3 Index of Documentation for People Interested in Writing and/or Understanding the Linux Kernel
4 =============================================================================================
6 Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche <jmseyas@dit.upm.es>
8 The need for a document like this one became apparent in the
9 linux-kernel mailing list as the same questions, asking for pointers
10 to information, appeared again and again.
12 Fortunately, as more and more people get to GNU/Linux, more and more
13 get interested in the Kernel. But reading the sources is not always
14 enough. It is easy to understand the code, but miss the concepts, the
15 philosophy and design decisions behind this code.
17 Unfortunately, not many documents are available for beginners to
18 start. And, even if they exist, there was no "well-known" place which
19 kept track of them. These lines try to cover this lack. All documents
20 available on line known by the author are listed, while some reference
21 books are also mentioned.
23 PLEASE, if you know any paper not listed here or write a new document,
24 send me an e-mail, and I'll include a reference to it here. Any
25 corrections, ideas or comments are also welcomed.
27 The papers that follow are listed in no particular order. All are
28 cataloged with the following fields: the document's "Title", the
29 "Author"/s, the "URL" where they can be found, some "Keywords" helpful
30 when searching for specific topics, and a brief "Description" of the
37 The documents on each section of this document are ordered by its
38 published date, from the newest to the oldest.
40 Docs at the Linux Kernel tree
41 -----------------------------
43 The Sphinx books should be built with ``make {htmldocs | pdfdocs | epubdocs}``.
45 * Name: **linux/Documentation**
48 :Location: Documentation/
49 :Keywords: text files, Sphinx.
50 :Description: Documentation that comes with the kernel sources,
51 inside the Documentation directory. Some pages from this document
52 (including this document itself) have been moved there, and might
53 be more up to date than the web version.
58 * Title: **Linux Kernel Mailing List Glossary**
61 :URL: https://kernelnewbies.org/KernelGlossary
62 :Date: rolling version
63 :Keywords: glossary, terms, linux-kernel.
64 :Description: From the introduction: "This glossary is intended as
65 a brief description of some of the acronyms and terms you may hear
66 during discussion of the Linux kernel".
68 * Title: **Tracing the Way of Data in a TCP Connection through the Linux Kernel**
70 :Author: Richard Sailer
71 :URL: https://archive.org/details/linux_kernel_data_flow_short_paper
73 :Keywords: Linux Kernel Networking, TCP, tracing, ftrace
74 :Description: A seminar paper explaining ftrace and how to use it for
75 understanding linux kernel internals,
76 illustrated at tracing the way of a TCP packet through the kernel.
77 :Abstract: *This short paper outlines the usage of ftrace a tracing framework
78 as a tool to understand a running Linux system.
79 Having obtained a trace-log a kernel hacker can read and understand
80 source code more determined and with context.
81 In a detailed example this approach is demonstrated in tracing
82 and the way of data in a TCP Connection through the kernel.
83 Finally this trace-log is used as base for more a exact conceptual
84 exploration and description of the Linux TCP/IP implementation.*
86 * Title: **On submitting kernel Patches**
89 :URL: http://halobates.de/on-submitting-kernel-patches.pdf
91 :Keywords: patches, review process, types of submissions, basic rules, case studies
92 :Description: This paper gives several experience values on what types of patches
93 there are and how likely they get merged.
95 [...]. This paper examines some common problems for
96 submitting larger changes and some strategies to avoid problems.
98 * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition**
100 :Author: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Kroah-Hartman
101 :URL: https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
103 :Description: A 600-page book covering the (2.6.10) driver
104 programming API and kernel hacking in general. Available under the
105 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
106 :note: You can also :ref:`purchase a copy from O'Reilly or elsewhere <ldd3_published>`.
108 * Title: **Writing an ALSA Driver**
110 :Author: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
111 :URL: http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/writing-an-alsa-driver/index.html
113 :Keywords: ALSA, sound, soundcard, driver, lowlevel, hardware.
114 :Description: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture for developers,
115 both at kernel and user-level sides. ALSA is the Linux kernel
116 sound architecture in the 2.6 kernel version.
118 * Title: **Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide**
120 :Author: David Hinds.
121 :URL: http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-PROG.html
124 :Description: "This document describes how to write kernel device
125 drivers for the Linux PCMCIA Card Services interface. It also
126 describes how to write user-mode utilities for communicating with
129 * Title: **The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide**
131 :Author: Peter Jay Salzman, Michael Burian, Ori Pomerantz, Bob Mottram,
133 :URL: https://sysprog21.github.io/lkmpg/
135 :Keywords: modules, GPL book, /proc, ioctls, system calls,
137 :Description: A very nice GPL book on the topic of modules
138 programming. Lots of examples. Currently the new version is being
139 actively maintained at https://github.com/sysprog21/lkmpg.
