# Rustbelt **Rustbelt** is Tyler's hobby x86_64 kernel written in Rust. It started from the 2nd edition of Philipp Oppermann's [Writing an OS in Rust](https://os.phil-opp.com/) and keeps going past the end of it. It boots in QEMU straight into **its own shell**: a user-mode program that has a Unix feel with DOS touches. It offers `ls`, `cat`, pipes and redirection, plus `dir`, `type`, `ver`, and drive letters like `A:`, `B:` and `C:`. Under the shell: - **VGA text and serial output.** The kernel prints to the VGA text screen and to the serial port (COM1). - **CPU exceptions.** It handles breakpoints, page faults, and double faults (on their own stack). - **Timer and keyboard.** The timer drives an uptime clock and preemption. The PS/2 keyboard feeds a tty with cooked and raw modes. - **Memory.** It walks and edits its own page tables. It has a kernel heap with a fixed-size-block allocator. - **Multitasking.** It multitasks two ways: an **async/await executor** and **preemptive kernel threads**. - **User programs.** Small Rust ELF binaries run in **ring 3** as processes, each with its own address space. Their memory is freed when they exit. They talk to the kernel through about 26 `syscall`s, numbered like Linux's: `read`, `write`, `open`, `stat`, `getdents64`, `pipe`, `uname`... Two are our own: `spawn` and `wait`. - **Files.** Files live behind a Linux-style **VFS**: a ramfs at `/` and `/tmp`, a **FAT32** partition mounted at `/mnt/disk0`, and an **ext2** disk at `/mnt/disk1` with a hand-written driver that reads and writes it (permissions, symlinks, indirect blocks; checked with the real `e2fsck`). The disks are **virtio-blk** devices found by **PCI** enumeration, with their **GPT/MBR** partitions parsed. The shell and its programs are loaded from the FAT disk. It has a `cargo test` suite that runs inside QEMU, and a headless self-test that drives the shell with a script. Most code follows the blog_os sources (MIT / Apache-2.0) closely, with extra comments. Everything else is new: the serial mirroring, uptime clock, demo features and scripts, and everything past chapter 12. That covers preemptive threads, user mode, syscalls, ELF loading, the VFS, PCI, virtio-blk, partitions, FAT32, the shell and the ext2 driver. ![Rustbelt shell session on the ext2 drive C:: drives, ls -l with permissions and a symlink, cat through the symlink, cp from B: to C:](boot.png) ## What's installed (on this box) | Tool | Version | Why | |---|---|---| | rustup | 1.29.2 | toolchain manager (in `~/.cargo/bin`, ahead of Debian's `/usr/bin/cargo`) | | Rust nightly | rustc 1.101.0-nightly (2026-10-29) | custom JSON targets + `build-std` are nightly-only | | `rust-src` component | – | source of `core`, recompiled for our bare-metal target | | `llvm-tools-preview` component | – | `llvm-objcopy` etc., used by `bootimage` | | `bootimage` (cargo subcommand) | 0.10.5 | links kernel + bootloader into a bootable disk image | | QEMU (`qemu-system-x86`, `qemu-system-gui`) | 10.0.13 | the emulator we boot in (`-gui` adds the GTK/SDL window) | | `dosfstools`, `mtools`, `fdisk` | Debian packages | `build.rs` makes the FAT32 test disk with `sfdisk` + `mkfs.vfat` + `mmd`/`mcopy` | `rust-toolchain.toml` pins the project to nightly with the two components, so `cargo` inside this directory picks them up automatically. It also installs the built-in `x86_64-unknown-none` target, used to compile the user programs. Crates: `bootloader` 0.9.35 (BIOS bootloader used by the 2nd edition), `volatile` 0.2, `spin` 0.5, `x86_64` 0.15, `uart_16550` 0.3, `lazy_static` 1.5, `pic8259` 0.11 (interrupt controller), `pc-keyboard` 0.7 (scancode decoding), `linked_list_allocator` 0.9 (fallback heap allocator), `fatfs` (git, `no_std` + `alloc`; FAT12/16/32 reading and writing). Fresh setup on another machine: ```sh curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh # rustup rustup toolchain install nightly -c rust-src -c llvm-tools-preview -t x86_64-unknown-none cargo install bootimage sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 qemu-system-gui dosfstools mtools fdisk ``` ## Build and run ```sh cargo bootimage # build -> target/x86_64-rust_kernel/debug/bootimage-rustbelt.bin cargo run # build + boot in a QEMU window; serial output also prints in the terminal ``` **Using it:** `cargo run` opens a QEMU window. The kernel prints a few boot lines, then you're at the shell prompt `A:/ $`. Click into the window and type, for example `help`, `cd B:`, `ls` or `cat readme.txt | wc`, or `ls -l C:/` for the ext2 disk. See [The shell](#the-shell-stage-7) for everything it can do. Everything on the screen is also mirrored to your terminal over serial. Typing `exit` ends the shell, and the kernel starts a fresh one. To get the mouse and keyboard back from QEMU, press Ctrl+Alt+G. To quit, close the window or press Ctrl+C in the terminal. Over SSH without X, use `cargo run -- -display curses` to see the VGA screen right in your terminal, and quit from another terminal with `pkill qemu-system`. Headless (no window, good for SSH / scripts): ```sh ./scripts/run-headless.sh # boot, the shell runs disk/scripts/selftest.sh, QEMU exits; # passes if the shell exits 0 AND the expected lines appear ./scripts/run-headless.sh stack-overflow # deliberately overflow the stack; passes if the double-fault handler catches it ./scripts/run-headless.sh page-fault # write to unmapped 0xdeadbeaf; passes if the page-fault handler catches it EXT2_IMG=copy.img ./scripts/run-headless.sh # use copy.img as the ext2 disk, writable (no snapshot) ./scripts/ext2-check.sh # Rustbelt writes to copies of the ext2 images, then the # host's e2fsck -fn checks them (see "ext2 (stage 8)") cargo run --features headless -- -display none # the self-test via cargo # (QEMU's exit status is 33 = success; cargo just reports it as non-zero) cargo run --features demos # the earlier stages' demos first, then the shell ./scripts/screenshot.sh [out.png] [session.txt] [expected...] # boot, type a shell session via QEMU monitor `sendkey` # (one command per line; {BS} = Backspace, {UP} = up arrow), # check the expected texts appear, save the VGA screen # (default: the session in boot.png); exits 1 if text is missing ``` Cargo features (in `Cargo.toml`): | Feature | Effect | |---|---| | (none) | boot, start the shell on the console (the default) | | `headless` | the shell runs `/mnt/disk0/scripts/selftest.sh` instead of reading the keyboard; its exit code becomes QEMU's (0 -> success); a 60 s timer safety net fails the run if it hangs; panics exit with failure | | `demos` | before the shell: the breakpoint, paging and heap demos, threads A/B/C, the async example, and the `hello`/`evil`/`spin`/`demo` programs of stages 2-6 | | `stack-overflow` | after boot, recurse forever to test the double-fault handler (with `headless`: exit success when caught) | | `page-fault` | after boot, write to unmapped address `0xdeadbeaf` (with `headless`: exit success when caught) | Expected serial output of `./scripts/run-headless.sh`. Boot is quick now that the demos are behind a feature; most of the output is the shell running `disk/scripts/selftest.sh`. Each command is echoed after its prompt. The `[process] started/exited` lines are the kernel's own log. They go to serial only, so the VGA screen shows just the shell session (and kernel messages such as a killed process). ``` Rustbelt 0.8.0 -- a hobby x86_64 kernel in Rust [pci] 00:00.0 8086:1237 host bridge ... (8 PCI devices) [pci] 8 devices on the PCI bus [disk] vda: virtio-blk, 131072 sectors (64 MiB) [disk] vda: GPT partition table, 1 partition(s) [disk] vda1: start 2048 sectors 126976 type Microsoft basic data (FAT/exFAT/NTFS) name "fat32" [disk] vdb: virtio-blk, 65536 sectors (32 MiB) [disk] vdb: no partition table (NoSignature) [disk] vda1: FAT32 volume "TYLERDISK" mounted at /mnt/disk0 [disk] vdb: ext2 volume "RUSTBELT" (rev 1, 1 KiB blocks, 4 groups) mounted at /mnt/disk1 [vfs] mounted ramfs at / [vfs] mounted ramfs at /tmp [vfs] mounted fat32 at /mnt/disk0 [vfs] mounted ext2 at /mnt/disk1 A:/ $ ver Rustbelt 0.8.0 (stage 8: ext2) x86_64 A:/ $ drives A: / ramfs B: /mnt/disk0 fat32 C: /mnt/disk1 ext2 A:/ $ pwd / A:/ $ cd B: B:/ $ ls [process] started pid 2 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 bin/ notes/ readme.txt scripts/ [process] pid 2 (ls) exited with code 0 B:/ $ ls -l notes [process] started pid 3 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 125 todo.txt [process] pid 3 (ls) exited with code 0 B:/ $ type B:/readme.txt [process] started pid 4 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 Hello from the FAT32 disk! This file lives on a virtio-blk disk, in a GPT partition, in a FAT32 file system -- read through the kernel's VFS. In the Rustbelt shell this disk is drive B: -- try `cd B:` and `ls`. [process] pid 4 (cat) exited with code 0 B:/ $ cat b:notes/todo.txt | grep -i EXT | wc -l [process] started pid 5 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 [process] started pid 6 (grep), entry 0x8000400610 [process] started pid 7 (wc), entry 0x8000400260 [process] pid 5 (cat) exited with code 0 [process] pid 6 (grep) exited with code 0 1 [process] pid 7 (wc) exited with code 0 B:/ $ dir bin | wc -l [process] started pid 8 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 [process] started pid 9 (wc), entry 0x8000400260 [process] pid 8 (ls) exited with code 0 15 [process] pid 9 (wc) exited with code 0 B:/ $ echo first line > A:/tmp/out.txt B:/ $ echo second line >> /tmp/out.txt B:/ $ cat < /tmp/out.txt [process] started pid 10 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 first line second line [process] pid 10 (cat) exited with code 0 B:/ $ md /tmp/work [process] started pid 11 (mkdir), entry 0x8000400100 [process] pid 11 (mkdir) exited with code 0 B:/ $ copy B:/notes/todo.txt /tmp/work [process] started pid 12 (cp), entry 0x80004006b0 [process] pid 12 (cp) exited with code 0 B:/ $ touch /tmp/work/empty.txt [process] started pid 13 (touch), entry 0x8000400100 [process] pid 13 (touch) exited with code 0 B:/ $ ls -l A:/tmp/work [process] started pid 14 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 0 empty.txt 125 todo.txt [process] pid 14 (ls) exited with code 0 B:/ $ del /tmp/work/todo.txt /tmp/work/empty.txt /tmp/work [process] started pid 15 (rm), entry 0x8000400100 [process] pid 15 (rm) exited with code 0 B:/ $ grep "B:" readme.txt [process] started pid 16 (grep), entry 0x8000400610 In the Rustbelt shell this disk is drive B: -- try `cd