As the title has said, I'm looking for how I can read/write blocks directly to disk in linux kernel space (bypassing the file system) and directly interact with block IO layer.
After reading through some kernel codes, I realize bio is the structure I should be using to achieve such goal in block IO layer. But I don't quite understand the structures of bio and haven't figure out how exactly I can do that.
Any helps? Thank you
If you're only doing something simple, you don't really need to mess with BIO. What you can do instead is to simply open the block device (/dev/whatever) as if it was a file. The kernel will do the right thing and will give you the "thin" wrapper for read/write operations.
In regard to opening the file from the kernel space, there are few questions here, already answered, like this one:
How to read/write files within a Linux kernel module?
If you want to do anything more fancy, you will have to study the sources of the FS drivers (in the fs/ subdirectory) to hunt for examples.
In case anyone is interested in doing this with Node.js, we released a native add on yesterday with helpers for opening and working with block devices: https://github.com/ronomon/direct-io
Related
I am trying to edit the linux kernel. I want some information to be written out to a file as a part of the debugging process. I have read about the printk function. But i would like to add text to a particular file (file other from the default files that keep debug logs).
To cut it short: I would kind of like to specify the "destination" in the printk function (or at least some work-around it)
How can I achieve this? Will using fwrite/fopen work (if yes, will it work without causing much overhead compared to printk, since they are implemented differently)?
What other options do i have?
Using fopen and fwrite will certainly not work. Working with files in kernel space is generally a bad idea.
It all really depends on what you are doing in the kernel though. In some configurations, there may not even be a hard disk for you to write to. If however, you are working at a stage where you can have certain assumptions about the running kernel, you probably actually want to write a kernel module rather than edit the kernel itself. For all you care, a kernel module is just as good as any other part of the kernel, but they are inserted when the kernel is already up and running.
You may also be thinking of doing so for debugging, or have output of a kernel-level application (e.g. an application that you are forced to run at kernel level for real-time constraints etc). In that case, kio may be of interest to you, but if you want to use it, do make sure you understand why.
kio is a library I wrote just for those "kernel-level applications", which makes a kernel module see a /proc file as if it's a user of it (rather than a provider). To make it work, you should have a user-space application also opening that virtual file and redirect it to wherever you want to write your log. Something along the lines of opening the file with kopen in write mode and in user space tell cat /proc/your_file > ~/log_file.
Note: I still recommend printk unless you really know what you are doing. Since you are thinking of fopen in kernel space, I don't think you really know what you are doing.
I'm working an a system with embedded Linux (Kernel 2.6.31).
It is a AT91SAM9G20 chip inside, and some of the Pins are forwarded to the outside.
Now I want to use them as GPIO Inputs.
I read the gpio.txt documentation about using the GPIOs via filesystem, and that works very well 'til here. I connected some switches to the gpio-pins and I can see the result in /sys/class/gpio/gpioX/value. But now I'd like to react on a change without busy-waiting in a loop. (i.e echo "Switch1 was pressed").
I guess I need interrupts here, but I couldn't find out how to use them without writing my own kernel driver. I'm relatively new to Linux and C (I normally program in Java), so I'd like to handle the Interrupts via sysfs too. But my problem is, that there is no "edge"-file in my GPIO directory (I guess because this is only since Kernel version 2.6.33+). Is that right? Instead of "edge" I've got a uevent file in there, which is not described in gpio.txt.
In the gpio.txt documentation there was a Standard Kernel Driver mentioned: "gpio_keys". Is it possible to use this for my problem?
I guess it would be better to work with this driver than allowing a userspace program to manipulate kernel tasks.
I found a lot of codesnippets for writing my own driver, but I wasn't even able to find out which of the 600 gpio.h files to include, and how to refer to the library (cross compiler couldn't find the gpio.h file).
Sorry for newbie questions, I hope you could give me some advices.
Thanks in advance
See this for an example on how to do that. Basically, the thing you're missing is the usage of the select or poll system calls.
I'm writing a patch for VFS FAT implmentation on kernel 3.0
I want to add posix attributes to FAT files that are created in linux.
to achive that, I must save a file that contains all the relevant information on the mounted drive.
I know that reading and writing files from kernel space is something normally shouldn't be done, and I'm looking for another way to read/write the data.
I saw articles on the net that suggested to use /proc or to create a userspace daemon that will do the IO for me. I wanted to know if anyone saw or know where can I look at an implmentation of a thing like that,because I didn't find any examples for that over the net.
I'm not looking for a read/write to proc example, I want to see an entire solution for this issue.
Have a look at the quota implementation; this is a mechanism (ok, presumably not available on vfat) which reads/writes files from the kernel.
Additionally, the "loop" block device is another example of a kernel facility which does file IO.
I have a piece of C code which with a chunk of memory(static array) can mimic file operations (It has APIs similar to fopen/fclose etc). So, any code that is compiled with this mimicking FileSystem can use these APIs as a FileSystem for all their needs :)
But I was wondering, if its possible somehow to register these APIs with Linux system/mouning this File system, and hence enabling any client to use this FS by using normal FileSystem calls (without any need of statically linking it with the My_FileSystem).
While searching for a solution, I came across this idea of making my_FileSystem as a Driver!!! =>
Is it possible to compile my code as a device driver (with the memory chunk in the driver) and mount this File_system # say "/mnt/MyFs", and divert FileSystem calls like USB drivers do? (If this can be done, can you please explain how its done or point me to somewhere I can read about this).
I don't want to add these as new System calls and recompile the kernel (And making life of ppl wanting to use this difficult).
This is mainly for embedded systems running Linux... But other suggestions are also welcome. :)
Thank You,
MicroKernel :)
Look at FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace), especially on examples. Its quite easy...
Take a look at tmpfs and ramfs. These already ship with Linux and do all that you're trying to do and more. I don't think either of them would be too expensive for an embedded system.
I would consider PlasticFS, but that will work reliably only if everything uses system C library (i.e. no statically linked binaries).
deal all,
i am a newbie for writing Linux Kernel Module.
i used printk function in linux kernel source code (2.4.29) for debugging and display messages.
now, i have to read all the messages i added via httpd.
i tried to write the messages into a file instead of printk function, so i can read the file directly.
but it's not work very well.
so, i have a stupid question...
is it possible to write a LKM to monitor the syslog and rewrite into another file??
i mean is that possible to let a LKM the aware the messages when each time the linux kernel execute "printk"??
thanks a lot
That is the wrong way to do it, because printk already does this : it writes in the file /proc/kmsg.
What you want is klogd, a user space utility dealing with /proc/kmsg.
Another options is to use dmesg, which will output the whole content of the kernel buffers holding the printk messages, but I suggest you first read the linked article
You never, ever, ever want to try to open a file on a user space mounted block file system from within the kernel. Imagine if the FS aborted and the kernel was still trying to write to it .. kaboom (amongst MANY other reasons why its a bad idea) :) As shodanex said, for your purposes, its much better to use klogd.
Now, generally speaking, you have several ways to communicate meaningful data to userspace programs, such as:
Create a character device driver that causes userspace readers to block while waiting for data. Provide an ioctl() interface to it which lets other programs find out how many messages have been sent, etc.
Create a node in /proc/yourdriver to accomplish the same thing
Really, the most practical means is to just use printk()