Linux kernel mirror (for testing)
git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
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kernel
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linux
1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" []>
4
5<book id="LinuxKernelAPI">
6 <bookinfo>
7 <title>The Linux Kernel API</title>
8
9 <legalnotice>
10 <para>
11 This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
12 it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
13 License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
14 version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
15 version.
16 </para>
17
18 <para>
19 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
20 useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
21 warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
22 See the GNU General Public License for more details.
23 </para>
24
25 <para>
26 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
27 License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
28 Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
29 MA 02111-1307 USA
30 </para>
31
32 <para>
33 For more details see the file COPYING in the source
34 distribution of Linux.
35 </para>
36 </legalnotice>
37 </bookinfo>
38
39<toc></toc>
40
41 <chapter id="Basics">
42 <title>Driver Basics</title>
43 <sect1><title>Driver Entry and Exit points</title>
44!Iinclude/linux/init.h
45 </sect1>
46
47 <sect1><title>Atomic and pointer manipulation</title>
48!Iinclude/asm-i386/atomic.h
49!Iinclude/asm-i386/unaligned.h
50 </sect1>
51
52 <sect1><title>Delaying, scheduling, and timer routines</title>
53!Iinclude/linux/sched.h
54!Ekernel/sched.c
55!Ekernel/timer.c
56 </sect1>
57 <sect1><title>High-resolution timers</title>
58!Iinclude/linux/ktime.h
59!Iinclude/linux/hrtimer.h
60!Ekernel/hrtimer.c
61 </sect1>
62 <sect1><title>Workqueues and Kevents</title>
63!Ekernel/workqueue.c
64 </sect1>
65 <sect1><title>Internal Functions</title>
66!Ikernel/exit.c
67!Ikernel/signal.c
68!Iinclude/linux/kthread.h
69!Ekernel/kthread.c
70 </sect1>
71
72 <sect1><title>Kernel objects manipulation</title>
73<!--
74X!Iinclude/linux/kobject.h
75-->
76!Elib/kobject.c
77 </sect1>
78
79 <sect1><title>Kernel utility functions</title>
80!Iinclude/linux/kernel.h
81!Ekernel/printk.c
82!Ekernel/panic.c
83!Ekernel/sys.c
84!Ekernel/rcupdate.c
85 </sect1>
86
87 </chapter>
88
89 <chapter id="adt">
90 <title>Data Types</title>
91 <sect1><title>Doubly Linked Lists</title>
92!Iinclude/linux/list.h
93 </sect1>
94 </chapter>
95
96 <chapter id="libc">
97 <title>Basic C Library Functions</title>
98
99 <para>
100 When writing drivers, you cannot in general use routines which are
101 from the C Library. Some of the functions have been found generally
102 useful and they are listed below. The behaviour of these functions
103 may vary slightly from those defined by ANSI, and these deviations
104 are noted in the text.
105 </para>
106
107 <sect1><title>String Conversions</title>
108!Ilib/vsprintf.c
109!Elib/vsprintf.c
110 </sect1>
111 <sect1><title>String Manipulation</title>
112<!-- All functions are exported at now
113X!Ilib/string.c
114 -->
115!Elib/string.c
116 </sect1>
117 <sect1><title>Bit Operations</title>
118!Iinclude/asm-i386/bitops.h
119 </sect1>
120 </chapter>
121
122 <chapter id="kernel-lib">
123 <title>Basic Kernel Library Functions</title>
124
125 <para>
126 The Linux kernel provides more basic utility functions.
127 </para>
128
129 <sect1><title>Bitmap Operations</title>
130!Elib/bitmap.c
131!Ilib/bitmap.c
132 </sect1>
133
134 <sect1><title>Command-line Parsing</title>
135!Elib/cmdline.c
136 </sect1>
137
138 <sect1><title>CRC Functions</title>
139!Elib/crc16.c
140!Elib/crc32.c
141!Elib/crc-ccitt.c
142 </sect1>
143 </chapter>
144
145 <chapter id="mm">
146 <title>Memory Management in Linux</title>
147 <sect1><title>The Slab Cache</title>
148!Iinclude/linux/slab.h
149!Emm/slab.c
150 </sect1>
151 <sect1><title>User Space Memory Access</title>
152!Iinclude/asm-i386/uaccess.h
153!Earch/i386/lib/usercopy.c
154 </sect1>
155 <sect1><title>More Memory Management Functions</title>
156!Iinclude/linux/rmap.h
157!Emm/readahead.c
158!Emm/filemap.c
159!Emm/memory.c
160!Emm/vmalloc.c
161!Imm/page_alloc.c
162!Emm/mempool.c
163!Emm/page-writeback.c
164!Emm/truncate.c
165 </sect1>
166 </chapter>
167
168
169 <chapter id="ipc">
170 <title>Kernel IPC facilities</title>
171
172 <sect1><title>IPC utilities</title>
173!Iipc/util.c
174 </sect1>
175 </chapter>
176
177 <chapter id="kfifo">
178 <title>FIFO Buffer</title>
179 <sect1><title>kfifo interface</title>
180!Iinclude/linux/kfifo.h
181!Ekernel/kfifo.c
182 </sect1>
183 </chapter>
184
185 <chapter id="relayfs">
186 <title>relay interface support</title>
187
188 <para>
189 Relay interface support
190 is designed to provide an efficient mechanism for tools and
191 facilities to relay large amounts of data from kernel space to
192 user space.