141 * Title: **Global spinlock list and usage**
143 :Author: Rick Lindsley.
144 :URL: http://lse.sourceforge.net/lockhier/global-spin-lock
147 :Description: This is an attempt to document both the existence and
148 usage of the spinlocks in the Linux 2.4.5 kernel. Comprehensive
149 list of spinlocks showing when they are used, which functions
150 access them, how each lock is acquired, under what conditions it
151 is held, whether interrupts can occur or not while it is held...
153 * Title: **A Linux vm README**
155 :Author: Kanoj Sarcar.
156 :URL: http://kos.enix.org/pub/linux-vmm.html
158 :Keywords: virtual memory, mm, pgd, vma, page, page flags, page
159 cache, swap cache, kswapd.
160 :Description: Telegraphic, short descriptions and definitions
161 relating the Linux virtual memory implementation.
163 * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 1: Video-Capture Device**
166 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/406
168 :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
170 :Description: The title says it all.
172 * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 2: Video-capture Devices**
175 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/429
177 :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
178 camera driver, control, query capabilities, capability, facility.
179 :Description: The title says it all.
181 * Title: **Linux IP Networking. A Guide to the Implementation and Modification of the Linux Protocol Stack.**
183 :Author: Glenn Herrin.
184 :URL: http://www.cs.unh.edu/cnrg/gherrin
186 :Keywords: network, networking, protocol, IP, UDP, TCP, connection,
187 socket, receiving, transmitting, forwarding, routing, packets,
188 modules, /proc, sk_buff, FIB, tags.
189 :Description: Excellent paper devoted to the Linux IP Networking,
190 explaining anything from the kernel's to the user space
191 configuration tools' code. Very good to get a general overview of
192 the kernel networking implementation and understand all steps
193 packets follow from the time they are received at the network
194 device till they are delivered to applications. The studied kernel
195 code is from 2.2.14 version. Provides code for a working packet
198 * Title: **How To Make Sure Your Driver Will Work On The Power Macintosh**
200 :Author: Paul Mackerras.
201 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/261
203 :Keywords: Mac, Power Macintosh, porting, drivers, compatibility.
204 :Description: The title says it all.
206 * Title: **An Introduction to SCSI Drivers**
209 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/284
211 :Keywords: SCSI, device, driver.
212 :Description: The title says it all.
214 * Title: **Advanced SCSI Drivers And Other Tales**
217 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/307
219 :Keywords: SCSI, device, driver, advanced.
220 :Description: The title says it all.
222 * Title: **Writing Linux Mouse Drivers**
225 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/330
227 :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm.
228 :Description: The title says it all.
230 * Title: **More on Mouse Drivers**
233 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/356
235 :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm, races, asynchronous I/O.
236 :Description: The title still says it all.
238 * Title: **Writing Video4linux Radio Driver**
241 :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/381
243 :Keywords: video4linux, driver, radio, radio devices.
244 :Description: The title says it all.
246 * Title: **I/O Event Handling Under Linux**
248 :Author: Richard Gooch.
249 :URL: https://web.mit.edu/~yandros/doc/io-events.html
251 :Keywords: IO, I/O, select(2), poll(2), FDs, aio_read(2), readiness
253 :Description: From the Introduction: "I/O Event handling is about
254 how your Operating System allows you to manage a large number of
255 open files (file descriptors in UNIX/POSIX, or FDs) in your
256 application. You want the OS to notify you when FDs become active
257 (have data ready to be read or are ready for writing). Ideally you
258 want a mechanism that is scalable. This means a large number of
259 inactive FDs cost very little in memory and CPU time to manage".
261 * Title: **(nearly) Complete Linux Loadable Kernel Modules. The definitive guide for hackers, virus coders and system administrators.**
263 :Author: pragmatic/THC.
264 :URL: http://packetstormsecurity.org/docs/hack/LKM_HACKING.html
266 :Keywords: syscalls, intercept, hide, abuse, symbol table.
267 :Description: Interesting paper on how to abuse the Linux kernel in
268 order to intercept and modify syscalls, make
269 files/directories/processes invisible, become root, hijack ttys,
270 write kernel modules based virus... and solutions for admins to
271 avoid all those abuses.
272 :Notes: For 2.0.x kernels. Gives guidances to port it to 2.2.x
275 * Name: **Linux Virtual File System**
277 :Author: Peter J. Braam.
278 :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/talks/linuxvfs/
280 :Keywords: slides, VFS, inode, superblock, dentry, dcache.
281 :Description: Set of slides, presumably from a presentation on the
282 Linux VFS layer. Covers version 2.1.x, with dentries and the
285 * Title: **The Venus kernel interface**
287 :Author: Peter J. Braam.
