System calls#

System call (commonly abbreviated to syscall) is an entry point to execute a specific user program’s request to a service from the kernel. The operating system kernel runs in a privileged mode to protect sensitive software and hardware parts from the other software components. A user application executing in an unprivileged mode does not have access to the protected data. Performing a hardware interrupt or conducting a trap handled by the kernel, the user application can obtain sensitive data from the kernel, e.g. information about all processes running in the system.

Prototypes and definition#

In Phoenix-RTOS prototypes and definitions of the system calls are located in the libphoenix library. A list of all system calls is placed in a phoenix-rtos-kernel/include/syscalls.h header files, grouped by categories.

System call prototypes should be placed in the appropriate header file in the libphoenix standard library, referring to the syscall’s category. System call definitions are placed in the arch/$(TARGET_SUFF)/syscalls.S file and are created based on a syscall list via macro. Each definition triggers an exception (e.g. Supervisor Call - SVC instruction for ARM Cortex-M or Cortex-A) with an appropriate syscall identification number handled by the kernel in the privileged mode. Arguments are passed according to the target platform ABI (Application Binary Interface).

Handler definitions for system calls are located in the phoenix-rtos-kernel/syscalls.c file. Each handler should contain an appropriate return type consistent with the prototype in libphoenix (in practice int) and take the user stack pointer as an argument. The syscall’s parameters can be obtained from the user stack using the macro GETFROMSTACK(stack_ptr, arg_type, var, id).

Phoenix-RTOS in kernel mode has access to the calling process memory, so the pointer to the data in the user space can be passed as an argument to system call and used in the kernel space.

Adding syscall#

An example of adding a system call is conducted based on the threadsinfo syscall. The procedure should be performed as follows:

Add syscall’s declaration in libphoenix, e.g. libphoenix/inlude/sys/threads.h:
```
    extern int threadsinfo(int n, threadinfo_t *info);
```
Update the syscall list in phoenix-rtos-kernel/include/syscalls.h. It is recommended to insert a new syscall at the end of the list:
```
    ID(threadsinfo) \
```

Create a syscall handler in phoenix-rtos-kernel/syscalls.c:

    int syscalls_threadsinfo(void *ustack)
    {
        int n, i;
        pid_t ppid;
        threadinfo_t *info;

        /* Get input arguments from stack according to order in the syscall prototype.
           GETFROMSTACK macro modifies value of stack pointer. The order of its invocation has to be compliant with arguments put on stack.
           GETFROMSTACK arguments:
            1st arg - stack pointer
            2nd arg - type of data put on stack
            3rd arg - variable name
            4th arg - id order on stack (start from 0) */
        GETFROMSTACK(ustack, int, n, 0);
        GETFROMSTACK(ustack, threadinfo_t *, info, 1);

        /* Get thread's list from kernel's submodule */
        n = proc_threadsList(n, info);

        /* Assign parent process id */
        for (i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
            if ((ppid = posix_getppid(info[i].pid)) > 0)
                info[i].ppid = ppid;
        }

        return n;
    }

The system call can be invoked in user application by including sys/threads.h header. This example syscall is used by the ps applet in the psh (Phoenix-Shell).

System calls#

Prototypes and definition#

Adding syscall#

See also#