KERNAL ARCHITECTURE

LINUX KERNAL ARCHITECTURE

1. Linux Kernel
Architecture

2. Dr. Victor Larios DSI CUCEA UdeG 2
Contents
What is Kernel ?
Kernel Architecture Overview
User Space
Kernel Space
Kernel Functional Overview
File System
Process Management
Device Driver
Memory Management
Networking

3. Dr. Victor Larios DSI CUCEA UdeG 3
What is Kernel ?
The Core of OS
a kernel is really nothing more than a
resource manager
the kernel manages and arbitrates
access to the resource between
multiple competing users

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Kernel Architecture Overview
User Space
Kernel Space
User Space
System Call
Hardware
Kernel Space

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The fundamental architecture
of the GNU/Linux

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The User Space is the space in memory where
user applications are executed.
The kernel Space is the space in memory
where kernel processes run.The user has
access to it only through the system call.

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Linux kernal is a monolithic kernal
It includes all the necessary functions

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Kernel Functional Overview
File System
Process Management
Device Driver
Memory Management
Networking

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Kernel Functional Overview

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Functional Layer &
Architectural Layer
User Space
System Call
Hardware
MM
PM
NetDM
FS

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File System
It is responsible for storing information on disk
and retrieving and updating this information.
accessed through system calls eg.FAT16, FAT32,
NTFS,ext2, ext3…

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Type of Files
The Unix system has the following types of files:
Ordinary Files
Directory Files
Special Files (devices)
FIFO Files for Pipes

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Virtual File System
It manages all the different file system.
The virtual file system is designed to
present a consistent view of data as stored
on hardware devices.

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Process Management
Kernel creates, manages and deletes the
processes.
Kernal helps to increase the performance
of OS, by executing the process in pre
emptive manner.

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Process Management (Cont.)
Each process has a unique identifier (Process ID).
System calls used for process
management-”fork”,”exec”,”kill”,”exit”,”signal”

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States
Running
Waiting
Stopped
Zombie

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Device Driver
Linux kernel contains the code to manage the
HW controller .
Character devices,Block devices,Network
devices are different types of devices

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Memory Management
Physical memory is limited.
Virtual memory is developed to overcome this
limitation.

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Linux network layers
The network subsystem allows Linux systems to connect to
other systems over a network. The network subsystem
abstracts implementation
details of network devices and protocols