B:` and `ls`. [process] pid 16 (grep) exited with code 0 B:/ $ alias ll="ls -l" B:/ $ ll A:/tmp [process] started pid 17 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 23 out.txt [process] pid 17 (ls) exited with code 0 B:/ $ run --trace cat B:/notes/todo.txt [process] started pid 18 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 [trace 18] open("/mnt/disk0/notes/todo.txt", 0o0) = 3 [trace 18] read(3, "Done: the shell (cd, ls, cat, run, start"..., 512) = 125 Done: the shell (cd, ls, cat, run, start, pipes, redirection, drive letters). Next: more file systems -- ext2, exFAT, btrfs. [trace 18] write(1, "Done: the shell (cd, ls, cat, run, start"..., 125) = 125 [trace 18] read(3, "", 512) = 0 [trace 18] close(3) = 0 [trace 18] exit(0) [process] pid 18 (cat) exited with code 0 B:/ $ start sleep 1 [process] started pid 19 (sleep), entry 0x8000400000 [pid 19] sleep started in the background B:/ $ jobs [pid 19] running start sleep 1 B:/ $ wait [process] pid 19 (sleep) exited with code 0 [done] pid 19 (start sleep 1), exit code 0 B:/ $ cd C: C:/ $ ls [process] started pid 20 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 big.txt docs/ hello-link@ hello.txt lost+found/ readme.txt sparse.bin [process] pid 20 (ls) exited with code 0 C:/ $ cat hello-link [process] started pid 21 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 Hello from the ext2 disk! This file lives on a second virtio disk, in an ext2 file system that Rustbelt reads and writes with its own driver. [process] pid 21 (cat) exited with code 0 C:/ $ grep "line 12345" big.txt [process] started pid 22 (grep), entry 0x8000400610 big.txt line 12345 [process] pid 22 (grep) exited with code 0 C:/ $ cp B:/notes/todo.txt C:/todo.txt [process] started pid 23 (cp), entry 0x80004006b0 [process] pid 23 (cp) exited with code 0 C:/ $ cat C:/todo.txt | grep -i ext2 [process] started pid 24 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 [process] started pid 25 (grep), entry 0x8000400610 [process] pid 24 (cat) exited with code 0 Next: more file systems -- ext2, exFAT, btrfs. [process] pid 25 (grep) exited with code 0 C:/ $ md C:/made-here [process] started pid 26 (mkdir), entry 0x8000400100 [process] pid 26 (mkdir) exited with code 0 C:/ $ echo written by Rustbelt > C:/made-here/note.txt C:/ $ type C:/made-here/note.txt [process] started pid 27 (cat), entry 0x8000400260 written by Rustbelt [process] pid 27 (cat) exited with code 0 C:/ $ ls -l C:/ [process] started pid 28 (ls), entry 0x8000401880 -rw-r--r-- 304000 big.txt drwxr-xr-x docs/ lrwxrwxrwx hello-link -> hello.txt -rw-r--r-- 142 hello.txt drwx------ lost+found/ drwxr-xr-x made-here/ -rw-r--r-- 284 readme.txt -rw-r--r-- 69206016 sparse.bin -rw-r--r-- 125 todo.txt [process] pid 28 (ls) exited with code 0 C:/ $ run evil [process] started pid 29 (evil), entry 0x80004000f0 [evil] pid 29: reading kernel memory at 0x200000... [kernel] user page fault: address Ok(VirtAddr(0x200000)), error PageFaultErrorCode(PROTECTION_VIOLATION | USER_MODE) [kernel] page fault in user mode at rip 0x800040017e [process] pid 29 (evil) killed: page fault [exit code 139] C:/ $ nosuchprogram sh: nosuchprogram: command not found (try `help`) C:/ $ cd Q: cd: there is no drive Q: (see `drives`) C:/ $ cd A:/tmp A:/tmp $ pwd /tmp A:/tmp $ exit 0 [process] pid 1 (sh) exited with code 0 [ok] shell self-test finished: Exited(0) [memory] 20 frames in use [run-headless] all 22+2 expected shell lines found [run-headless] kernel exited OK ``` The run ends with `[memory] 20 frames in use`, even though 29 processes have come and gone. That's exactly what was in use right after boot (mostly the two virtio disks' queues and buffers), so exited processes give their page tables, code and stacks back. The kernel boots from the bootimage on the first (IDE) disk; the scripts and `Cargo.toml` attach a **second** disk, `target/disk.img` (GPT + FAT32), and a **third**, `target/ext2.img` (raw ext2), as `-drive file=target/disk.img,format=raw,if=virtio,snapshot=on` and so on. `snapshot=on` makes QEMU throw away writes when it exits, so every boot and every test sees the same fresh image even though the kernel writes to it. The tests attach two more ext2 images (4 KiB blocks, revision 0). ## Tests ```sh cargo test # everything (lib unit tests + tests/*.rs), each booted in QEMU headless cargo test --lib # just the unit tests inside src/ cargo test --test heap_allocation # one integration test ``` Each test binary is its own little kernel: `bootimage runner` boots it with the `test-args` from `Cargo.toml` (no display, serial to stdout, isa-debug-exit) and treats QEMU exit code 33 as a pass. Output looks like: ``` Running 5 tests heap_allocation::large_allocation_uses_fallback... [ok] heap_allocation::large_vec... [ok] heap_allocation::many_boxes... [ok] heap_allocation::many_boxes_long_lived... [ok] heap_allocation::simple_allocation... [ok] ``` | Test | What it checks | |---|---| | lib (`src/*.rs` `#[test_case]`s) | trivial assertion, breakpoint handler returns, VGA `println!` writes the right cells | | `tests/basic_boot.rs` | printing works straight after boot, before any `init()` | | `tests/heap_allocation.rs` | Box, big Vec, 100 K short-lived boxes (memory reuse), same with one long-lived box, >2 KiB fallback allocation | | `tests/should_panic.rs` | a failing `assert_eq!` reaches the panic handler (`harness = false`) | | `tests/stack_overflow.rs` | stack overflow lands in the double-fault handler on the IST stack (`harness = false`) | | `tests/executor.rs` | `SimpleExecutor` runs an async fn to completion; the waker-based `Executor` interleaves two tasks that `yield_now().await` (a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3) | | `tests/shell.rs` | **the shell**: tokenizer (operators without spaces, quotes, comments), parser (pipelines, `<` `>` `>>`, `&`, error cases), drive-letter assignment from a mount table, `B:/x` -> `/mnt/disk0/x` translation and back for the prompt; then the real `/bin/sh` runs a script (cd with a drive letter, ls, a pipe, `>`/`>>`/`<`, `ver`, `exit 3`) with its stdout in a pipe and the output is checked; background jobs (`start`, `jobs`, `wait`); 20 processes started and reaped leave `frames_in_use` unchanged | | `tests/user_mode.rs` | programs loaded from the FAT disk: `hello` exits 0, `demo` passes all its checks (exit 0), `evil` is killed with code 139, `spin` is preempted; spawn with arguments + trace + exit code 7, then reaped; a child's stdout into a pipe; spawn errors (`ENOENT`, `ENOEXEC`, `EISDIR`, `ECHILD`); `wait` with `WNOHANG` returns `EAGAIN` while the child runs; ELF loader rejects garbage; user pointers give `EFAULT` (length 0 is fine); `sleep` blocks for the right number of ticks; a `WaitQueue` wakes its waiter | | `tests/vfs.rs` | read `/hello.txt` to EOF, path normalisation (`.`, `..`, relative to a cwd), `ENOENT`/`ENOTDIR`/`EINVAL`/`EISDIR`/`EEXIST`, `/tmp` is a separate ramfs, longest-prefix mounts, sparse writes zero-fill, listing, remove (`ENOTEMPTY`, `EBUSY` on mount points), seek/stat/truncate, `getdents64` record layout, pipes pass bytes and report EOF / `EPIPE` | | `tests/block.rs` | PCI scan finds the virtio disk; sector 1 of the image is the GPT header; multi-sector reads equal single-sector reads; write + read back; out-of-range and partial-sector requests fail; the GPT partition is registered as `vda1` (with a FAT32 boot sector); MBR parsing on a RAM disk | | `tests/fat.rs` | the FAT32 volume is mounted at `/mnt/disk0` with the expected files (`bin`, `notes`, `readme.txt`, `scripts`); read `readme.txt`; every program in `bin/` is a valid ELF; create/write/read/truncate/remove a 10 KB file; directories with long names, `ENOTEMPTY`; the `BlockIo` adapter handles unaligned reads and writes | | `tests/ext2.rs` | the three ext2 images are mounted (`/mnt/disk1-3`); permissions and case-sensitive names; `big.txt` line by line and in one read (direct, single and double indirect blocks); `sparse.bin`'s data at 0 / 40 MiB / 65 MiB (triple indirect) and its holes; fast and slow symlinks, `readlink`, removing a link keeps its target; 4 KiB blocks and revision 0; on each image: mkdir, create, a 300 KB write, append, overwrite across a block boundary, a write at 70 MiB (hole + triple indirect), truncate, `ENOTEMPTY`/`EISDIR`/`ENOTDIR`, unlink, rmdir, and the superblock's free counts are back where they started; 200 files grow a directory; copy from FAT to ext2. `scripts/ext2-check.sh` then checks the same kernel's writes with the host's `e2fsck` | | `tests/threads.rs` | two busy-looping threads that never yield both make progress while the main thread busy-waits too (only possible with preemption); a thread can exit and the others keep running | How it works: `#![feature(custom_test_frameworks)]` collects every `#[test_case]` function and passes them to `rustbelt::test_runner` (in `src/lib.rs`), which prints each name to serial, runs it, prints `[ok]`, then exits QEMU with success. A panic goes to `test_panic_handler`, which prints `[failed]` and exits with failure. Extra args after `--` in `cargo run -- ...