288 :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/html/kernel-venus-protocol.html
290 :Keywords: coda, filesystem, venus, cache manager.
291 :Description: "This document describes the communication between
292 Venus and kernel level file system code needed for the operation
293 of the Coda filesystem. This version document is meant to describe
294 the current interface (version 1.0) as well as improvements we
297 * Title: **Design and Implementation of the Second Extended Filesystem**
299 :Author: Rémy Card, Theodore Ts'o, Stephen Tweedie.
300 :URL: https://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2intro.html
302 :Keywords: ext2, linux fs history, inode, directory, link, devices,
303 VFS, physical structure, performance, benchmarks, ext2fs library,
304 ext2fs tools, e2fsck.
305 :Description: Paper written by three of the top ext2 hackers.
306 Covers Linux filesystems history, ext2 motivation, ext2 features,
307 design, physical structure on disk, performance, benchmarks,
308 e2fsck's passes description... A must read!
309 :Notes: This paper was first published in the Proceedings of the
310 First Dutch International Symposium on Linux, ISBN 90-367-0385-9.
312 * Title: **The Linux RAID-1, 4, 5 Code**
314 :Author: Ingo Molnar, Gadi Oxman and Miguel de Icaza.
315 :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2391
317 :Keywords: RAID, MD driver.
318 :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article.
319 :Abstract: *A description of the implementation of the RAID-1,
320 RAID-4 and RAID-5 personalities of the MD device driver in the
321 Linux kernel, providing users with high performance and reliable,
322 secondary-storage capability using software*.
324 * Title: **Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide**
326 :Author: Michael K. Johnson.
327 :URL: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/khg.html
329 :Keywords: device drivers, files, VFS, kernel interface, character vs
330 block devices, hardware interrupts, scsi, DMA, access to user memory,
331 memory allocation, timers.
332 :Description: A guide designed to help you get up to speed on the
333 concepts that are not intuitively obvious, and to document the internal
336 * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Modularized Device Drivers**
338 :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
339 :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1219
341 :Keywords: device driver, module, loading/unloading modules,
342 allocating resources.
343 :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article.
344 :Abstract: *This is the first of a series of four articles
345 co-authored by Alessandro Rubini and Georg Zezchwitz which present
346 a practical approach to writing Linux device drivers as kernel
347 loadable modules. This installment presents an introduction to the
348 topic, preparing the reader to understand next month's
351 * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Discovery**
353 :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
354 :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1220
356 :Keywords: character driver, init_module, clean_up module,
357 autodetection, mayor number, minor number, file operations,
359 :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article.
360 :Abstract: *This article, the second of four, introduces part of
361 the actual code to create custom module implementing a character
362 device driver. It describes the code for module initialization and
363 cleanup, as well as the open() and close() system calls*.
365 * Title: **The Devil's in the Details**
367 :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz and Alessandro Rubini.
368 :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1221
370 :Keywords: read(), write(), select(), ioctl(), blocking/non
371 blocking mode, interrupt handler.
372 :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article.
373 :Abstract: *This article, the third of four on writing character
374 device drivers, introduces concepts of reading, writing, and using
377 * Title: **Dissecting Interrupts and Browsing DMA**
379 :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Georg v. Zezschwitz.
380 :URL: https://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1222
382 :Keywords: interrupts, irqs, DMA, bottom halves, task queues.
383 :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article.
384 :Abstract: *This is the fourth in a series of articles about
385 writing character device drivers as loadable kernel modules. This
386 month, we further investigate the field of interrupt handling.
387 Though it is conceptually simple, practical limitations and
388 constraints make this an ''interesting'' part of device driver
389 writing, and several different facilities have been provided for
390 different situations. We also investigate the complex topic of
393 * Title: **Device Drivers Concluded**
395 :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz.
396 :URL: https://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1287
398 :Keywords: address spaces, pages, pagination, page management,
399 demand loading, swapping, memory protection, memory mapping, mmap,
400 virtual memory areas (VMAs), vremap, PCI.
401 :Description: Finally, the above turned out into a five articles
402 series. This latest one's introduction reads: "This is the last of
403 five articles about character device drivers. In this final
404 section, Georg deals with memory mapping devices, beginning with
405 an overall description of the Linux memory management concepts".
407 * Title: **Network Buffers And Memory Management**
410 :URL: https://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1312
412 :Keywords: sk_buffs, network devices, protocol/link layer
413 variables, network devices flags, transmit, receive,
414 configuration, multicast.
415 :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner.
416 :Abstract: *Writing a network device driver for Linux is fundamentally
417 simple---most of the complexity (other than talking to the
418 hardware) involves managing network packets in memory*.
420 * Title: **Analysis of the Ext2fs structure**
422 :Author: Louis-Dominique Dubeau.
