| This book is about the internal structure of the FreeBSD 5.2 kernel and about the concepts, data structures, and algorithms used in implementing FreeBSD's system facilities. Its level of detail is similar to that of Bach's book about UNIX System V [Bach, 1986]; however, this text focuses on the facilities, data structures, and algorithms used in the FreeBSD variant of the UNIX operating system. The book covers FreeBSD from the system-call level down from the interface to the kernel to the hardware itself. The kernel includes system facilities, such as process management, virtual memory, the I/O system, filesystems, the socket IPC mechanism, and network protocol implementations. Material above the system-call level such as libraries, shells, commands, programming languages, and other user interfaces is excluded, except for some material related to the terminal interface and to system startup. Following the organization first established by Organick's book about Multics [Organick, 1975], this book is an in-depth study of a contemporary operating system. Where particular hardware is relevant, the book refers to the Intel Personal Computer (PC) architecture. Because FreeBSD has emphasized development on the PC, that is the architecture with the most complete support, so it provides a convenient point of reference. |