` are appended to the QEMU command line, e.g. `cargo run -- -d int -no-reboot` to log every interrupt and stop on triple faults, or `cargo run -- -s -S` to wait for `gdb` on port 1234. ## Project layout ``` .cargo/config.toml build-std (core, alloc) + custom target + scripts/runner.sh as the cargo runner rust-toolchain.toml pin nightly + rust-src + llvm-tools-preview x86_64-rust_kernel.json custom target: no OS, no red zone, soft-float, abort on panic, rust-lld Cargo.toml deps, features, test settings, QEMU run/test args src/lib.rs the kernel library: module list, init(), kprintln!, test framework, exit_qemu src/main.rs the bootable binary: kernel_main (init, then a thread that runs the shell and restarts it when it exits), the `demos` feature's demos, panic handler src/gdt.rs GDT (kernel + user segments) + TSS (double-fault IST stack, rsp0 per thread) src/interrupts.rs IDT; breakpoint / page fault / GPF / invalid opcode / double fault handlers (faults from ring 3 kill the process); 8259 PIC; timer handler (uptime, ticks, calls the thread scheduler), keyboard handler (just queues the scancode) src/memory.rs OffsetPageTable setup from CR3, example mapping, BootInfoFrameAllocator, global frame allocator + free list, per-process address spaces (and freeing them), user pointer checks src/allocator.rs heap location/size, init_heap (maps heap pages), #[global_allocator], Locked src/allocator/bump.rs bump allocator (not active, for learning) src/allocator/fixed_size_block.rs fixed-size-block allocator (ACTIVE), falls back to linked_list_allocator src/task/mod.rs async: Task (pinned boxed future + id), yield_now() src/task/simple_executor.rs first executor: polls every task in a loop (no wakers) src/task/executor.rs real executor: task queue + wakers, sleeps with hlt when idle src/task/keyboard.rs lock-free scancode queue, ScancodeStream, async keyboard task (keys -> tty) src/thread.rs preemptive threads: spawn, round-robin schedule(), asm context switch, per-thread kernel stack (TSS.rsp0) + CR3 switching src/syscall.rs syscall/sysret MSR setup, asm entry stub, dispatch + all syscalls (table at the top) src/process.rs Process (pid, parent, cwd, args, fd table, exit status), spawn from a path or ELF bytes, iretq into ring 3, exit/kill, wait (reaping) src/pci.rs PCI bus scan through config ports 0xCF8/0xCFC, device names src/block/mod.rs BlockDevice trait, device registry (vda, vda1...), RamDisk (for tests) src/block/virtio_blk.rs legacy virtio-blk driver: one virtqueue, polled, bounce buffer src/block/partition.rs MBR + GPT parsing, Partition = a BlockDevice window onto its disk src/elf.rs minimal ELF64 loader (PT_LOAD segments -> user pages) src/errno.rs Linux errno numbers src/tty.rs console line discipline (cooked: echo + line editing; raw: every key, arrows as escape sequences) + Console (the File behind fds 0/1/2) src/fs/mod.rs VFS: Inode + FileSystem traits, mount table, path normalize/lookup/create/remove, symlink following (ELOOP after 8), init (boot files), mount_disks (ext2 or FAT partitions/disks -> /mnt/diskN) src/fs/file.rs File trait (what an fd points to), InodeFile (inode + offset), Stat, getdents64 src/fs/ramfs.rs in-memory filesystem src/fs/fat.rs FAT32 via the fatfs crate: BlockIo adapter + FatFs/FatInode for the VFS src/fs/ext2.rs hand-written ext2: superblock, groups, bitmaps, inodes, indirect blocks, directories, symlinks; read + write (the layout is explained at the top) src/fs/pipe.rs pipes: a byte queue with a blocking read end and a write end build.rs compiles user/*.rs to ELF files, then builds target/disk.img (GPT + FAT32) and the ext2 images target/ext2.img, ext2-4k.img, ext2-rev0.img (mke2fs -d) disk/ files copied onto the FAT32 disk (readme.txt, notes/todo.txt, scripts/selftest.sh = the headless shell session) disk2/ files copied onto the ext2 disk (hello.txt, readme.txt, docs/...); build.rs adds big.txt, sparse.bin and two symlinks user/ulib.rs tiny user-space "libc": syscall wrappers, println!/eprintln!, a 64 KiB heap (Vec/String), line reading, strerror, _start, panic handler user/link.ld linker script for user programs (base 0x80_0040_0000) user/sh.rs the shell: line editor, builtins, aliases, PATH, pipes, redirection, jobs user/shparse.rs the shell's parser + drive letters (also compiled into tests/shell.rs) user/{ls,cat,wc,grep,mkdir,rm,touch,cp,sleep}.rs the shell's tools user/{hello,evil,spin,demo,child}.rs test/demo programs (all programs go to /mnt/disk0/bin) src/vga_buffer.rs VGA text-mode writer, print!/println!, print_at (status line), backspace src/serial.rs COM1 UART writer + serial_print!/serial_println! tests/ integration tests, one QEMU-booted kernel each scripts/runner.sh `cargo run`/`cargo test` runner: `bootimage runner` + stale-image fix scripts/run-headless.sh headless boot + shell self-test, timeout, exit-code and output checks scripts/screenshot.sh headless boot + a typed shell session + PNG screenshot via QEMU monitor scripts/ext2-check.sh Rustbelt writes to copies of the ext2 images, then host e2fsck -fn + debugfs boot.png screenshot of the VGA screen (a shell session) ``` ## What the interrupt code does (chapters 5-7) - **CPU exceptions / IDT** (`interrupts.rs`): the IDT maps vector numbers to handler functions written with `extern "x86-interrupt"` (nightly `abi_x86_interrupt`), so the compiler saves all registers and returns with `iretq`. `_start` fires an `int3` on purpose; the breakpoint handler prints the stack frame and execution continues. A page-fault handler prints the faulting address from CR2. - **Double faults** (`gdt.rs`): a stack overflow hits the guard page -> page fault -> the CPU can't push the exception frame on the broken stack -> double fault -> same again -> *triple fault* = machine reset. We load our own GDT containing a TSS whose Interrupt Stack Table entry 0 points at a separate 20 KiB static stack, and mark the double-fault IDT entry to use it. Try `./scripts/run-headless.sh stack-overflow`. - **Hardware interrupts**: the two 8259 PICs are remapped to vectors 32-47 (0-31 are CPU exceptions) and then `sti` enables interrupts. The timer (IRQ 0, ~18.2 Hz) bumps an atomic tick counter and redraws the uptime clock; the keyboard (IRQ 1) reads the scancode from port 0x60 and queues it; an async task decodes it with `pc-keyboard` (US layout, scancode set 1) and echoes it (see Multitasking below). Each handler must send End-Of-Interrupt to the PIC or no further interrupts arrive. `print!`/`serial_print!` disable interrupts while holding their lock, otherwise an interrupt handler printing while `_start` holds the lock would deadlock. The idle loop uses `hlt`, so QEMU doesn't burn a host CPU core. ## Memory (chapters 8-11) **Paging.** Every address the kernel uses is *virtual*. The CPU translates it with a 4-level page table tree (level 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> 4 KiB page); 9 bits of the address index each level, the low 12 bits are the offset in the page. CR3 holds the *physical* address of the level-4 table (here `0x1000`). The `page-fault` feature writes to `0xdeadbeaf`, which no table maps, and the page-fault handler reports the address (from CR2) and the reason (`CAUSED_BY_WRITE`, not `PROTECTION_VIOLATION` -> the page simply isn't present). **Reaching page tables.** Page tables contain physical addresses, but we can only dereference virtual ones. With the bootloader's `map_physical_memory` feature, all of physical RAM is also mapped at `physical_memory_offset` (`0x18000000000` here), so `virt = offset + phys`. `memory::init` wraps that in the x86_64 crate's `OffsetPageTable`, which can `translate_addr` (walk the tables) and `map_to` (add entries). **Virtual memory layout** (as set up by bootloader 0.9 in this build): | Virtual address | What | |---|---| | `0xb8000` | VGA text buffer (identity-mapped: virt = phys) | | `0x200000`... | kernel code + data (the ELF; maps to phys around `0x400000`) | | `0x0100_0000_0000`... | kernel stack (80 pages, guard page below it) | | `0x0180_0000_0000`... | all physical memory (`physical_memory_offset`) | | `0x4444_4444_0000` | kernel heap, 4 MiB (also holds thread stacks) (we map it in `allocator::init_heap`) | | `0xdead_beaf_000` | demo page we map to the VGA frame (writes "New!" on screen) | The "New!" demo writes to screen row 20 through the new mapping; by the time you look, later lines have scrolled it up, so in `boot.png` it overwrote the start of the first line. **Physical frames.** `BootInfoFrameAllocator` hands out 4 KiB frames from the regions the BIOS memory map marks `Usable` (~121 MiB of QEMU's default 128 MiB). It never frees; fine for now. **Heap.** `allocator::init_heap` maps the 1024 pages (4 MiB) of `HEAP_START..+HEAP_SIZE` to fresh frames, then gives the range to the `#[global_allocator]`. From then on the `alloc` crate (`Box`, `Vec`, `Rc`, `String`, `BTreeMap`...) works. `alloc` is compiled for our target by `build-std` in `.cargo/config.toml`. **Allocator designs** (`src/allocator/`): the *bump* allocator just moves a pointer forward and can only reclaim memory when every allocation is freed (it fails the `many_boxes_long_lived` test). The `linked_list_allocator` crate keeps a list of free regions (first fit, slower, but reuses any freed memory). The active *fixed-size-block* allocator rounds each request up to 8/16/.../2048 bytes and keeps one free list per size, so alloc/free are O(1) pops/pushes; bigger requests and empty lists fall back to the linked-list allocator. Switch allocators by editing one line in `src/allocator.rs`. ## Multitasking (async/await + threads) ### Cooperative: async/await (`src/task/`, phil-opp chapter 12) An `async fn` compiles into a state machine (a `Future`). An *executor* calls `poll` on it; the future runs until it has to wait, then returns `Pending` and remembers a `Waker`. Whoever makes progress possible later (here: the keyboard interrupt) calls `waker.wake()`, which puts the task's id back into the executor's queue. When the queue is empty, the executor `hlt`s -- carefully: it disables interrupts, checks the queue, and then uses `sti; hlt` as one step (`enable_and_hlt`), so a wakeup arriving in between can't be missed. The keyboard interrupt handler now does almost nothing: read the scancode from port 0x60 and push it into a fixed-size lock-free queue (`crossbeam_queue::ArrayQueue`), then wake the keyboard task (`futures_util::task::AtomicWaker`). No locks in the interrupt handler means no deadlock if the interrupt arrives while the task holds one. The task (`print_keypresses`) is an `async` loop over a `ScancodeStream` that decodes and echoes characters. "Cooperative" means a task only gives up the CPU at an `.await`. A task that loops forever without awaiting freezes every other task. Upside: switching is cheap (just return from `poll`), and all tasks share one stack. ### Preemptive: kernel threads (`src/thread.rs`, beyond the blog series) Each thread has its own 64 KiB stack (a `Vec` on the heap). On every timer interrupt (~18 times a second) the handler sends the EOI to the PIC and then calls `thread::schedule()`, which picks the next thread round-robin and calls `switch_context(&mut old.rsp, new.rsp)` (a dozen lines of `global_asm!