423 :URL: https://teaching.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/CITS2002/fs-ext2/
425 :Keywords: ext2, filesystem, ext2fs.
426 :Description: Description of ext2's blocks, directories, inodes,
427 bitmaps, invariants...
432 * Title: **Linux Treiber entwickeln**
434 :Author: Jürgen Quade, Eva-Katharina Kunst
435 :Publisher: dpunkt.verlag
436 :Date: Oct 2015 (4th edition)
438 :ISBN: 978-3-86490-288-8
439 :Note: German. The third edition from 2011 is
440 much cheaper and still quite up-to-date.
442 * Title: **Linux Kernel Networking: Implementation and Theory**
446 :Date: December 22, 2013
448 :ISBN: 978-1430261964
450 * Title: **Embedded Linux Primer: A practical Real-World Approach, 2nd Edition**
452 :Author: Christopher Hallinan
454 :Date: November, 2010
456 :ISBN: 978-0137017836
458 * Title: **Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Edition**
461 :Publisher: Addison-Wesley
464 :ISBN: 978-0672329463
466 * Title: **Essential Linux Device Drivers**
468 :Author: Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran
469 :Published: Prentice Hall
472 :ISBN: 978-0132396554
476 * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition**
478 :Authors: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman
479 :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates
483 :Notes: Further information in
484 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive3/
485 PDF format, URL: https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
487 * Title: **Linux Kernel Internals**
489 :Author: Michael Beck
490 :Publisher: Addison-Wesley
492 :ISBN: 0-201-33143-8 (second edition)
494 * Title: **Programmation Linux 2.0 API systeme et fonctionnement du noyau**
496 :Author: Remy Card, Eric Dumas, Franck Mevel
503 * Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD UNIX Operating System**
505 :Author: Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels,
507 :Publisher: Addison-Wesley
511 * Title: **Unix internals -- the new frontiers**
513 :Author: Uresh Vahalia
514 :Publisher: Prentice Hall
519 * Title: **Programming for the real world - POSIX.4**
521 :Author: Bill O. Gallmeister
522 :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc
526 :Notes: Though not being directly about Linux, Linux aims to be
527 POSIX. Good reference.
529 * Title: **UNIX Systems for Modern Architectures: Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching for Kernel Programmers**
531 :Author: Curt Schimmel
532 :Publisher: Addison Wesley
537 * Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD UNIX Operating System**
539 :Author: Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J
540 Karels, John S. Quarterman
541 :Publisher: Addison-Wesley
542 :Date: 1989 (reprinted with corrections on October, 1990)
545 * Title: **The Design of the UNIX Operating System**
547 :Author: Maurice J. Bach
548 :Publisher: Prentice Hall
556 * Name: **Cross-Referencing Linux**
558 :URL: https://elixir.bootlin.com/
559 :Keywords: Browsing source code.
560 :Description: Another web-based Linux kernel source code browser.
561 Lots of cross references to variables and functions. You can see
562 where they are defined and where they are used.
564 * Name: **Linux Weekly News**
566 :URL: https://lwn.net
567 :Keywords: latest kernel news.
568 :Description: The title says it all. There's a fixed kernel section
569 summarizing developers' work, bug fixes, new features and versions
570 produced during the week. Published every Thursday.
572 * Name: **The home page of Linux-MM**
574 :Author: The Linux-MM team.
575 :URL: https://linux-mm.org/
576 :Keywords: memory management, Linux-MM, mm patches, TODO, docs,
578 :Description: Site devoted to Linux Memory Management development.
579 Memory related patches, HOWTOs, links, mm developers... Don't miss
580 it if you are interested in memory management development!
582 * Name: **Kernel Newbies IRC Channel and Website**
584 :URL: https://www.kernelnewbies.org
585 :Keywords: IRC, newbies, channel, asking doubts.
586 :Description: #kernelnewbies on irc.oftc.net.
587 #kernelnewbies is an IRC network dedicated to the 'newbie'
588 kernel hacker. The audience mostly consists of people who are
589 learning about the kernel, working on kernel projects or
590 professional kernel hackers that want to help less seasoned kernel
592 #kernelnewbies is on the OFTC IRC Network.
593 Try irc.oftc.net as your server and then /join #kernelnewbies.
594 The kernelnewbies website also hosts articles, documents, FAQs...
596 * Name: **linux-kernel mailing list archives and search engines**
598 :URL: http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html
599 :URL: http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/index.html
600 :URL: http://groups.google.com/group/mlist.linux.kernel
601 :Keywords: linux-kernel, archives, search.
602 :Description: Some of the linux-kernel mailing list archivers. If
603 you have a better/another one, please let me know.
607 Document last updated on Tue 2016-Sep-20
609 This document is based on:
610 https://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html