other related files and before long you have forgotten what you were looking for. The next subsections give you a hint as to where in the source tree the best place to look is for a given subject.

### System Startup and Initialization

On an Intel based system, the kernel starts when either loadlin.exe or LILO has loaded the kernel into memory and passed control to it. Look in `arch/i386/kernel/head.S` for this part. `Head.S` does some architecture specific setup and then jumps to the `main()` routine in `init/main.c`.

### Memory Management

This code is mostly in `mm` but the architecture specific code is in `arch/*/mm`. The page fault handling code is in `mm/memory.c` and the memory mapping and page cache code is in `mm/filemap.c`. The buffer cache is implemented in `mm/buffer.c` and the swap cache in `mm/swap_state.c` and `mm/swapfile.c`.

### Kernel

Most of the relevent generic code is in `kernel` with the architecture specific code in `arch/*/kernel`. The scheduler is in `kernel/sched.c` and the fork code is in `kernel/fork.c`. The bottom half handling code is in `include/linux/interrupt.h`. The `task_struct` data structure can be found in `include/linux/sched.h`.

### PCI

The PCI pseudo driver is in `drivers/pci/pci.c` with the system wide definitions in `include/linux/pci.h`. Each architecture has some specific PCI BIOS code, Alpha AXP's is in `arch/alpha/kernel/bios32.c`.

### Interprocess Communication

This is all in `ipc`. All System V IPC objects include an `ipc_perm` data structure and this can be found in `include/linux/ipc.h`. System V messages are implemented in `ipc/msg.c`, shared memory in `ipc/shm.c` and semaphores in `ipc/sem.c`. Pipes are implemented in `ipc/pipe.c`.

### Interrupt Handling

The kernel's interrupt handling code is almost all microprocessor (and often platform) specific. The Intel interrupt handling code is in `arch/i386/kernel/irq.c` and its definitions in `include/asm-i386/irq.h`.

### Device Drivers

Most of the lines of the Linux kernel's source code are in its device drivers. All of Linux's device driver sources are held in `drivers` but these are further broken out by type:

/block
  block device drivers such as ide (in `ide.c`). If you want to look at how all of the devices that could possibly contain file systems are initialized then you should look at `device_setup()` in `drivers/block/genhd.c`. It not only initializes the hard disks but also the network as you need a network to mount `nfs` file systems. Block devices include both IDE and SCSI based devices.

/char
  This the place to look for character based devices such as `ttys`, serial ports and mice.

/cdrom
  All of the CDROM code for Linux. It is here that the special CDROM devices (such as Soundblaster CDROM) can be found. Note that the ide CD driver is `ide-cd.c` in `drivers/block` and that the SCSI CD driver is in `scsi.c` in `drivers/scsi`.

/pci
  This are the sources for the PCI pseudo-driver. A good place to look at how the PCI subsystem is mapped and initialized. The Alpha AXP PCI fixup code is also worth looking at in `arch/alpha/kernel/bios32.c`.

/scsi
  This is where to find all of the SCSI code as well as all of the drivers for the scsi devices supported by Linux.

/net
  This is where to look to find the network device drivers such as the DECChip 21040 PCI ethernet driver which is in `tulip.c`.

/sound
  This is where all of the sound card drivers are.

### File Systems

The sources for the `EXT2` file system are all in the `fs/ext2/` directory with data structure definitions in `include/linux/ext2_fs.h, ext2_fs_i.h` and `ext2_fs_sb.h`. The Virtual File System data structures are described in `include/linux/fs.h` and the code is in `fs/*`. The buffer cache is implemented in `fs/buffer.c` along with the `update` kernel daemon.

### Network

The networking code is kept in `net` with most of the include files in `include/net`. The BSD socket code is in `net/socket.c` and the IP version 4 INET socket code is in `net/ipv4/af_inet.c`. The generic protocol support code (including the `sk_buff` handling routines) is in `net/core` with the TCP/IP networking code in `net/ipv4`. The network device drivers are in `drivers/net`.

### Modules

The kernel module code is partially in the kernel and partially in the `modules` package. The kernel code is all in `kernel/modules.c` with the data structures and kernel demon `kerneld` messages in `include/linux/module.h` and `include/linux/kerneld.h` respectively. You may want to look at the structure of an `ELF` object file in `include/linux/elf.h`.

File translated from TEX by TTH, version 1.0.

Top of Chapter, Table of Contents, Show Frames, No Frames
© 1996-1999 David A Rusling copyright notice.