`): ``` push rbp, rbx, r12, r13, r14, r15 ; callee-saved regs of the OLD thread, onto its stack mov [rdi], rsp ; remember where the old stack ends mov rsp, rsi ; ---- now on the NEW thread's stack ---- pop r15, r14, r13, r12, rbx, rbp ; its callee-saved regs ret ; return to wherever IT called switch_context ``` Why only those six registers? `switch_context` is called like a normal function, so the compiler already saved the caller-saved registers, and the `x86-interrupt` handler around it saved everything the interrupted code was using (plus the CPU pushed RIP/RSP/RFLAGS). So a paused thread's complete state sits on its own stack; the scheduler only stores its `rsp`. The new thread "returns" from `schedule()`, from its timer handler, and `iretq`s back to where it was interrupted. A brand-new thread was never interrupted, so `spawn` hand-builds a stack that looks as if `switch_context` had saved it: six register slots (r12 = the thread's function) and a return address pointing to `thread_trampoline`, which moves r12 into rdi and calls `thread_start(entry)`. That re-enables interrupts (we arrive from inside the timer interrupt, where they're off), runs the function, and marks the thread finished when it returns. The code that booted the kernel becomes thread 0, "main", which runs the async executor. Preemption means even `loop {}` can't hog the CPU (thread C in the demo is a pure busy loop). The price: any code can be interrupted anywhere, so shared data needs locks, and a lock that the timer handler might also want must be taken with interrupts disabled. Here: the print macros and `print_at` already hold their spinlocks with interrupts off (`without_interrupts`), so a thread can't be switched away while holding them; the scheduler lock is only taken with interrupts off and is released *before* switching (the next thread would otherwise wait forever for a lock held by a paused thread). **The locking rule:** a lock that is *ever* taken with interrupts off must *always* be taken with interrupts off. Otherwise: thread T takes the lock with interrupts on, gets preempted, and some code running with interrupts off (so it can never be preempted back to T) spins on that lock forever. Stage 6 hit exactly this with the heap allocator: wait-queue code runs with interrupts off and allocates, so `GlobalAlloc::alloc`/`dealloc` now take the heap lock inside `without_interrupts`. **Blocking (stage 6).** A thread can be *blocked*: the scheduler skips it until someone wakes it. Two ways to be woken: - `sleep_ticks(n)` sets `wake_at = now + n`; `schedule()` (run on every timer tick) unblocks it once that tick has passed (the `sleep_ms` syscall rounds up to 55 ms ticks). - A `WaitQueue` (a list of waiting thread ids). `wait_until(|| condition)` turns interrupts off, checks the condition, and if it's false puts the thread on the queue, marks it blocked and switches away; when woken it checks again. `wake_all()` unblocks everyone on the queue. Checking with interrupts off is what prevents a *lost wakeup* (the event firing between "check" and "sleep"). Users: the console (`read(0)` waits for Enter; the keyboard path wakes it), pipes (reader waits for data or EOF) and `wait(pid)` (parent waits on the child's `exited` queue). If every thread is blocked, the scheduler idles with `sti; hlt` until an interrupt makes something runnable. **Stack size and the canary.** Stage 6 first used 16 KiB stacks and crashed with a ring-0 jump to address 0: the syscall -> VFS -> FAT -> ELF loader path in an unoptimized debug build used more than that, overflowed into the heap and smashed a neighbour. Now stacks are 64 KiB, and the lowest 8 bytes of each hold a canary value (`0x5AFE_57AC_C0DE_CAFE`). `schedule()` checks it on every switch and panics with "kernel stack overflow in thread" if it changed: a cheap stand-in for a real guard page. Finished threads' stacks are freed (the next `spawn` drops them, since a thread can't free the stack it's running on). Known simplifications (good exercises): no guard page under thread stacks (the canary only catches overflows after the fact); no priorities; a single CPU, so `spin::Mutex` is enough. ## User mode, syscalls and processes The user programs in `user/` run in **ring 3** as separate processes, each with its own address space and file-descriptor table. The shell and its tools are described in [The shell](#the-shell-stage-7). These are the test and demo programs from stages 5 and 6 (run them from the shell: `run hello`, `run evil`...): | Program | What it does | |---|---| | `hello` | prints "Hello from user mode!", `getpid`, reads `/hello.txt` from the ramfs, creates and reads back `/tmp/note.txt`, checks error cases (`ENOENT`, `EBADF`, `EFAULT`, `ENOSYS`), exits with the number of failed checks (0) | | `evil` | reads kernel memory at `0x200000` -> page fault in ring 3 -> the kernel kills it and keeps going | | `spin` | busy-loops ~2 s with no syscalls; it still gets preempted (threads A/B/C keep printing) | | `demo` | stage 6 checks: cwd, reads `/mnt/disk0/readme.txt`, `stat`/`fstat`/`lseek`, lists `bin/` with `getdents64`, `chdir` errors, `mkdir`/`unlink`/`rmdir` on ramfs and FAT, a pipe from a child, arguments, `wait` exit codes (42, 139 for killed `evil`), `ECHILD`/`ENOENT`/`ENOEXEC`, `sleep_ms`; exits with the number of failed checks | | `child` | helper for `demo` and tests: `child pipe` writes a line to stdout, `child cat` copies stdin to stdout, `child 42` exits with 42, otherwise prints its arguments | All of them are read from `/mnt/disk0/bin/`, on the FAT32 partition of the virtio disk; they're not compiled into the kernel any more. ### Rings in one paragraph The CPU's *current privilege level* (CPL) is the low 2 bits of the CS register: 0 = kernel, 3 = user. In ring 3 the CPU refuses privileged instructions (`hlt`, `cli`, writing CR3, `in`/`out`...) and refuses to touch any page whose page-table entries lack the `USER_ACCESSIBLE` bit. User code can only get back into ring 0 through doors the kernel set up: interrupts/exceptions (via the IDT) and the `syscall` instruction (via the LSTAR MSR). Every such door switches to a kernel stack, so a user program can't corrupt kernel state through its own stack pointer. ### GDT and TSS (`src/gdt.rs`) ``` 0x00 null 0x08 kernel code (ring 0) 0x10 kernel data (ring 0) 0x18 user data (ring 3) |3 0x20 user code (ring 3) |3 0x28 TSS (16 bytes: two slots) ``` The odd order (user *data* before user *code*) is forced by `sysret`: it loads SS = STAR[63:48] + 8 and CS = STAR[63:48] + 16, so the two user segments must be adjacent in that order. The TSS has two jobs: IST[0] is the double-fault stack (stage 2), and **`rsp0`** is the stack the CPU switches to when an interrupt arrives while in ring 3. Each thread has its own kernel stack, so the scheduler writes the next thread's stack top into `TSS.rsp0` on every switch (`gdt::set_kernel_stack`). ### The syscall path (`src/syscall.rs`) `syscall` was chosen over `int 0x80`: it's what Linux uses on x86_64, it's faster, and the setup is only four MSRs. The catch is that, unlike an interrupt, `syscall` does **not** switch stacks -- the entry code must. Setup (`syscall::init`): `EFER.SCE = 1` (enable), `STAR` = the selectors above, `LSTAR` = address of `syscall_entry`, `SFMASK = IF|DF|TF` (so we enter with interrupts off until we're on a kernel stack). One call, step by step: 1. User code puts the number in `rax`, args in `rdi, rsi, rdx` (Linux ABI; we also save `r10, r8, r9`) and executes `syscall`. 2. CPU: `rcx` = user RIP, `r11` = user RFLAGS, CS/SS = kernel, RFLAGS &= ~SFMASK, RIP = LSTAR. RSP is still the *user* stack. 3. `syscall_entry` (asm): stash user RSP in a global, load this thread's kernel stack top (set by the scheduler), push user RSP, `rcx`, `r11` and the args. 4. Shuffle into the C ABI and call `dispatch(nr, a1..a5)` in Rust with interrupts re-enabled (so a long syscall, e.g. a blocking `read`, can be preempted). 5. `dispatch` validates user pointers (`user_slice`: range must be inside the user half *and* mapped with `USER_ACCESSIBLE` in the current page table), runs the call, and returns a value or `-errno` in `rax`. 6. `cli`, pop everything back, restore user RSP, `sysretq` (RIP = rcx, RFLAGS = r11, CPL = 3). Single CPU, so the "current kernel stack" and "saved user RSP" are plain globals; SMP kernels use per-CPU data reached with `swapgs`. Numbers are Linux's wherever Linux has the same call, so man pages and `strace` habits mostly apply. Args 4 and 5 go in `r10` and `r8` like Linux. | nr | name | args | notes | |---|---|---|---| | 0 | `read` | fd, buf, len | console: blocks until Enter; pipe: blocks until data or EOF | | 1 | `write` | fd, buf, len | console = VGA + serial; pipe: `EPIPE` once the reader is gone | | 2 | `open` | path, path_len, flags | `O_CREAT` 0o100, `O_TRUNC` 0o1000, `O_APPEND` 0o2000 (every write goes to the end: `>>`); directories can be opened (for `getdents64`) | | 3 | `close` | fd | | | 4 | `stat` | path, path_len, *Stat | follows symlinks | | 5 | `fstat` | fd, *Stat | | | 8 | `lseek` | fd, offset, whence | `SEEK_SET/CUR/END` = 0/1/2; `ESPIPE` on console/pipes | | 16 | `ioctl` | fd, request, arg | only `TTY_SET_RAW` (1): console raw mode on (arg 1) / off (0); returns the old mode, `ENOTTY` if fd isn't the console | | 22 | `pipe` | *[u32; 2] | [read end, write end] | | 24 | `sched_yield` | | | | 35 | `sleep_ms` | ms | **ours**: Linux nr 35 is `nanosleep(timespec)` | | 39 | `getpid` | | | | 60 | `exit` | code | | | 61 | `wait` | pid, flags | **simpler than Linux `wait4`**: blocks, returns the exit code (139 = killed, like a shell shows SIGSEGV), reaps the child (freeing its memory); `ECHILD` if not your child; flags `WNOHANG` (1): don't block, `EAGAIN` while it's still running | | 63 | `uname` | *utsname | Linux's struct: 6 NUL-padded 65-byte fields: "Rustbelt", "qemu", "0.8.0", "stage 8: ext2", "x86_64", "(none)" | | 79 | `getcwd` | buf, len | returns the length (no NUL); `ERANGE` if too small | | 80 | `chdir` | path, path_len | per-process cwd, inherited by spawned children | | 83 | `mkdir` | path, path_len | | | 84 | `rmdir` | path, path_len | empty directories only (`ENOTEMPTY`); `EBUSY` on a mount point | | 87 | `unlink` | path, path_len | files and symlinks (the link, not its target); directories give `EISDIR` | | 89 | `readlink` | path, path_len, buf, len | a symlink's target (no NUL); returns its length, cut to `len` like Linux; `EINVAL` if not a symlink | | 217 | `getdents64` | fd, buf, len | real Linux `struct linux_dirent64` records (ino, off, reclen, type, name\0) | | 500 | `spawn` | path, path_len, argv, argv_len, *SpawnOptions | **ours**: start a program, returns its pid | | 501 | `mounts` | buf, len | **ours** (Linux reads `/proc/mounts`): the mount table as text, one `path fstype` line per mount, in mount order; returns the length, `ERANGE` if too small. The shell assigns drive letters from it | Deviations from Linux worth knowing: - **Paths are pointer + length**, not NUL-terminated C strings (easier to validate, and Rust `&str`s aren't NUL-terminated). Relative paths start at the process's cwd; `.` and `..