George V. Neville-Neil

Marshall Kirk McKusick

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The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System

The Kollected Kode Vicious brings together Kode Vicious's essays on building more effective computer systems: some of the most popular and respected essays ever published by ACM's Queue Magazine. These entertaining and incisive explorations, written as Socratic Q&A dialogues, are complemented with never-before-published material that illuminate KV's broader themes and offer new advice on code spelunking and other issues. KV's essays range from very specific coding advice to wide-ranging discussions of building distributed systems, working with difficult people, and hosting code reviews. While the topics are diverse, KV's unifying and unique voice is consistent throughout. The columns in The Kollected Kode Vicious focus on five major areas: The Kode at Hand What to do or not do with a specific piece of code Systems Design Overall systems design issues Koding Konundrums Q&As about things that surround code, such as testing and documentation Machine to Machine Distributed systems and computer networking Human to Human Dealing with other people, including developers and managers Relevant both to industry newcomers and those who've been around for decades, KV's work offers practical and pragmatic advice for everyone who codes, works with code, or works with coders.

The Kollected Kode Vicious

Pragmatic, Bite-Sized Programming Advice from Koder-with-Attitude, Kode Vicious “For many years I have been a fan of the regular columns by Kode Vicious in Communications of the ACM. The topics are not only timely, they're explained with wit and elegance.” --From the Foreword by Donald E. Knuth Writing as Kode Vicious (KV), George V. Neville-Neil has spent more than 15 years sharing incisive advice and fierce insights for everyone who codes, works with code, or works with coders. Now, in The Kollected Kode Vicious, he has brought together his best essays and Socratic dialogues on the topic of building more effective computer systems. These columns have been among the most popular items published in ACM Queue magazine, as well as Communications of the ACM, and KV's entertaining and perceptive explorations are supplemented here with new material that illuminates broader themes and addresses issues relevant to every software professional. Neville-Neil cuts to the heart of the matter and offers practical takeaways for newcomers and veterans alike on the following topics: The Kode at Hand: What to do (or not to do) with a specific piece of code Koding Konundrums: Issues that surround code, such as testing and documentation Systems Design: Overall systems design topics, from abstraction and threads to security Machine to Machine: Distributed systems and computer networking Human to Human: Dealing with developers, managers, and other people Each chapter brings together letters, responses, and advice that apply directly to day-to-day problems faced by those who work in or with computing systems. While the answers to the questions posed are always written with an eye towards humor, the advice given is deadly serious. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

As in earlier Addison-Wesley books on the UNIX-based BSD operating system, Kirk McKusick and George Neville-Neil deliver here the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and authoritative technical information on the internal structure of open source FreeBSD. Readers involved in technical and sales support can learn the capabilities and limitations of the system; applications developers can learn effectively and efficiently how to interface to the system; system administrators can learn how to maintain, tune, and configure the system; and systems programmers can learn how to extend, enhance, and interface to the system. The authors provide a concise overview of FreeBSD's design and implementation. Then, while explaining key design decisions, they detail the concepts, data structures, and algorithms used in implementing the systems facilities. As a result, readers can use this book as both a practical reference and an in-depth study of a contemporary, portable, open source operating system. This book: Details the many performance improvements in the virtual memory system Describes the new symmetric multiprocessor support Includes new sections on threads and their scheduling Introduces the new jail facility to ease the hosting of multiple domains Updates information on networking and interprocess communication Already widely used for Internet services and firewalls, high-availability servers, and general timesharing systems, the lean quality of FreeBSD also suits the growing area of embedded systems. Unlike Linux, FreeBSD does not require users to publicize any changes they make to the source code.

Robert N.M. Watson

The most complete, authoritative technical guide to the FreeBSD kernel’s internal structure has now been extensively updated to cover all major improvements between Versions 5 and 11. Approximately one-third of this edition’s content is completely new, and another one-third has been extensively rewritten. Three long-time FreeBSD project leaders begin with a concise overview of the FreeBSD kernel’s current design and implementation. Next, they cover the FreeBSD kernel from the system-call level down–from the interface to the kernel to the hardware. Explaining key design decisions, they detail the concepts, data structures, and algorithms used in implementing each significant system facility, including process management, security, virtual memory, the I/O system, filesystems, socket IPC, and networking. This Second Edition • Explains highly scalable and lightweight virtualization using FreeBSD jails, and virtual-machine acceleration with Xen and Virtio device paravirtualization • Describes new security features such as Capsicum sandboxing and GELI cryptographic disk protection • Fully covers NFSv4 and Open Solaris ZFS support • Introduces FreeBSD’s enhanced volume management and new journaled soft updates • Explains DTrace’s fine-grained process debugging/profiling • Reflects major improvements to networking, wireless, and USB support Readers can use this guide as both a working reference and an in-depth study of a leading contemporary, portable, open source operating system. Technical and sales support professionals will discover both FreeBSD’s capabilities and its limitations. Applications developers will learn how to effectively and efficiently interface with it; system administrators will learn how to maintain, tune, and configure it; and systems programmers will learn how to extend, enhance, and interface with it. Marshall Kirk McKusick writes, consults, and teaches classes on UNIX- and BSD-related subjects. While at the University of California, Berkeley, he implemented the 4.2BSD fast filesystem. He was research computer scientist at the Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG), overseeing development and release of 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD. He is a FreeBSD Foundation board member and a long-time FreeBSD committer. Twice president of the Usenix Association, he is also a member of ACM, IEEE, and AAAS. George V. Neville-Neil hacks, writes, teaches, and consults on security, networking, and operating systems. A FreeBSD Foundation board member, he served on the FreeBSD Core Team for four years. Since 2004, he has written the “Kode Vicious” column for Queue and Communications of the ACM. He is vice chair of ACM’s Practitioner Board and a member of Usenix Association, ACM, IEEE, and AAAS. Robert N.M. Watson is a University Lecturer in systems, security, and architecture in the Security Research Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. He supervises advanced research in computer architecture, compilers, program analysis, operating systems, networking, and security. A FreeBSD Foundation board member, he served on the Core Team for ten years and has been a committer for fifteen years. He is a member of Usenix Association and ACM.

George V. Neville-Neil

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