Project Name
GNU/Linux compatible procfs pseudo-filesystem
Project Description
I wish to provide a sophisticated procfs pseudo-filesystem to “the Hurd”. An implementation of /proc pseudo-filesystem already exists in hurdextras repository. After skimming through the code it is clear that it needs a lot of rework and tuning. Experiences from GNU/Linux have proven procfs to be a very useful facility in implementing many of the process management tools. So the goal of this project is to rework on the existing procfs on “the Hurd” so that its not only reliable and robust but also more importantly it is fully compatible with the GNU/Linux procfs. The project thus aims at making the GNU/Linux process management tools like top, sysctl, kill, skill, nice, snice, pgrep, free, tload, uptime, fuser, killall, pidof, pstree, etc., to run out of the box.
Mentor
Olaf Buddenhagen
Project Schedule
1. Initial preparation and migration (Community Bonding Period: has already started – May 25th)
This phase involves improving my translator programming skills by gaining
hands-on experience in it and becoming well versed in it. I will also go
through the Hurd code to understand its architecture in depth and will read
documentations related to obtaining process related information in Hurd.
This phase also involves the migration of existing procfs to use libnetfs.
2. Analysis and Design (May 26th – June 11th )
This phase involves the analysis of previous migration. Also involves
interacting with the mentor, the Hurd community and other people involved
in development of ps. tools to draw the exact design of the proposed procfs
including the algorithms required for coding.
3. Coding Stage I (June 12th – June 22nd )
Finishing up the migration to libnetfs based on the finalized design and
making necessary changes to the existing procfs. Coding up to
/proc/<pid>/exe in the features list.
4. Coding Stage II (June 23rd – July 13th)
Involves coding of the features from /proc/<pid>/environ, up to
/proc/<pid>/maps. These contain most of the information required for ps.
tools and hence form the heart of the project. Will be completed by
mid-term evaluation deadline.
5. Coding Stage III (July 14th – July 26th )
Coding the rest of the features in the list including any necessary
features that may be added in the analysis phase.
6. Final Testing and evaluation (July 27th – August 8th )
Closely interacting with the community and requesting them to help me
in overall testing and reviewing and making changes as per their
suggestions. Also involves testing with the ps. tools and consolidating
the documentation.
7. Packaging and Wrap-up (August 9th - August 18th )
Final phase of testing and fixing remaining bugs. Working with the
community to merge the project with the CVS HEAD of Hurd. Documentation
reviews, making necessary changes as per the suggestions and wrapping
up the documentation.
Deliverables
- /proc filesystem that uses libnetfs. Using this library makes it easier for implementing a large set of functionalities and hence makes the implementation robust.
- The core GNU/Linux compatible /proc filesystem with functionalities to support and provide information for ps. tools like procps, psmisc etc.
Non-code deliverables include an exhaustive Documentation. This documents the code of the Hurd's procfs which explains in detail the implementation of each of the functionalities of procfs implemented during the course of this project.
Code Repository
http://github.com/madhusudancs/procfs/tree/master
Clone URL: git://github.com/madhusudancs/procfs.git
Progress
- Packages Ported: [http://www.madhusudancs.info/parted-hurdi386 parted-1.7.1]
- Packages Porting in progress: autogen_1:5.9.4-1. Error installing texlive-bin. Error tracked to some post installation scripts of texlive-bin. Problem seems to be in fmutil. Trying to debug.
- Have to start coding libnetfs skeleton for procfs translator.
Target for next week
Task To be completed by Status Now
- Finish Defining the necessary netfs call backs 25-05-2008 Completed
- Create Directories for each process with pid directory name 27-05-2008 Completed
- Create stat file for each process within this directory and
put atleast 1 information into it 31-05-2008 In Progress
Documentations Read/Reading
- Hurd Hacking Guide (Have Concentrated mainly on Translator part)
- Linux Kernel Implementation of procfs
Code Being Read
- libps
- libnetfs
- procfs implementation in Linux kernel
- ftpfs (In Hurd main)
- cvsfs (In Hurd extras)
- xmlfs (In Hurd extras)
- httpfs (In Hurd extras)
- gopherfs (In Hurd extras)
- libfuse (In Hurd extras)
- procfs (libtrivfs based, In Hurd extras)
Post Mid-Term Road Map
Already Implemented
File - /proc/<PID>/stat
pid
comm
state
ppid
pgrp
session
tty_nr
tpgid
minflt
The number of minor faults the process has made which have not required loading a memory page from disk.