` are resolved in the kernel (`fs::normalize`). - **`Stat` is tiny**: `#[repr(C)] struct Stat { kind: u64, size: u64, mode: u64 }`, kind 1 = file, 2 = directory, 3 = console, 4 = pipe, 5 = symlink; `mode` is the permission bits (`0o644`), or 0 on file systems without them (ramfs, FAT). No inode numbers, owners or times yet. - **spawn instead of fork + exec.** `fork` copies the whole address space (or needs copy-on-write page tables to be fast) and `exec` immediately throws the copy away. `spawn` does the useful part in one step, like Windows `CreateProcess` or POSIX `posix_spawn`. What Unix shells do between fork and exec -- pointing fds 0/1/2 at a pipe or a file -- is spawn's `SpawnOptions`: `{ stdin, stdout, stderr: i64 (one of *my* fds, -1 = same as mine), flags }`. `flags = SPAWN_TRACE` (1) prints every syscall the child makes, as `[trace pid] open("notes/todo.txt", 0o0) = 3` in strace style (strings shown, errors as `-2 ENOENT`), which is what the shell's `run --trace` uses. fork + exec could still be added later. - **argv** is passed as one buffer with NUL-separated arguments (`"child\0with\0three args"`; empty = just the program name). The kernel copies the strings onto the new process's stack and starts `_start` with `rdi = argc`, `rsi = pointer to argc [ptr, len] pairs` (Rust-friendly slices instead of C's `char **argv`). `ulib` wraps that as `argc()`/`arg(i)`. Errors are negative errno values like Linux (`-2` ENOENT, `-9` EBADF, `-14` EFAULT, `-38` ENOSYS...). Unknown numbers return `-ENOSYS`. ### Address spaces (`src/memory.rs`, `src/process.rs`) Each process gets a fresh level-4 page table. The kernel's L4 entries are **copied** into it (so the kernel, heap, physical-memory map and thread stacks are mapped in every address space and the kernel keeps working after a CR3 switch), and L4 slot 1 is the process's own: ``` 0x0000_0000_0020_0000 kernel code (bootloader 0.9 puts it here) shared, ring 0 only 0x0000_0080_0000_0000 USER_START (L4 slot 1) per process 0x0000_0080_0040_0000 program (.text R-X, .rodata R--, .data/.bss RW-) 0x0000_00ff_ffff_b000 user stack (16 KiB, RW-, grows down) 0x0000_0100_0000_0000 USER_END 0x0000_0100_0020_0000 boot stack (L4 slot 2) shared 0x0000_0180_0000_0000 all physical memory (phys_mem_offset, slot 3) shared 0x0000_4444_4444_0000 kernel heap (thread kernel stacks live here) shared ``` Real kernels put the kernel in the upper half (`0xffff_8000_...`) and give user space the whole lower half. With bootloader 0.9 the kernel sits low, so here user space is one 512 GiB slot that the kernel doesn't use. Only user pages have `USER_ACCESSIBLE`, which is why `evil` faults: the page at `0x200000` *is* mapped, just not for ring 3 (`PROTECTION_VIOLATION | USER_MODE`). `.text` is not writable and everything else is `NO_EXECUTE` (when EFER.NXE is on). A **process** = a kernel thread (`thread.rs`, it already has a kernel stack and gets preempted) + a CR3 value + a `Process` struct (pid, name, fd table, exit status). The scheduler, on each switch, sets `TSS.rsp0` and the syscall kernel stack to the next thread's stack and writes CR3 if it differs. A new process's thread starts in the kernel, then `iretq`s into ring 3 with a hand-built frame (SS=user data, RSP=user stack, RFLAGS=IF, CS=user code, RIP=ELF entry). When ring-3 code faults (page fault with `USER_MODE`, general protection fault or invalid opcode with CS RPL 3), the handler calls `process::exit_current` instead of panicking: the process is marked `Killed`, its thread exits, the scheduler picks someone else. A fault in ring 0 still panics -- that's a kernel bug. ### ELF loading and building user programs (`src/elf.rs`, `build.rs`, `user/`) `build.rs` compiles each `user/*.rs` with plain `rustc` for the built-in `x86_64-unknown-none` target (no build-std needed: it ships a precompiled `core` and uses soft-float, so no SSE state to save). Flags worth knowing: `-C relocation-model=static` (no dynamic loader), `-C code-model=large` (the program lives above 4 GiB; the default model assumes 32-bit addresses and fails with "relocation overflow"), `-T user/link.ld` (one PT_LOAD segment per permission, page-aligned). The large code model names its sections `.ltext`/`.lrodata`/`.ldata`/`.lbss`, so the linker script lists those too -- forgetting that put the code into a non-executable segment and every program died at its first instruction. The ELFs (~15-20 KB) used to be embedded in the kernel with `include_bytes!`; since stage 6 `build.rs` copies them onto the FAT32 disk image instead and `process::spawn_path` reads them through the VFS (see "Disks" below). `user/ulib.rs` is a tiny libc-equivalent included by each program: the `syscall` inline asm, wrappers, `print!/println!/eprintln!`, `_start` (calls `main`, then `exit` with its return value) and a panic handler (`exit(101)`). Since stage 7 it also has a **heap**: a 64 KiB array in `.bss` with a power-of-two size-class allocator (free list per size) as the `#[global_allocator]`. A program that says `extern crate alloc;` can use `Vec`, `String` and `format!`; the `x86_64-unknown-none` target ships a precompiled `alloc` too. The loader (~160 lines, no crate) checks the header (magic, 64-bit, little endian, x86_64, `ET_EXEC`), and for every `PT_LOAD` segment: checks it's inside the user range, maps zeroed frames with flags from the segment (`W` -> writable, no `X` -> NX), copies `filesz` bytes through the physical-memory map and leaves the rest (`.bss`) zero. It refuses (`ENOEXEC`) a file where two segments with different permissions share a page. A page has one set of permissions, so the second segment would silently get the first one's. This happened for real in stage 7: `sleep` has no `.data`, so the linker put its `.bss` on the read-only `.rodata` page, and `sleep` died on its first write to a static. `user/link.ld` now aligns the location counter before `.data`, not just the (empty, hence dropped) section. ### VFS (`src/fs/`) and file descriptors Designed like Linux's so real filesystems can plug in later: - `trait Inode` (`fs/mod.rs`): a file, directory or symlink: `kind`, `size`, `mode`, `readlink`, `read_at(offset, buf)`, `write_at`, `truncate`, `lookup(name)`, `create(name, kind)`, `list` (names + kinds), `remove(name)`. Methods have default impls returning an error, so a read-only fs implements only what it supports. - `trait FileSystem`: `name()` and `root() -> Arc`. A disk filesystem will hold its block device and parsed superblock. - **Mount table**: `mount("/tmp", fs)`; `lookup(path)` picks the longest mount point that prefixes the path, then walks the rest with `Inode::lookup`. Boot mounts a ramfs on `/` (`/hello.txt`, `/etc/motd`, `/tmp`, `/mnt`), a second, separate ramfs on `/tmp`, and each FAT partition at `/mnt/diskN`. `fs::normalize(cwd, path)` turns any path into a clean absolute one first. - `trait File` (`fs/file.rs`): what a file descriptor points to: `read(buf)`, `write(buf)`, `seek`, `stat`, `getdents`. `InodeFile` = an inode + its own offset (two opens of the same file have separate offsets, like Linux's `struct file`). `tty::Console` is another `File`: writes go to VGA+serial, reads come from the keyboard line buffer. `fs/pipe.rs` gives two more: a pipe's read and write ends. - **fd table**: `Vec>>` per process (max 16), fds 0-2 = Console. `open` = `fs::lookup` (or `fs::create` with `O_CREAT`) + `InodeFile::open` + first free slot. Keyboard input for `read(0)` goes through a small tty line discipline (`src/tty.rs`), like Linux's termios: - **Cooked mode** (the default): the kernel echoes the characters and Backspace edits the current line. Enter makes the line, with its `\n`, available to readers. Programs like `cat` with no arguments see this. - **Raw mode** (`ioctl(0, TTY_SET_RAW, 1)`): every key goes to the reader at once and nothing is echoed. Backspace is `\x08`, and the arrows, Home, End and Delete arrive as ANSI escape sequences (`ESC [ A` = up...). The shell uses this while you edit a line, so it can do the echo and history itself. It switches back to cooked before running a program. Raw mode is also switched off automatically if its owner process exits. The console understands two control characters on output. `\x08` moves back one column and blanks it, and `\x0c` (form feed) clears the screen, which is what `cls` writes. **Process cleanup.** When `wait` reaps a process, `memory::free_address_space` walks L4 slot 1 (the user half) and frees every page, page table and the L4 table. Freed frames go on a free list that `alloc_frame` uses first. The list is an intrusive linked list: each free frame stores the address of the next one, written through the physical-memory map, so it needs no heap. The exiting process disables interrupts before publishing its exit status. That way the parent can't free the address space while the dying thread might still run on it. Known simplifications (exercises): a process nobody waits for keeps its memory; orphans aren't reparented; no signals; user pointer checks walk the page table but don't guard against another thread unmapping the page mid-syscall (there's no `munmap` yet, so that's fine for now). ## Disks: PCI, virtio-blk, partitions, FAT32 (stage 6) ``` /mnt/disk0/readme.txt VFS (fs/mod.rs) longest mount prefix -> FatFs, rest "readme.txt" FatInode (fs/fat.rs) fatfs crate: clusters, FAT chains, directory entries BlockIo adapter byte offsets -> whole 512-byte sectors Partition vda1 sector + 2048, bounds-checked VirtioBlk vda virtqueue request to QEMU PCI found the device and its I/O port at boot ``` **PCI** (`src/pci.rs`). Every PCI device has a 256-byte configuration space (vendor/device id, class code, BARs = where its registers live). On a PC you read it by writing `bus/device/function/offset` to port `0xCF8` and reading port `0xCFC`. `pci::scan()` tries every bus/device/function, keeps the ones whose vendor id isn't `0xFFFF`, and prints them with a class name. QEMU's default machine has 7: host bridge, ISA/IDE/ACPI parts of the PIIX chipset, VGA, the e1000 network card, and our disk, `1af4:1001`. **Why virtio-blk and not ATA PIO?