System call trace

A system call is a programmatic way a program requests a service from the kernel, and strace is a powerful
tool that allows you to trace the thin layer between user processes and the Linux kernel. To understand how
an operating system works, you first need to understand how system calls work.
What does trace do in Linux?

The Linux Trace Toolkit (LTT) is a set of tools that is designed to log program execution details from a
patched Linux kernel and then perform various analyses on them, using console-based and graphical tools.

Which tool is useful for tracing the system calls in Linux?

For issues such as "Why can't the software run on this machine," strace is still a powerful system call tracer
in Linux. But to trace the latency of system calls, the BPF-based perf-trace is a better option. In containers or
K8s environments that use cgroup v2, traceloop is the easiest to use.

What is difference between linking and loading?

Linking and loading are two instruments that play a pivotal role in program execution. Linking intends to
generate an executable module of a program by combining the object codes generated by the assembler. A
loader, on the other hand, loads these executable modules to the main memory for execution.

What is loading and linking in operating system?

Linking and Loading are the utility programs that play a important role in the execution of a program.
Linking intakes the object codes generated by the assembler and combines them to generate the executable
module. On the other hand, the loading loads this executable module to the main memory for execution.
ELF (Executable & Linkable Format)

In OS, the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF, formerly named Extensible Linking Format), is a
common standard file format for executable files, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.
 The following sections are commonly present in an ELF file:
 Section header.
 Executable text.
 Read-only data.
 Read-write data.
 Read-write uninitialized data (section header only)

What happens when you run an ELF file?

An ELF file consists of zero or more segments, and describe how to create a process/memory image for
runtime execution. When the kernel sees these segments, it uses them to map them into virtual address
space, using the mmap(2) system call. In other words, it converts predefined instructions into a memory
image.
Open Solaris in OS

OpenSolaris was based on Solaris, which was originally released by Sun in 1991. Solaris is a version of
UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4), jointly developed by Sun and AT&T to merge features from several
existing Unix systems. It was licensed by Sun from Novell to replace SunOS.
Official website: opensolaris.org (now redirects ...
Developer: Sun Microsystems
Userland: GNU and traditional Solaris
OS family: Unix (System V Release 4)

Adaptive mutex in Solaris

In the kernel, one of the improvements that has been made to mutexes in recent years is to add adaptive
spinning. The theory is that sometimes a mutex is only held for a short period of time and, in those cases, it
is more efficient to busy-wait for the lock to be free than to go to sleep and then be woken up.
An adaptive mutex is used for protecting every critical data item which are only accessed by short code
segments. It starts as a standard semaphore spin-lock on A multiprocessor system in which if the lock is held
by a thread which is running on another CPU then the thread spins.
Solaris implements variety of locks to support multitasking, multithreading and multiprocessing. It uses
adaptive mutexes, conditional variables, semaphores, read-write locks, turnstiles to control access to critical
sections.
What is an adaptive lock?

Adaptive locks enforce mutual exclusion to a critical section, and may be acquired in most contexts in the
kernel. Because adaptive locks have few context restrictions, they comprise the vast majority of
synchronization primitives in the Solaris kernel.

Pre-emptive kernels in Solaris

The Solaris Kernel is fully preemptible. All threads, even SYS threads, will be preempted if a higher priority
thread hits the kernel dispatcher while a lower priority thread is running.
A preemptive kernel is where the kernel allows a process to be removed and replaced while it is running in
kernel mode. A nonpreemptive kernel does not allow a process running in kernel mode to be preempted; a
kernel-mode process will run until it exits kernel mode, blocks, or voluntarily yields control of the CPU.
Which scheduling algorithm is used in Solaris?

Solaris has six scheduling classes: time-sharing, interactive, real time, system, fair share, and fixed priority.
The Solaris time-sharing class is the default. Solaris schedules the time-sharing class with a multi-level
feedback queue. Processes that have used little CPU time lately get high priority.