193 </para>
194
195 <sect1><title>relay interface</title>
196!Ekernel/relay.c
197!Ikernel/relay.c
198 </sect1>
199 </chapter>
200
201 <chapter id="netcore">
202 <title>Linux Networking</title>
203 <sect1><title>Networking Base Types</title>
204!Iinclude/linux/net.h
205 </sect1>
206 <sect1><title>Socket Buffer Functions</title>
207!Iinclude/linux/skbuff.h
208!Iinclude/net/sock.h
209!Enet/socket.c
210!Enet/core/skbuff.c
211!Enet/core/sock.c
212!Enet/core/datagram.c
213!Enet/core/stream.c
214 </sect1>
215 <sect1><title>Socket Filter</title>
216!Enet/core/filter.c
217 </sect1>
218 <sect1><title>Generic Network Statistics</title>
219!Iinclude/linux/gen_stats.h
220!Enet/core/gen_stats.c
221!Enet/core/gen_estimator.c
222 </sect1>
223 <sect1><title>SUN RPC subsystem</title>
224<!-- The !D functionality is not perfect, garbage has to be protected by comments
225!Dnet/sunrpc/sunrpc_syms.c
226-->
227!Enet/sunrpc/xdr.c
228!Enet/sunrpc/svcsock.c
229!Enet/sunrpc/sched.c
230 </sect1>
231 </chapter>
232
233 <chapter id="netdev">
234 <title>Network device support</title>
235 <sect1><title>Driver Support</title>
236!Enet/core/dev.c
237!Enet/ethernet/eth.c
238!Iinclude/linux/etherdevice.h
239<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
240X!Enet/core/wireless.c
241-->
242 </sect1>
243 <sect1><title>Synchronous PPP</title>
244!Edrivers/net/wan/syncppp.c
245 </sect1>
246 </chapter>
247
248 <chapter id="modload">
249 <title>Module Support</title>
250 <sect1><title>Module Loading</title>
251!Ekernel/kmod.c
252 </sect1>
253 <sect1><title>Inter Module support</title>
254 <para>
255 Refer to the file kernel/module.c for more information.
256 </para>
257<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
258X!Ekernel/module.c
259-->
260 </sect1>
261 </chapter>
262
263 <chapter id="hardware">
264 <title>Hardware Interfaces</title>
265 <sect1><title>Interrupt Handling</title>
266!Ekernel/irq/manage.c
267 </sect1>
268
269 <sect1><title>DMA Channels</title>
270!Ekernel/dma.c
271 </sect1>
272
273 <sect1><title>Resources Management</title>
274!Ikernel/resource.c
275!Ekernel/resource.c
276 </sect1>
277
278 <sect1><title>MTRR Handling</title>
279!Earch/i386/kernel/cpu/mtrr/main.c
280 </sect1>
281
282 <sect1><title>PCI Support Library</title>
283!Edrivers/pci/pci.c
284!Edrivers/pci/pci-driver.c
285!Edrivers/pci/remove.c
286!Edrivers/pci/pci-acpi.c
287!Edrivers/pci/search.c
288!Edrivers/pci/msi.c
289!Edrivers/pci/bus.c
290<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
291X!Edrivers/pci/hotplug.c
292-->
293!Edrivers/pci/probe.c
294!Edrivers/pci/rom.c
295 </sect1>
296 <sect1><title>PCI Hotplug Support Library</title>
297!Edrivers/pci/hotplug/pci_hotplug_core.c
298 </sect1>
299 <sect1><title>MCA Architecture</title>
300 <sect2><title>MCA Device Functions</title>
301 <para>
302 Refer to the file arch/i386/kernel/mca.c for more information.
303 </para>
304<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
305X!Earch/i386/kernel/mca.c
306-->
307 </sect2>
308 <sect2><title>MCA Bus DMA</title>
309!Iinclude/asm-i386/mca_dma.h
310 </sect2>
311 </sect1>
312 </chapter>
313
314 <chapter id="firmware">
315 <title>Firmware Interfaces</title>
316 <sect1><title>DMI Interfaces</title>
317!Edrivers/firmware/dmi_scan.c
318 </sect1>
319 <sect1><title>EDD Interfaces</title>
320!Idrivers/firmware/edd.c
321 </sect1>
322 </chapter>
323
324 <chapter id="security">
325 <title>Security Framework</title>
326!Esecurity/security.c
327 </chapter>
328
329 <chapter id="audit">
330 <title>Audit Interfaces</title>
331!Ekernel/audit.c
332!Ikernel/auditsc.c
333!Ikernel/auditfilter.c
