SUB-OS had a syscall table and user GDT descriptors but nothing that could
actually leave ring 0: lazybox and the shell run as kernel code, and
syscall_handler() was never reachable from a user program. This adds the
missing path end to end on x86_64.
Address spaces (arch/x86_64/mm/vmspace.c)
- The boot page tables identity-map the low 4 GB off PML4[0] and leave the
rest empty, so userland is given its own PML4 slot (512 GiB) rather than
holes punched in the kernel's 2 MB huge-page map. A process PML4 shares
entry 0 with the kernel and privately owns entry 1.
- Frames outside the identity map are refused rather than written through an
unmapped pointer; lifting that needs a recursive map or a higher-half
direct map, which is noted in the file.
ELF loader (kernel/elf.c)
- Validates ELF64/little-endian/ET_EXEC/machine, bounds-checks every program
header against both the image and the user address range, and lays PT_LOAD
segments into an address space. Frames arrive zeroed, so .bss is covered.
Ring transition (arch/x86_64/cpu/usermode.asm)
- user_enter() drops to ring 3 via iretq after scrubbing every GPR, and
user_return() unwinds back to it when the process exits, so exec looks like
a call that blocks until the program finishes.
Syscalls
- INT 0x80 installed at DPL 3 with the Linux x86_64 register convention.
The process gets its own kernel stack for the trap, because TSS.rsp0 must
not point at the stack user_enter() is standing on.
- Every user pointer is range-checked before use. The process page tables are
still live during a syscall, so without that check a program could pass a
kernel address and have write(2) dump kernel text to the console. The new
/sbin/init asserts both a wild pointer and a kernel pointer are rejected.
- write(2) to stdout/stderr routes through the new console_write(), which
reuses printk's routing so output reaches serial and the framebuffer
console rather than only the VGA text buffer.
Faults
- A ring 3 exception now kills that process and reports CR2 instead of
panicking the machine.
Userland (userland/init/)
- /sbin/init is a real freestanding static executable, linked at the user
base and embedded in the kernel image by scripts/mkblob.py. It reports its
pid, verifies .bss was zeroed and .data is writable, checks the two pointer
rejections, and exits.
aarch64 and armv8i keep building: the loader and exec path are portable, and
those ports get honest vmspace stubs that fail cleanly rather than pretending
to run a program with kernel privileges.
Verified under QEMU: init loads at 0x80004000a0, reports pid 1, .bss zeroed,
.data writable, both bad pointers rejected, and exits 0 back into the shell.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0161Jh7uCEMLYEMNPsjC1LKf
Boot logo (init/bootlogo.c, init/logo_data.c, scripts/mklogo.py):
The logo appears in two forms because the framebuffer does not exist for the
first third of boot. An ASCII rendition goes to the text console and serial
line from the first moments; once the video driver is up at step [5/14] the
real bitmap takes over as a graphical splash with a progress bar tied to the
actual boot stages.
The asset is 4-bit palette indexed, so 160x160 pixels cost 12.5 KB instead of
100 KB, and carries a transparency mask so the mark composites onto the
gradient rather than stamping a flat rectangle over it. scripts/mklogo.py
regenerates init/logo_data.c from the source PNG.
Boot reaches the desktop in well under a second, so the splash is held for a
minimum duration and the bar sweeps to 100% during the hold; without that the
logo would flash past unseen. `splashtime=<ms>` tunes it and `nosplash`,
`nogui` or `text` skip it.
Bootloader (boot/stage2.asm):
stage2 staged the whole kernel in conventional RAM before copying it to 1 MB,
which capped the kernel at roughly 576 KB before the load ran into video
memory at 0xA0000. The logo pushed it over that line and the kernel stopped
booting. Each 32 KB chunk now goes into one fixed low buffer and is copied
straight to its final address, using unreal mode for the 32-bit reach. The
ceiling is now the image itself, 1.375 MB.
Console font (lib/font8x8.c):
fb_draw_char was a stub that ignored its character argument and drew a filled
rectangle, which is why the splash rendered its text as solid blocks. It now
renders real glyphs, and the table it uses is shared: the framebuffer console,
the canvas rasterizer and the desktop compositor had three divergent private
copies, two of which still carried the `// \` line-continuation defect.
printk console sink (kernel/printk.c):
printk output can be redirected to a callback, so a caller can run a subsystem
that reports via printk and capture what it printed. Serial and the dmesg ring
still see everything, which keeps a captured run debuggable.
Shell builtins (userland/lazybox/shell.c):
The builtin chain is extracted into shell_execute_builtin(), so the kernel TTY
and the desktop terminal accept the same vocabulary instead of the GUI seeing
only the applet table. Callers that cannot be suspended pass allow_blocking =
false to refuse the animating ones.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01L5yKJT4Wo2cV3rfPrwY5MP
- Add #include <lib/printf.h> in fs/vfs.c, include/lib/string.h, and include/kernel/printk.h
- Ensure snprintf is always declared during freestanding compilation
