As I was going through the below chunk of Linux char driver code, I found the structure pointer current
in printk
.
I want to know what structure the current
is pointing to and its complete elements.
What purpose does this structure serve?
ssize_t sleepy_read (struct file *filp, char __user *buf, size_t count, loff_t *pos)
{
printk(KERN_DEBUG "process %i (%s) going to sleep\n",
current->pid, current->comm);
wait_event_interruptible(wq, flag != 0);
flag = 0;
printk(KERN_DEBUG "awoken %i (%s)\n", current->pid, current->comm);
return 0;
}
The current pointer refers to the user process currently executing. During the execution of a system call, such as open or read, the current process is the one that invoked the call. Kernel code can use process-specific information by using current, if it needs to do so.
If you are trying to understand the linux kernel source code, then the exact distribution you are using, is not very relevant. I would recommend the book from Robert Love: Linux Kernel Development, currently in its third edition. It will give you an understanding of the main parts of the kernel.
In the case of pid, you can use: pid = task_pid_nr(current); to get the current task's pid.
From what I think I've understood, task_struct is the C structure that acts as the process descriptor, holding everything the kernel might need to know about a processes. At the end of the process kernel stack lives another struct, thread_info , which has a pointer to the processes task_struct .
It is a pointer to the current process ie, the process which has issued the system call.
From the docs:
The Current Process
Although kernel modules don't execute sequentially as applications do, most actions performed by the kernel are related to a specific process. Kernel code can know the current process driving it by accessing the global item current, a pointer to struct task_struct, which as of version 2.4 of the kernel is declared in
<asm/current.h>
, included by<linux/sched.h>
. The current pointer refers to the user process currently executing. During the execution of a system call, such as open or read, the current process is the one that invoked the call. Kernel code can use process-specific information by using current, if it needs to do so. An example of this technique is presented in "Access Control on a Device File", in Chapter 5, "Enhanced Char Driver Operations".Actually, current is not properly a global variable any more, like it was in the first Linux kernels. The developers optimized access to the structure describing the current process by hiding it in the stack page. You can look at the details of current in
<asm/current.h>
. While the code you'll look at might seem hairy, we must keep in mind that Linux is an SMP-compliant system, and a global variable simply won't work when you are dealing with multiple CPUs. The details of the implementation remain hidden to other kernel subsystems though, and a device driver can just include and refer to the current process.From a module's point of view, current is just like the external reference printk. A module can refer to current wherever it sees fit. For example, the following statement prints the process ID and the command name of the current process by accessing certain fields in struct task_struct:
printk("The process is \"%s\" (pid %i)\n", current->comm, current->pid);
The command name stored in current->comm is the base name of the program file that is being executed by the current process.
Here is the complete structure the "current" is pointing to
task_struct
Each task_struct data structure describes a process or task in the system.
struct task_struct {
/* these are hardcoded - don't touch */
volatile long state; /* -1 unrunnable, 0 runnable, >0 stopped */
long counter;
long priority;
unsigned long signal;
unsigned long blocked; /* bitmap of masked signals */
unsigned long flags; /* per process flags, defined below */
int errno;
long debugreg[8]; /* Hardware debugging registers */
struct exec_domain *exec_domain;
/* various fields */
struct linux_binfmt *binfmt;
struct task_struct *next_task, *prev_task;
struct task_struct *next_run, *prev_run;
unsigned long saved_kernel_stack;
unsigned long kernel_stack_page;
int exit_code, exit_signal;
/* ??? */
unsigned long personality;
int dumpable:1;
int did_exec:1;
int pid;
int pgrp;
int tty_old_pgrp;
int session;
/* boolean value for session group leader */
int leader;
int groups[NGROUPS];
/*
* pointers to (original) parent process, youngest child, younger sibling,
* older sibling, respectively. (p->father can be replaced with
* p->p_pptr->pid)
*/
struct task_struct *p_opptr, *p_pptr, *p_cptr,
*p_ysptr, *p_osptr;
struct wait_queue *wait_chldexit;
unsigned short uid,euid,suid,fsuid;
unsigned short gid,egid,sgid,fsgid;
unsigned long timeout, policy, rt_priority;
unsigned long it_real_value, it_prof_value, it_virt_value;
unsigned long it_real_incr, it_prof_incr, it_virt_incr;
struct timer_list real_timer;
long utime, stime, cutime, cstime, start_time;
/* mm fault and swap info: this can arguably be seen as either
mm-specific or thread-specific */
unsigned long min_flt, maj_flt, nswap, cmin_flt, cmaj_flt, cnswap;
int swappable:1;
unsigned long swap_address;
unsigned long old_maj_flt; /* old value of maj_flt */
unsigned long dec_flt; /* page fault count of the last time */
unsigned long swap_cnt; /* number of pages to swap on next pass */
/* limits */
struct rlimit rlim[RLIM_NLIMITS];
unsigned short used_math;
char comm[16];
/* file system info */
int link_count;
struct tty_struct *tty; /* NULL if no tty */
/* ipc stuff */
struct sem_undo *semundo;
struct sem_queue *semsleeping;
/* ldt for this task - used by Wine. If NULL, default_ldt is used */
struct desc_struct *ldt;
/* tss for this task */
struct thread_struct tss;
/* filesystem information */
struct fs_struct *fs;
/* open file information */
struct files_struct *files;
/* memory management info */
struct mm_struct *mm;
/* signal handlers */
struct signal_struct *sig;
#ifdef __SMP__
int processor;
int last_processor;
int lock_depth; /* Lock depth.
We can context switch in and out
of holding a syscall kernel lock... */
#endif
};
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With