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>> Rubini I dismissed that book just because I thought a book on "Device Drivers" wouldn't cover the networking modules specifically, and that's really all I'm

>> Rubini I dismissed that book just because I thought a book on "Device Drivers" wouldn't cover the networking modules specifically, and that's really all I'm interested in at this point. Was I wrong? Do they cover it in detail? >> Robert Love Ooh yes - I've looked at that book before and almost bought it. You say it's a "compact and quick piecemeal introduction to the higher level aspects of the kernel". Would you say that book is at least detailed enough for me to start confidently modifying the source code of the networking code once I'm done? It would be nice to understand the kernel as a whole form a high-level, but what I really need is a detailed look at the TCP/IP stack. >> Good luck. Thanks!

mahmud 17y ago
You said you were "new to the whole scene"; you will at least need basic kernel hacking to work on the networking subsystem; at least enough to be able to use the appropariate memory allocation strategies; the options to kmalloc are not optional, you will have to grok what each strategy entails; same for slab buffers, synchronization primitives, error handling and clean up, etc. The book you REALLY want is ULNI; the driver model is essential for understanding the kernel because everything in the kernel is "pluggable", you almost use the same mechanisms to register a device driver, a file system, a network protocol, or something as basic as creating a new sysfs entry. If you're feeling too macho you can probably ignore Rubini and Love and just get ULNI and ctags ;-)
- TallGuyShort 17y ago
  No I said I WASN'T new to the whole scene. I've written kernel code before, and I'm very familiar with all those mechanisms. However the networking code is extremely optimized, and a good walk-through of the code is necessary before one is able to associate each instruction with a particular action as it fits into the whole algorithm - and that's the kind of book I'm looking for. Thanks, though.

mahmud 17y ago

You said you were "new to the whole scene"; you will at least need basic kernel hacking to work on the networking subsystem; at least enough to be able to use the appropariate memory allocation strategies; the options to kmalloc are not optional, you will have to grok what each strategy entails; same for slab buffers, synchronization primitives, error handling and clean up, etc. The book you REALLY want is ULNI; the driver model is essential for understanding the kernel because everything in the kernel is "pluggable", you almost use the same mechanisms to register a device driver, a file system, a network protocol, or something as basic as creating a new sysfs entry. If you're feeling too macho you can probably ignore Rubini and Love and just get ULNI and ctags ;-)

TallGuyShort 17y ago
No I said I WASN'T new to the whole scene. I've written kernel code before, and I'm very familiar with all those mechanisms. However the networking code is extremely optimized, and a good walk-through of the code is necessary before one is able to associate each instruction with a particular action as it fits into the whole algorithm - and that's the kind of book I'm looking for. Thanks, though.