The last half year I've been working on a replacement TTY layer for the
FreeBSD kernel. The new TTY layer was designed to improve the following:
- Improved driver model:
The old TTY layer has a driver model that is not abstract enough to
make it friendly to use. A good example is the output path, where the
device drivers directly access the output buffers. This means that an
in-kernel PPP implementation must always convert network buffers into
TTY buffers.
If a PPP implementation would be built on top of the new TTY layer
(still needs a hooks layer, though), it would allow the PPP
implementation to directly hand the data to the TTY driver.
- Improved hotplugging:
With the old TTY layer, it isn't entirely safe to destroy TTY's from
the system. This implementation has a two-step destructing design,
where the driver first abandons the TTY. After all threads have left
the TTY, the TTY layer calls a routine in the driver, which can be
used to free resources (unit numbers, etc).
The pts(4) driver also implements this feature, which means
posix_openpt() will now return PTY's that are created on the fly.
- Improved performance:
One of the major improvements is the per-TTY mutex, which is expected
to improve scalability when compared to the old Giant locking.
Another change is the unbuffered copying to userspace, which is both
used on TTY device nodes and PTY masters.
Upgrading should be quite straightforward. Unlike previous versions,
existing kernel configuration files do not need to be changed, except
when they reference device drivers that are listed in UPDATING.
Obtained from: //depot/projects/mpsafetty/...
Approved by: philip (ex-mentor)
Discussed: on the lists, at BSDCan, at the DevSummit
Sponsored by: Snow B.V., the Netherlands
dcons(4) fixed by: kan
ALT_BREAK_TO_DEBUGGER. In addition to "Enter ~ ctrl-B" (to enter the
debugger), there is now "Enter ~ ctrl-P" (force panic) and
"Enter ~ ctrl-R" (request clean reboot, ala ctrl-alt-del on syscons).
We've used variations of this at work. The force panic sequence is
best used with KDB_UNATTENDED for when you just want it to dump and
get on with it.
The reboot request is a safer way of getting into single user than
a power cycle. eg: you've hosed the ability to log in (pam, rtld, etc).
It gives init the reboot signal, which causes an orderly reboot.
I've taken my best guess at what the !x86 and non-sio code changes
should be.
This also makes sio release its spinlock before calling KDB/DDB.
for that argument. This will allow DDB to detect the broad category of
reason why the debugger has been entered, which it can use for the
purposes of deciding which DDB script to run.
Assign approximate why values to all current consumers of the
kdb_enter() interface.
A change to dconschat(8) will follow so that it can bomb
this address over FireWire to reset a wedged system.
Though this method is just a hack and far from perfection,
it should be useful if you don't want to go machine room
just to reset or to power-cycle a machine without
remote-managed power supply. And much better than doing:
# fwcontrol -m target-eui64
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fwmem0.2 bs=1m
Now, it's safe to call the fwohci interrupt(polling) routine while ddb/gdb
is active. After this change, a dcons connnection over FireWire can survive
bus resets even in kernel debugger.
This means that it is not too late to plug a FireWire cable after a panic
to investigate the problem.
Actually there is a small window(between a jump to kernel from loader and
initialization of dcons_crom) in which no one can take care of a bus reset.
Except that window, firewire console should keep working
from loader to reboot even with a panic and a bus reset.
(as far as you enable LOADER_FIREWIRE_SUPPORT)
specific privilege names to a broad range of privileges. These may
require some future tweaking.
Sponsored by: nCircle Network Security, Inc.
Obtained from: TrustedBSD Project
Discussed on: arch@
Reviewed (at least in part) by: mlaier, jmg, pjd, bde, ceri,
Alex Lyashkov <umka at sevcity dot net>,
Skip Ford <skip dot ford at verizon dot net>,
Antoine Brodin <antoine dot brodin at laposte dot net>
modes on a tty structure.
Both the ".init" and the current settings are initialized allowing
the function to be used both at attach and open time.
The function takes an argument to decide if echoing should be enabled.
Echoing should not be enabled for regular physical serial ports
unless they are consoles, in which case they should be configured
by ttyconsolemode() instead.
Use the new function throughout.
- Implement dcons_ischar() and dcons_load_buffer().
- If loader passed a dcons buffer address, keep using it.
(We still need a patch to cheat memory management system.)
future:
rename ttyopen() -> tty_open() and ttyclose() -> tty_close().
We need the ttyopen() and ttyclose() for the new generic cdevsw
functions for tty devices in order to have consistent naming.
for unknown events.
A number of modules return EINVAL in this instance, and I have left
those alone for now and instead taught MOD_QUIESCE to accept this
as "didn't do anything".
o Use kdb_alt_break() to handle the alternate break sequence instead
of handcoding it here.
o Remove GDB kluges to make this driver work with the pre-KDB remote
GDB code.
o Call kdb_enter() instead of Debugger().
Note that with this commit the dcons(4) driver cannot be used for
remote debugging anymore. This driver has to use the new GDB debug
port interface instead. Such has not been done yet.
The big lines are:
NODEV -> NULL
NOUDEV -> NODEV
udev_t -> dev_t
udev2dev() -> findcdev()
Various minor adjustments including handling of userland access to kernel
space struct cdev etc.
Introduce d_version field in struct cdevsw, this must always be
initialized to D_VERSION.
Flip sense of D_NOGIANT flag to D_NEEDGIANT, this involves removing
four D_NOGIANT flags and adding 145 D_NEEDGIANT flags.
Add missing D_TTY flags to various drivers.
Complete asserts that dev_t's passed to ttyread(), ttywrite(),
ttypoll() and ttykqwrite() have (d_flags & D_TTY) and a struct tty
pointer.
Make ttyread(), ttywrite(), ttypoll() and ttykqwrite() the default
cdevsw methods for D_TTY drivers and remove the explicit initializations
in various drivers cdevsw structures.
Free approx 86 major numbers with a mostly automatically generated patch.
A number of strategic drivers have been left behind by caution, and a few
because they still (ab)use their major number.
dcons(4): very simple console and gdb port driver
dcons_crom(4): FireWire attachment
dconschat(8): User interface to dcons
Tested with: i386, i386-PAE, and sparc64.