334 </chapter>
335
336 <chapter id="accounting">
337 <title>Accounting Framework</title>
338!Ikernel/acct.c
339 </chapter>
340
341 <chapter id="pmfuncs">
342 <title>Power Management</title>
343!Ekernel/power/pm.c
344 </chapter>
345
346 <chapter id="devdrivers">
347 <title>Device drivers infrastructure</title>
348 <sect1><title>Device Drivers Base</title>
349<!--
350X!Iinclude/linux/device.h
351-->
352!Edrivers/base/driver.c
353!Edrivers/base/core.c
354!Edrivers/base/class.c
355!Edrivers/base/firmware_class.c
356!Edrivers/base/transport_class.c
357!Edrivers/base/dmapool.c
358<!-- Cannot be included, because
359 attribute_container_add_class_device_adapter
360 and attribute_container_classdev_to_container
361 exceed allowed 44 characters maximum
362X!Edrivers/base/attribute_container.c
363-->
364!Edrivers/base/sys.c
365<!--
366X!Edrivers/base/interface.c
367-->
368!Edrivers/base/platform.c
369!Edrivers/base/bus.c
370 </sect1>
371 <sect1><title>Device Drivers Power Management</title>
372!Edrivers/base/power/main.c
373!Edrivers/base/power/resume.c
374!Edrivers/base/power/suspend.c
375 </sect1>
376 <sect1><title>Device Drivers ACPI Support</title>
377<!-- Internal functions only
378X!Edrivers/acpi/sleep/main.c
379X!Edrivers/acpi/sleep/wakeup.c
380X!Edrivers/acpi/motherboard.c
381X!Edrivers/acpi/bus.c
382-->
383!Edrivers/acpi/scan.c
384!Idrivers/acpi/scan.c
385<!-- No correct structured comments
386X!Edrivers/acpi/pci_bind.c
387-->
388 </sect1>
389 <sect1><title>Device drivers PnP support</title>
390!Edrivers/pnp/core.c
391<!-- No correct structured comments
392X!Edrivers/pnp/system.c
393 -->
394!Edrivers/pnp/card.c
395!Edrivers/pnp/driver.c
396!Edrivers/pnp/manager.c
397!Edrivers/pnp/support.c
398 </sect1>
399 </chapter>
400
401 <chapter id="blkdev">
402 <title>Block Devices</title>
403!Eblock/ll_rw_blk.c
404 </chapter>
405
406 <chapter id="chrdev">
407 <title>Char devices</title>
408!Efs/char_dev.c
409 </chapter>
410
411 <chapter id="miscdev">
412 <title>Miscellaneous Devices</title>
413!Edrivers/char/misc.c
414 </chapter>
415
416 <chapter id="parportdev">
417 <title>Parallel Port Devices</title>
418!Iinclude/linux/parport.h
419!Edrivers/parport/ieee1284.c
420!Edrivers/parport/share.c
421!Idrivers/parport/daisy.c
422 </chapter>
423
424 <chapter id="message_devices">
425 <title>Message-based devices</title>
426 <sect1><title>Fusion message devices</title>
427!Edrivers/message/fusion/mptbase.c
428!Idrivers/message/fusion/mptbase.c
429!Edrivers/message/fusion/mptscsih.c
430!Idrivers/message/fusion/mptscsih.c
431!Idrivers/message/fusion/mptctl.c
432!Idrivers/message/fusion/mptspi.c
433!Idrivers/message/fusion/mptfc.c
434!Idrivers/message/fusion/mptlan.c
435 </sect1>
436 <sect1><title>I2O message devices</title>
437!Iinclude/linux/i2o.h
438!Idrivers/message/i2o/core.h
439!Edrivers/message/i2o/iop.c
440!Idrivers/message/i2o/iop.c
441!Idrivers/message/i2o/config-osm.c
442!Edrivers/message/i2o/exec-osm.c
443!Idrivers/message/i2o/exec-osm.c
444!Idrivers/message/i2o/bus-osm.c
445!Edrivers/message/i2o/device.c
446!Idrivers/message/i2o/device.c
447!Idrivers/message/i2o/driver.c
448!Idrivers/message/i2o/pci.c
449!Idrivers/message/i2o/i2o_block.c
450!Idrivers/message/i2o/i2o_scsi.c
451!Idrivers/message/i2o/i2o_proc.c
452 </sect1>
453 </chapter>
454
455 <chapter id="snddev">
456 <title>Sound Devices</title>
457!Iinclude/sound/core.h
458!Esound/sound_core.c
459!Iinclude/sound/pcm.h
460!Esound/core/pcm.c
461!Esound/core/device.c
462!Esound/core/info.c
463!Esound/core/rawmidi.c
464!Esound/core/sound.c
465!Esound/core/memory.c
466!Esound/core/pcm_memory.c
