Kurs om
Systemprogrammering med Modern C++

SECTION: Application

Understanding the concept of a Linux application

The Process Concept

• What is a process and how it differs from a thread
• Process meta-data

Virtual Address Space Organization

• Virtual memory pages
• Address translation
• What happens during a page fault
• Memory areas and their functions

Compilation and Linking

• Overview of the various compilation steps
• Understanding the magic number
• Creating statically linked libraries
• Creating dynamically linked libraries
• Using programs to inspect compiled files such as string, nm, objdump, ldd

Understanding Function Calls

• The call stack
• The content of stack frames
• The details of a single function call
• Implementing variable number of function arguments
• Using setjmp() & longjmp()
• Understanding how longjmp is used when C++ throws an exception

Library and System Calls

• What is call to a library
• What is a system call
• How is the kernel code invoked during a system call
• Tracing library and system calls

Memory Management

• What is dynamic memory anyway
• The C APIs for using the heap
• Brief about how to implement heap management
• Estimating the current heap size
• Implementing a C++ allocator for use with containers
• Allocating memory blocks on the call stack
• Tracking memory leaks with valgrind
• The C++ APIs for using the heap

Creating Processes

• Copying a process with fork
• Special process IDs
• Terminating a process
• What are zombies and daemons
• Loading a new executable with exec
• Implementing class Process

SECTION: Input / Output

Different forms of performing I/O

File Systems

• What is a file system
• FS types
• File types
• Basic operations on files, from the kernel’s perspective
• I-nodes
• Directory files
• File descriptors
• Devices
• Mounting devices

The /proc file system

• What is the /proc FS
• Top-level info files
• Process-specific info files
• Reading /proc info files using C++

Regular I/O

• How to use the system API of open() & close()
• Opening modes
• Setting file permissions
• How to use the kernel API of read/write
• Changing the file read/write position
• Manipulating files in the file system
• Using C++ fstream for binary record-oriented files

Advanced I/O

• Manipulation of file descriptors
• Using memory mapped I/O
• Using non-blocking I/O
• Using non-deterministic I/O
• Implementing class MemoryMappedFile

SECTION: Inter-process Communication (IPC)

Different forms of interchanging data between processes.

Signals

• What are signals
• Sending signals from the shell and from program code
• Implementing signal handlers
• Registering signals and signal masks
• Implementing timeouts
• Creating interval timers
• Invoking longjmp() from a signal handler
• Implementing class GlobalSignalHandler
• How to translate a signal, such as SEGV (segmentation fault) into a C++ exception

Channels

• What is a channel
• Pipes
• Fifos
• Implementing class Fifo

Message Queues

• What is a message queue and how do it differ from a channel
• Overview of the API
• Usages
• Implementing class MessageQueue

Shared Memory

• What is shared memory
• Overview of the API
• Usages
• Implementing class SharedMemory and use it as a C++ allocator

Semaphores

• What is a semaphore
• Memory vs file-system based semaphores
• Overview of the API
• Usages
• Implementing class Semaphore
• Implementing class FileSystemSemaphore
• Implementing a message queue with semaphores for use in shared memory

TCP Sockets

• What is a TCP socket
• API overview
• Network byte order (NBO)
• Creating client sockets
• Creating server-side sockets
• Implementing class Socket
• Implementing class ServerSocket
• Implementing a iostreams compatible socket type