** ATA PIO is simpler (a few port writes, then 256 `in` instructions per sector) but it's a 1980s interface that only emulators and old hardware have. virtio is what QEMU/KVM and cloud VMs actually use, and it teaches the pattern every modern device uses: the driver and device share **queues of descriptors in RAM**. The legacy (virtio 0.9.5) interface is used, through I/O port BAR0, because it needs no MMIO mapping or PCI capability parsing; QEMU's device is "transitional" and speaks both. **virtio-blk in one paragraph** (`src/block/virtio_blk.rs`, ~280 lines). Reset the device, set ACKNOWLEDGE + DRIVER, accept no optional features, read the queue size, allocate the virtqueue (descriptor table + available ring + used ring, physically contiguous: `memory::alloc_contiguous_frames`) and give its page number to the device, set DRIVER_OK. A request is a chain of three descriptors: a 16-byte header (`IN` = read or `OUT` = write, sector number), the data buffer, and a 1-byte status the device fills in. Put the chain's head in the available ring, write the queue number to the notify port, then **poll** the used ring until the device hands it back. Data goes through a one-page **bounce buffer** whose physical address we know (heap buffers are virtually contiguous but not physically). Interrupts are switched off for the device (`VRING_AVAIL_F_NO_INTERRUPT`); polling is fine because QEMU completes requests almost instantly. Exercises: IRQ-driven completion (block the thread on a wait queue), several requests in flight, virtio 1.0 "modern" MMIO. **`BlockDevice`** (`src/block/mod.rs`): `sector_count()`, `read_sectors(lba, buf)`, `write_sectors(lba, buf)`, buffers a whole number of 512-byte sectors. Devices get Linux-style names in a registry (`block::devices()`, `block::get("vda1")`). `RamDisk` is a `Vec` disk used by tests. **Partitions** (`src/block/partition.rs`). Sector 0 is the MBR: four 16-byte entries at offset 446 and the `55 AA` signature. A single entry of type `0xEE` is a "protective MBR" meaning *look for a GPT*: sector 1 has the `EFI PART` header, which says where the partition entry array is (128 bytes each: type GUID, unique GUID, first/last LBA, UTF-16 name). Each partition becomes a `Partition` -- itself a `BlockDevice` that adds its start sector and refuses to go past its end -- registered as `vda1`, `vda2`... CRCs aren't checked yet. **FAT32 via the `fatfs` crate** (`src/fs/fat.rs`). `fatfs` does the filesystem logic; it wants something implementing its `Read + Write + Seek` traits on *bytes*. `BlockIo` is that adapter: it keeps a byte position, sends whole aligned sectors straight to the device, and handles partial sectors through a one-sector buffer (read the sector, change the bytes, write it back). Writes go straight through, so `flush` has nothing to do. (`fatfs` 0.3 from crates.io depends on the abandoned `core_io` crate, which doesn't build on current nightlies, so `Cargo.toml` pins a git revision of the 0.4 branch with its own `no_std` IO traits.) For the VFS, `FatFs` holds the `fatfs::FileSystem` in an `Arc>`, and a `FatInode` is just *(that filesystem, a path, a kind)*: each call reopens its path from the root. Slower than caching directory entries, but simple and never stale. Lookups are case-insensitive, like FAT itself. No timestamps (`NullTimeProvider`) and long file names on. **The test disk** (`build.rs`). After compiling the user programs, `build.rs` makes `target/disk.img` (64 MiB): `sfdisk` writes a GPT with one "Microsoft basic data" partition at sector 2048, `mkfs.vfat -F 32 -s 1 -n TYLERDISK` formats a separate partition image (1 sector per cluster so 62 MiB is enough clusters for FAT32), `mmd`/`mcopy` (mtools, which edit FAT images without mounting, so no root) copy in `disk/` and `bin/`, and the partition image is spliced into the disk at sector 2048. If a tool is missing the build stops with `sudo apt install dosfstools mtools fdisk` (`mkfs.vfat` lives in `/usr/sbin`, which isn't in a normal user's `PATH` on Debian, so `build.rs` looks there too). Look inside it from Linux: ```sh /usr/sbin/sfdisk -l target/disk.img # not in a normal user's PATH on Debian export MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK=1 # mtools: don't complain about the small-cluster FAT32 mdir -i target/disk.img@@1M ::/bin # @@1M = partition offset (2048 * 512) mtype -i target/disk.img@@1M ::/readme.txt ``` ## The shell (stage 7) `/bin/sh` on the disk (`user/sh.rs`, about 550 lines) is an ordinary ring-3 program. It uses nothing but the syscalls above. Its design is a **hybrid**: Unix navigation and pipes, with DOS-style program running and drive letters on top. At boot a kernel thread starts it on the console and waits for it. When it exits, the thread starts a new one, the way `init` respawns a login shell. ``` Rustbelt shell. Type `help` for commands. Drives: A: = /, B: = /mnt/disk0, C: = /mnt/disk1 A:/ $ cd b: B:/ $ ls bin/ notes/ readme.txt scripts/ B:/ $ type readme.txt | grep -i rustbelt In the Rustbelt shell this disk is drive B: -- try `cd B:` and `ls`. B:/ $ ls bin | wc -l 15 B:/ $ echo first > A:/tmp/a.txt B:/ $ echo second >> A:/tmp/a.txt B:/ $ wc < A:/tmp/a.txt 2 2 13 B:/ $ run --trace cat notes/todo.txt [trace 8] open("notes/todo.txt", 0o0) = 3 [trace 8] read(3, "Done: the shell (cd, ls, cat, run, start"..., 512) = 125 Done: the shell (cd, ls, cat, run, start, pipes, redirection, drive letters). Next: more file systems -- ext2, exFAT, btrfs. [trace 8] write(1, "Done: the shell (cd, ls, cat, run, start"..., 125) = 125 [trace 8] read(3, "", 512) = 0 [trace 8] close(3) = 0 [trace 8] exit(0) B:/ $ start sleep 5 [pid 9] sleep started in the background B:/ $ jobs [pid 9] running start sleep 5 B:/ $ run evil [evil] pid 10: reading kernel memory at 0x200000... [process] pid 10 (evil) killed: page fault [exit code 139] B:/ $ ver Rustbelt 0.8.0 (stage 8: ext2) x86_64 B:/ $ <- Enter on an empty line, a few seconds later [done] pid 9 (start sleep 5), exit code 0 B:/ $ ``` ### Commands | Command | What it does | |---|---| | `cd [dir]` | change directory (`cd` alone = `A:/`); `cd B:` goes to the root of drive B | | `pwd` | print the current directory as a Unix path (the prompt shows the drive form) | | `echo text...` | print the arguments | | `ver` | kernel name and version, from the `uname` syscall | | `drives` | the drive letters and what they map to | | `alias [name=value]` | list aliases or define one: `alias ll="ls -l"` | | `history` | the commands typed so far | | `jobs` / `wait [pid]` | list background jobs / wait for them (all, or one pid) | | `cls`, `clear` | clear the screen | | `help` | the command list | | `exit [code]` | leave the shell (with the last command's exit code, or `code`) | | `run [--trace] prog args` | run a program in the foreground; `--trace` prints every syscall it makes | | `start prog args` | run it in the background and print its pid (same as `prog args &`) | | `prog args` | a bare name is looked up in each drive's `bin` directory, in order: `A:/bin`, `B:/bin`... | Programs in `B:/bin` (`user/*.rs`, each 30-150 lines): | Program | What it does | |---|---| | `ls [-l] [path...]` | list a directory, sorted; in columns on the console, one name per line into a pipe or file (like real `ls`); symlinks get an `@`; `-l` shows sizes and ``, plus permissions (`-rw-r--r--`) and `link -> target` on ext2 | | `cat [file...]` | print files, or stdin (also for `-`) | | `wc [-l] [file...]` | lines, words, bytes | | `grep [-i] [-v] [-n] text [file...]` | lines containing `text` (plain text, no regexes); exit code 0 = found, 1 = not found | | `mkdir dir...` | create directories | | `rm path...` | delete files or empty directories | | `touch file...` | create empty files | | `cp src dest` | copy a file (into `dest` if it's a directory) | | `sleep N` / `sleep 250ms` | wait (blocks in the kernel, no busy loop) | | `hello`, `demo`, `evil`, `spin`, `child` | the stage 5/6 test programs: `run demo` runs all the stage 6 syscall checks | Built-in aliases are the DOS names: `dir` = `ls`, `type` = `cat`, `del` = `rm`, `md` = `mkdir`, `copy` = `cp`. **Line editing**: Backspace, and Up/Down to browse the history. Left/Right and Tab aren't supported yet. **Scripts**: `sh file` runs the commands in a file and echoes each one after its prompt. If stdin isn't the console (`sh < file`, `cat file | sh`), the shell reads commands from it the same way. `#` starts a comment. ### Pipes and redirection `a | b | c`, `> file` (create or truncate), `>> file` (append) and `< file` can be combined: `cat < in.txt | grep x | wc -l > count.txt`. The operators don't need spaces around them (`ls|wc`). Quotes (`'...'` or `"..."`) group words and hide operators. There are no variables or escapes. How a pipeline runs (`Shell::run_pipeline`): for each stage, the shell picks its stdin and stdout and spawns it. - **stdin**: the `< file`, else the read end of the previous stage's pipe, else the shell's own stdin. - **stdout**: a new `pipe()` to the next stage, overridden by `> file`, else the shell's own stdout. - **Spawning**: the stage starts with `spawn(path, argv, SpawnOptions { stdin, stdout, ... })`. Then the shell **closes its own copies** of all pipe ends and files. A reader only sees end-of-file once every write end is closed, and the shell holds one. Last, it waits for every stage; the last stage's exit code is the pipeline's. A builtin can be a stage too (`help | grep run`): it just writes to the pipe. Pipes have no size limit here, so that can't block. ### Drive letters Drive letters are only shell syntax. The kernel keeps one Unix tree: - **Why start at A:?