467!Esound/core/init.c
468!Esound/core/isadma.c
469!Esound/core/control.c
470!Esound/core/pcm_lib.c
471!Esound/core/hwdep.c
472!Esound/core/pcm_native.c
473!Esound/core/memalloc.c
474<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
475X!Isound/sound_firmware.c
476-->
477 </chapter>
478
479 <chapter id="uart16x50">
480 <title>16x50 UART Driver</title>
481!Iinclude/linux/serial_core.h
482!Edrivers/serial/serial_core.c
483!Edrivers/serial/8250.c
484 </chapter>
485
486 <chapter id="z85230">
487 <title>Z85230 Support Library</title>
488!Edrivers/net/wan/z85230.c
489 </chapter>
490
491 <chapter id="fbdev">
492 <title>Frame Buffer Library</title>
493
494 <para>
495 The frame buffer drivers depend heavily on four data structures.
496 These structures are declared in include/linux/fb.h. They are
497 fb_info, fb_var_screeninfo, fb_fix_screeninfo and fb_monospecs.
498 The last three can be made available to and from userland.
499 </para>
500
501 <para>
502 fb_info defines the current state of a particular video card.
503 Inside fb_info, there exists a fb_ops structure which is a
504 collection of needed functions to make fbdev and fbcon work.
505 fb_info is only visible to the kernel.
506 </para>
507
508 <para>
509 fb_var_screeninfo is used to describe the features of a video card
510 that are user defined. With fb_var_screeninfo, things such as
511 depth and the resolution may be defined.
512 </para>
513
514 <para>
515 The next structure is fb_fix_screeninfo. This defines the
516 properties of a card that are created when a mode is set and can't
517 be changed otherwise. A good example of this is the start of the
518 frame buffer memory. This "locks" the address of the frame buffer
519 memory, so that it cannot be changed or moved.
520 </para>
521
522 <para>
523 The last structure is fb_monospecs. In the old API, there was
524 little importance for fb_monospecs. This allowed for forbidden things
525 such as setting a mode of 800x600 on a fix frequency monitor. With
526 the new API, fb_monospecs prevents such things, and if used
527 correctly, can prevent a monitor from being cooked. fb_monospecs
528 will not be useful until kernels 2.5.x.
529 </para>
530
531 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Memory</title>
532!Edrivers/video/fbmem.c
533 </sect1>
534<!--
535 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Console</title>
536X!Edrivers/video/console/fbcon.c
537 </sect1>
538-->
539 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Colormap</title>
540!Edrivers/video/fbcmap.c
541 </sect1>
542<!-- FIXME:
543 drivers/video/fbgen.c has no docs, which stuffs up the sgml. Comment
544 out until somebody adds docs. KAO
545 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Generic Functions</title>
546X!Idrivers/video/fbgen.c
547 </sect1>
548KAO -->
549 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Video Mode Database</title>
550!Idrivers/video/modedb.c
551!Edrivers/video/modedb.c
552 </sect1>
553 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Macintosh Video Mode Database</title>
554!Edrivers/video/macmodes.c
555 </sect1>
556 <sect1><title>Frame Buffer Fonts</title>
557 <para>
558 Refer to the file drivers/video/console/fonts.c for more information.
559 </para>
560<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
561X!Idrivers/video/console/fonts.c
562-->
563 </sect1>
564 </chapter>
565
566 <chapter id="input_subsystem">
567 <title>Input Subsystem</title>
568!Iinclude/linux/input.h
569!Edrivers/input/input.c
570!Edrivers/input/ff-core.c
571!Edrivers/input/ff-memless.c
572 </chapter>
573</book>