majflt
The number of major faults the process has made which have required loading a memory page from disk.
utime
The number of jiffies that this process has been scheduled in user mode.
stime
The number of jiffies that this process has been scheduled in kernel mode.
priority
The standard nice value, plus fifteen. The value is never negative in the kernel.
num_threads
Number of threads in this process.
starttime
The time in jiffies the process started after system boot.
vsize
Virtual memory size in bytes.
rss
Resident Set Size: number of pages the process has in real memory, minus 3 for administrative purposes. This is just the pages which count towards text, data, or stack space. This does not include pages which have not been demand-loaded in, or which are swapped out.
itrealvalue
The time in jiffies before the next SIGALRM is sent to the process due to an interval timer.
nswap
Number of pages swapped (not maintained).
cnswap
Cumulative nswap for child processes (not maintained).
flags
PF_* fields defined in (Not Linux compatible, but nearly says the something Linux says)
nice
The nice value ranges from 19 to -19.
cutime
The number of jiffies that this process’s waited-for children have been scheduled in user mode.
cstime
The number of jiffies that this process’s waited-for children have been scheduled in kernel mode.
File - /proc/<PID>/statm
size
total program size
resident
resident set size
lib
library
dt
dirty pages
I already know the where the information is exactly available.
Other Per-PID Files
* /proc/<PID>/exe
* /proc/<PID>/environ
Non Per-PID Files
* /proc/version
I know where the information is available roughly, but need to look in detail to extract the exact information.
cminflt
The number of minor faults that the process’s waited-for children have made.
cmajflt
The number of major faults that the process’s waited-for children have made.
signal
The bitmap of pending signals.
blocked
The bitmap of blocked signals.
sigignore
The bitmap of ignored signals.
sigcatch
The bitmap of caught signals.
policy
Scheduling policy.
File - /proc/<PID>/statm
- text
text (code)
Other Per-PID Files
* /proc/<PID>/cwd
The information may be available, but needs to be searched to know where it will be.
File - /proc/<PID>/stat
rlim
Current limit in bytes on the rss of the process (usually 4294967295 on i386).
startcode
The address above which program text can run.
endcode
The address below which program text can run.
startstack
The address of the start of the stack.
kstkesp
The current value of esp (stack pointer), as found in the kernel stack page for the process.
kstkeip
The current EIP (instruction pointer).
exit_signal
Signal to be sent to parent when we die.
File - /proc/<PID>/statm
share
shared pages
data
data/stack
Other Per-PID File
* /proc/<PID>/root
Non Per-PID Files
* /proc/stat
* /proc/meminfo
I fear information may not be available.
File - /proc/<PID>/stat
wchan
This is the "channel" in which the process is waiting. It is the address of a system call, and can be looked up in a namelist if you need a textual name. (If you have an up-to-date /etc/psdatabase,
processor
CPU number last executed on.
rt_priority
Real-time scheduling priority
delayacct_blkio_ticks
Aggregated block I/O delays, measured in clock ticks (centiseconds).
Newly added to Roadmap(but these were the original goals of the project)
procps tools need to be ported so that they run on top of the procfs
pgrep - Done
pkill - Done
killall - Done
pstree - Done
top - Mostly Done (except per-PID shared memory field, and non per-PID caches and buffers field)
free - Mostly Done (Ditto from above)
htop - Mostly Done (Ditto again)
watch - Done
tload - I think it is done. (Need someone to test it)
libgtop - In progress
gnome-system-moitor - In progress
Code Updates
- May, 14, 2008
- May, 18, 2008
- May, 28, 2008
- June, 1, 2008
- June, 2, 2008
- June, 4, 2008
- June, 5, 2008 (3 commits, 00:30 HRS, 02:30 HRS, 11:15HRS, all in IST)
- June, 9, 2008
- June, 19, 2008 (Targets 1 and 2 successfully accomplished. Duration between the commits became inevitably longer because of the large amount of time spent on debugging the code.)
Contact Details
Name : Madhusudan.C.S
Email : madhusudancs@gmail.com
Blog : http://www.madhusudancs.info
Detailed proposal: http://www.madhusudancs.info/gnu-hurd-procfs-proposal
Google Summer of Code Site Link: Abstract