** In DOS and Windows the system drive is `C:` only for historical reasons. `A:` and `B:` were reserved for floppy drives, so the first hard disk got `C:`, and Windows still keeps that habit. Rustbelt has no floppies, so its letters simply start at the front of the alphabet. (The first version of the shell used `C:` for `/`.) - **Mapping**: `A:` is `/`. `B:`, `C:`... go to the mounts under `/mnt`, in the order they were mounted. The shell reads them from the `mounts` syscall before every prompt, so a newly mounted disk would get a letter right away. Other mounts, such as `/tmp`, stay under A: (`A:/tmp`). - **Translation**: every unquoted word that starts with a known letter is translated before any syscall sees it (`shparse::translate`): - `B:/notes/todo.txt` becomes `/mnt/disk0/notes/todo.txt`. - `b:` becomes `/mnt/disk0` (any case). - `B:notes` becomes `/mnt/disk0/notes`, since drives don't have their own current directory. Quote a word to keep it literal: `grep "B:" readme.txt`. - **Prompt**: the prompt goes the other way (`shparse::display`). The longest matching drive path wins, so `/mnt/disk0/bin` shows as `B:/bin`. - **Unknown letters**: these are left alone, so `cd Q:` says `there is no drive Q:`. ### How the pieces fit - `user/shparse.rs`: the tokenizer, the parser (`Pipeline` of `Command`s, each with words and redirections) and the drive-letter functions. All of them are pure functions with no syscalls. The same file is compiled into the shell *and* into `tests/shell.rs` (`#[path = "../user/shparse.rs"]`), so the parser is unit-tested inside the kernel test suite. - `user/sh.rs`: the main loop runs these steps: refresh the drives, report finished background jobs (`wait` with `WNOHANG`), print the prompt, read a line, then run it. Before running, each command goes through `prepare()`: it translates drive letters, expands aliases, and strips `run` / `run --trace` / `start` prefixes. The command then runs as a builtin or is spawned with the right fds. - **Kernel support added for the shell**: - `ioctl` (raw mode), `uname`, `mounts`, `wait` flags and `O_APPEND`. - Freeing process memory, so a long session doesn't run out of frames. - strace-style `--trace` output. - The `\x08` and `\x0c` console controls. - A fix for the `|` key (see Notes). ## ext2 (stage 8) The third disk, `target/ext2.img`, holds an **ext2** file system that Rustbelt reads and writes with its own driver, `src/fs/ext2.rs` (about 1100 lines including a long explanation at the top, no crates). It is mounted at `/mnt/disk1`, which is drive **`C:`** in the shell: ``` A:/ $ drives A: / ramfs B: /mnt/disk0 fat32 C: /mnt/disk1 ext2 A:/ $ cd c: C:/ $ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 304000 big.txt drwxr-xr-x docs/ lrwxrwxrwx hello-link -> hello.txt -rw-r--r-- 142 hello.txt drwx------ lost+found/ -rw-r--r-- 284 readme.txt -rw-r--r-- 69206016 sparse.bin C:/ $ cat hello-link Hello from the ext2 disk! This file lives on a second virtio disk, in an ext2 file system that Rustbelt reads and writes with its own driver. C:/ $ cp B:/notes/todo.txt C:/ C:/ $ cat todo.txt | grep -i ext2 Next: more file systems -- ext2, exFAT, btrfs. ``` ### The on-disk layout, for a learner ext2 (1993) was Linux's main file system through the 1990s, and ext3 and ext4 grew out of it. It is the classic file system to learn from, because everything on disk is an **array of fixed-size records** that you find with plain arithmetic. You can follow along with `dumpe2fs target/ext2.img` and `debugfs target/ext2.img` (both in `/usr/sbin`). - **Blocks and groups.** The disk is cut into blocks of 1, 2 or 4 KiB, and the blocks into **block groups** (8192 blocks each with 1 KiB blocks). Our 32 MiB disk has 1 KiB blocks, so it has 4 groups. Each group keeps its own bitmaps and inode table, so a file's inode and its data usually sit close together. ``` byte 0 1024 2048 (block 2) | boot block | superblock | group descriptors | reserved | block bitmap | inode bitmap | inode table | data... <- group 0 | superblock + descriptor backups | block bitmap | inode bitmap | inode table | data... <- group 1 ``` - **Superblock** (always at byte 1024, whatever the block size). It holds the totals: block size (`1024 << s_log_block_size`), blocks and inodes per group, the free counts, the magic number `0xEF53`, the revision and three sets of **feature flags**. `probe()` reads just that magic, and `mount_disks` tries ext2 first, then FAT. - **Feature flags.** There are three sets, and each set tells an old driver what to do with a flag it doesn't know: - **compat**: ignore it. - **ro_compat**: mount read-only (Rustbelt then says `read-only` in the boot log, and writes give `EROFS`). - **incompat**: don't mount at all. ext4's extents are one, so Rustbelt refuses ext4 instead of misreading it. - **Group descriptors** (32 bytes per group, in the block after the superblock). Each says where that group's block bitmap, inode bitmap and inode table are, and how many blocks and inodes are free there. - **Bitmaps.** One bit per block or per inode, 1 = in use. Allocating is "find a 0 bit, set it, decrement the free count in the group descriptor *and* the superblock". Rustbelt allocates a file's blocks in the group of its inode first. - **Inodes.** Inode N is at index `(N-1) % inodes_per_group` of group `(N-1) / inodes_per_group`'s table. Inode 2 is the root directory, and 11 is `lost+found`. An inode has the mode (type + permissions), owner, size, times, link count and **15 block pointers**: ``` i_block[0..12] data blocks 0-11 1 KiB blocks: the first 12 KiB i_block[12] -> 256 block numbers single indirect, up to 268 KiB i_block[13] -> 256 single-indirect blocks double indirect, up to ~64 MiB i_block[14] -> 256 double-indirect blocks triple indirect, up to ~16 GiB ``` `Volume::bmap` turns "block 40 960 of this file" into a disk block by working out which level it falls in and walking down the pointers. A 0 pointer is a **hole**, which reads as zeros. That is how `sparse.bin` is 66 MiB while using only a few blocks. With 4 KiB blocks, each indirect block holds 1024 numbers. - **Directories** are files full of variable-length entries: `inode (u32), rec_len (u16), name_len (u8), file_type (u8), name`. `rec_len` is the distance to the next entry. To delete an entry, Rustbelt adds its length to the previous entry's `rec_len`. To add one, it looks for an entry with spare room behind it, and if there is none, it gives the directory a new block. Revision 0 has no `file_type` byte, so the driver reads the inode to tell files from directories. - **Symlinks.** A target shorter than 60 bytes is stored right inside `i_block` (a *fast* symlink, like `hello-link`). Longer targets get a data block (a *slow* symlink, like `docs/long-link`, 74 bytes). The VFS follows up to 8 links in a path, then gives `ELOOP`. `stat` follows them, `rm` doesn't, and the new `readlink` syscall (89) returns the target, which `ls -l` prints as `name -> target`. ### What the driver does and doesn't do - **Reads:** - The revision 0 and revision 1 formats, with 1 KiB and 4 KiB blocks (2 KiB should work too, but isn't tested). - Direct, single, double and triple indirect blocks, and holes. - Fast and slow symlinks. - Directories with `dir_index` hash trees. The index hides inside entries that plain ext2 code skips. - **Writes:** - Creating files and directories (mode 0644 and 0755), writing, appending, writing past the end (which leaves a hole), truncating to 0, `unlink` and `rmdir`. - The bitmaps, the free counts and the parent's link count stay consistent, so `e2fsck` is happy. Changing a hash-tree directory clears its index flag, like Linux's ext2 does. - **Design:** - No cache: every operation re-reads what it needs, and every write goes straight to the disk. - One `Mutex` per volume. - An `Ext2Inode` is just *(volume, inode number, kind)*. - **Not yet:** - Creating symlinks, hard links, rename, and `chmod`/`chown`. - Deleting a file that has an extended-attribute block (gives `EOPNOTSUPP`). - Writes past 2 GiB. - Real timestamps: there is no clock yet, so new files get the time the image was made. - The backup superblocks are never updated (Linux doesn't either), and there is no journal: a crash in the middle of an operation leaves work for `e2fsck`, just like real ext2. ### The test images (`build.rs`) `build.rs` copies `disk2/` (text files, nested directories) to `target/ext2-tree/` and adds a few generated files: - `big.txt`: 16 000 numbered lines, 304 000 bytes, which reaches the double indirect blocks. - `sparse.bin`: 66 MiB with data only at 0, 40 MiB and 65 MiB, so the last one sits in a **triple** indirect block. - The two symlinks. Then `mke2fs -t ext2 -d ` builds the images without root or mounting: | Image | Size | Block size | Notes | Attached as | |---|---|---|---|---| | `target/ext2.img` | 32 MiB | 1 KiB | revision 1, label RUSTBELT, the full tree | `vdb` -> `/mnt/disk1` = `C:` (run and tests) | | `target/ext2-4k.img` | 8 MiB | 4 KiB | label FOURK, small tree | `vdc` -> `/mnt/disk2`, tests only | | `target/ext2-rev0.img` | 4 MiB | 1 KiB | **revision 0** (`-E revision=0`), small tree | `vdd` -> `/mnt/disk3`, tests only | **Raw, not partitioned.** The FAT disk has a GPT because that's what real disks have. The ext2 image is the bare file system, with no partition table, so the host's `e2fsck`, `debugfs` and `dumpe2fs` work on the file directly. `mount_disks` mounts a whole disk if it has no partitions, and its partitions if it does. The disks are numbered in device order: `vda1` = disk0, `vdb` = disk1. ### Checking Rustbelt's writes with the real e2fsck All QEMU disks normally use `snapshot=on`, so nothing reaches the image files. `scripts/ext2-check.sh` does the opposite. It copies the images to `target/fsck/` and boots Rustbelt on the **writable** copies twice: - once for the shell self-test (`EXT2_IMG=... ./scripts/run-headless.sh`), which does `cp B: -> C:`, `md` and `echo >` on C:. - once for the `tests/ext2.rs` kernel, which creates, writes, truncates and deletes on all three images. Then it runs `e2fsck -fn` on every copy (`-f` = check even if marked clean, `-n` = read-only, change nothing) and shows the root directory with `debugfs`: ```sh cargo test --test ext2 && ./scripts/ext2-check.sh ``` ``` == e2fsck -fn target/fsck/selftest.img (after Rustbelt wrote to it) e2fsck 1.47.2 (1-Jan-2025) Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes Pass 2: Checking directory structure Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity Pass 4: Checking reference counts Pass 5: Checking group summary information RUSTBELT: 25/8192 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 2777/32768 blocks ... == debugfs: ls -l / on the self-test copy 23 100644 (1) 0 0 125 30-Oct-2026 01:45 todo.txt 24 40755 (2) 0 0 1024 30-Oct-2026 01:45 made-here == debugfs: cat /made-here/note.txt written by Rustbelt == all images are clean ``` Pass 5 is the one that catches allocation bugs: it recounts every bitmap and compares the result with the free counts in the group descriptors and the superblock. ## Roadmap Done: all 12 chapters of the 2nd edition, plus preemptive kernel threads, user mode + syscalls, ELF loading, a VFS with a ramfs, PCI, virtio-blk, MBR/GPT partitions, FAT32, blocking threads, pipes, spawn/wait, process memory cleanup, the shell, and a hand-written ext2 driver. - [x] Freestanding binary — [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/freestanding-rust-binary/) - [x] Minimal kernel booting in QEMU — [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/minimal-rust-kernel/), [OSDev: Bare Bones](https://wiki.osdev.org/Bare_Bones) - [x] VGA text mode printing — [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/vga-text-mode/), [OSDev: Printing to Screen](https://wiki.osdev.org/Printing_To_Screen) - [x] Serial output + QEMU exit — [phil-opp: Testing](https://os.phil-opp.com/testing/), [OSDev: Serial Ports](https://wiki.osdev.org/Serial_Ports) - [x] CPU exceptions / IDT — breakpoint & page fault handlers. [phil-opp: CPU Exceptions](https://os.phil-opp.com/cpu-exceptions/), [OSDev: IDT](https://wiki.osdev.org/Interrupt_Descriptor_Table), [OSDev: Exceptions](https://wiki.osdev.org/Exceptions) - [x] GDT / TSS / double faults — separate IST stack so stack overflows don't triple-fault. [phil-opp: Double Faults](https://os.phil-opp.com/double-fault-exceptions/), [OSDev: GDT](https://wiki.osdev.org/Global_Descriptor_Table), [OSDev: TSS](https://wiki.osdev.org/Task_State_Segment) - [x] Testing — `cargo test` in QEMU, custom test framework, integration tests. [phil-opp: Testing](https://os.phil-opp.com/testing/) - [x] Hardware interrupts — 8259 PIC, timer, PS/2 keyboard echo, `hlt` idle loop. [phil-opp: Hardware Interrupts](https://os.phil-opp.com/hardware-interrupts/), [OSDev: 8259 PIC](https://wiki.osdev.org/8259_PIC), [OSDev: PIT](https://wiki.osdev.org/Programmable_Interval_Timer), [OSDev: PS/2 Keyboard](https://wiki.osdev.org/PS/2_Keyboard) (later: [APIC](https://wiki.osdev.org/APIC)) - [x] Introduction to paging — CR3, page fault demo. [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/paging-introduction/), [OSDev: Paging](https://wiki.osdev.org/Paging) - [x] Paging implementation — OffsetPageTable, translation, frame allocator, example mapping. [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/paging-implementation/), [OSDev: Page Frame Allocation](https://wiki.osdev.org/Page_Frame_Allocation) - [x] Heap allocation — `alloc`, heap mapping, global allocator. [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/heap-allocation/), [OSDev: Memory Allocation](https://wiki.osdev.org/Memory_Allocation) - [x] Allocator designs — bump, linked list (crate), fixed-size block (active). [phil-opp](https://os.phil-opp.com/allocator-designs/) - [x] Async/await — Task, simple executor, waker-based executor, lock-free async keyboard task (with Backspace). [phil-opp: Async/Await](https://os.phil-opp.com/async-await/), [OSDev: Multitasking Systems](https://wiki.osdev.org/Multitasking_Systems) - [x] Preemptive kernel threads — own stacks, timer-driven round-robin, asm context switch. [OSDev: Brendan's Multi-tasking Tutorial](https://wiki.osdev.org/Brendan%27s_Multi-tasking_Tutorial), [OSDev: Context Switching](https://wiki.osdev.org/Context_Switching) - [x] User mode (ring 3) & syscalls — GDT user segments, TSS.rsp0 per thread, `syscall`/`sysret`, per-process page tables, user faults kill the process. [OSDev: Getting to Ring 3](https://wiki.osdev.org/Getting_to_Ring_3), [OSDev: System Calls](https://wiki.osdev.org/System_Calls), [OSDev: SYSENTER/SYSCALL](https://wiki.osdev.org/SYSENTER) - [x] ELF loading — hand-written PT_LOAD loader, user programs built by `build.rs`. [OSDev: ELF](https://wiki.osdev.org/ELF), [OSDev: ELF Tutorial](https://wiki.osdev.org/ELF_Tutorial) - [x] VFS skeleton + ramfs — Inode/FileSystem/File traits, mount table, fd table, `open/read/write/close`. [OSDev: VFS](https://wiki.osdev.org/VFS), [Linux VFS overview](https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/vfs.html) - [x] PCI enumeration + virtio-blk driver + `BlockDevice` trait — [OSDev: PCI](https://wiki.osdev.org/PCI), [OSDev: Virtio](https://wiki.osdev.org/Virtio), [virtio spec (legacy interface)](https://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.2/virtio-v1.2.html) - [x] MBR + GPT partitions — [OSDev: MBR](https://wiki.osdev.org/MBR_(x86)), [OSDev: GPT](https://wiki.osdev.org/GPT) - [x] FAT32 through `fatfs`, mounted at `/mnt/disk0`; programs loaded from disk — [OSDev: FAT](https://wiki.osdev.org/FAT) - [x] Blocking threads + wait queues, pipes, `spawn`/`wait`, cwd, `stat`/`lseek`/`getdents64` — [OSDev: Blocking Process](https://wiki.osdev.org/Blocking_Process) - [x] Shell as a user program: line editing, builtins, PATH, pipes, redirection, background jobs, drive letters, `run --trace` — [OSDev: Shell](https://wiki.osdev.org/Shell) - [x] Process cleanup: frame free list, address spaces freed on reap - [x] ext2, hand-written: read + write, indirect blocks, symlinks, 1/4 KiB blocks, revision 0/1, checked with `e2fsck` — [OSDev: Ext2](https://wiki.osdev.org/Ext2), [The Second Extended File System (Dave Poirier)](https://www.nongnu.org/ext2-doc/ext2.html) ### Filesystem roadmap (Tyler's plan) Everything below plugs into the VFS above: a filesystem is a `FileSystem` whose `root()` returns `Inode`s; mounting it is one `fs::mount` call. 1. **ramfs / tmpfs** — done (`src/fs/ramfs.rs`). 2. **Block device driver** — done: `BlockDevice` trait + legacy virtio-blk (stage 6). Still to do: a block cache, IRQ-driven completion, maybe an ATA PIO driver for comparison ([OSDev: ATA PIO Mode](https://wiki.osdev.org/ATA_PIO_Mode)). 3. **Partition tables** — done: MBR + GPT (no CRC checks yet). 4. **FAT32** — done via the `fatfs` crate (`src/fs/fat.rs`). A good exercise later: a hand-written read-only FAT32 to see what the crate does. 5. **ext2** — done (stage 8, `src/fs/ext2.rs`): written by hand, read and write: superblock, block groups, bitmaps, inode table, direct/indirect blocks, directory entries, symlinks. Still to do: symlink creation, rename, hard links, a block cache, real timestamps once there's an RTC driver. Later, ext4's extents would be a nice follow-up. [OSDev: Ext2](https://wiki.osdev.org/Ext2), [The Second Extended File System (Dave Poirier)](https://www.nongnu.org/ext2-doc/ext2.html) 6. **Next, in this order:** - **exFAT** (stage 9) — because it works on literally anything (cameras, phones, Windows, macOS, Linux), so a kernel that speaks exFAT can share USB sticks and SD cards with every other machine. Allocation bitmap + FAT-like cluster chains + directory entry sets with checksums. [Microsoft exFAT specification](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/exfat-specification) - **btrfs**, read-only (after exFAT) — because most of Tyler's Linux systems will use btrfs going forward, so this kernel could read their disks. Much bigger: copy-on-write B-trees, the chunk tree (logical -> physical mapping), the root/fs trees, checksums, compression (zlib/lzo/zstd). Read-only means parsing the superblock, chunk tree and fs tree -- no transactions or space allocation. [btrfs on-disk format](https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev/On-disk-format.html), [btrfs docs](https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/) 7. **NTFS** — last, maybe never. Other next stages: - **Shell extras**: Left/Right cursor movement, Tab completion of file names, `$?` and environment variables, Ctrl+C to kill the foreground job (that needs signals or a kill syscall). - **More programs**: `more`/`less` (needs raw mode and screen size), an editor. Small exercises along the way: guard pages under thread stacks, a timer-based async `sleep` future, speed up the PIT ([OSDev: PIT](https://wiki.osdev.org/Programmable_Interval_Timer)), add handlers for divide error / general protection fault, make `BootInfoFrameAllocator` O(1), add a `mem` stat (bytes allocated) to the allocator. Other good references: [OSDev wiki main page](https://wiki.osdev.org/Expanded_Main_Page), [Intel SDM](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/intel-sdms.html), the [blog_os repo](https://github.com/phil-opp/blog_os) (one branch per post, e.g. `post-04`), and for a UEFI/framebuffer setup later, the newer [`bootloader` 0.11](https://github.com/rust-osdev/bootloader) crate. ## Notes / gotchas - The target JSON changes occasionally with new nightlies (e.g. `target-pointer-width` became an integer, `rustc-abi` was added). If a nightly update breaks the build, compare with the latest `x86_64-blog_os.json` in the blog_os repo, or pin a date in `rust-toolchain.toml` (`channel = "nightly-2026-10-29"`). - The "packages contain code that will be rejected by a future version of Rust: core" warning comes from building `core` with build-std and is harmless. - `bootimage` prints "`CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR` env variable not set" when run outside `cargo run`; also harmless. - `cargo test` with build-std breaks ("duplicate lang item in crate `core`: `sized`") if `Cargo.toml` sets `panic = "abort"` in `[profile.*]`. The target JSON already sets `"panic-strategy": "abort"`, so the profile settings were removed. - Stale disk image when switching cargo features: cargo re-uses a previously built kernel ELF with an *old* mtime, so bootimage thinks its cached image is current and boots the wrong build. `scripts/runner.sh` and the scripts `touch` the ELF first to avoid this. If you call `cargo bootimage --features ...` by hand after switching features, `touch target/x86_64-rust_kernel/debug/rustbelt` first. - `build.rs` reruns when `user/`, `disk/`, `disk2/` or `build.rs` change and rebuilds `target/disk.img` and the ext2 images. QEMU opens them with `snapshot=on`, so the kernel's writes (the tests create and delete files) never reach the files on disk (except in `scripts/ext2-check.sh`). - e2fsprogs: `sudo apt install e2fsprogs`. `mke2fs`, `e2fsck`, `debugfs` and `dumpe2fs` live in `/usr/sbin`, which isn't on a normal user's `PATH` (`build.rs` and the script look there). Newer `mke2fs` dropped `-r 0`; revision 0 is `-E revision=0`. `mke2fs -d` stores all-zero blocks as holes, so `sparse.bin`'s data chunks are deliberately non-zero. - `docs/long-link` points through lots of `..` and `.`, but along a path that also works on Linux (`cat` it after `debugfs -R "rdump /docs /tmp/x"`). The VFS resolves `..` lexically, so a target like `file.txt/..` would work in Rustbelt but not on Linux; the test image avoids that. - Debug builds use a lot of stack: deep call chains (syscall -> VFS -> fatfs -> ELF loader) needed more than 16 KiB. If you see a weird ring-0 fault at address 0 or "kernel stack overflow in thread", suspect the stack first. - **The `\ |` key**: pc-keyboard 0.7's scancode set 1 decodes it (scancode 0x2B) as `KeyCode::Oem7`, but its US 104-key layout only maps `Oem5` to `\` and `|`. So that key typed nothing, which went unnoticed until the shell needed `|`. `task/keyboard.rs` renames `Oem7` to `Oem5` before decoding. - User programs: the linker drops empty output sections, and their `ALIGN(4K)` with them. A program without `.data` then had its `.bss` on the read-only `.rodata` page (see "ELF loading"). `user/link.ld` uses `. = ALIGN(4K);` before `.data`, and the loader now rejects such files.