Re: icky performance tweaks (was Re: Benchmarks)

From: Crispin Cowan (crispinat_private)
Date: Mon Apr 16 2001 - 11:09:56 PDT

  • Next message: Karim Yaghmour: "Re: Benchmarks (was Re: Hooking into Linux using the LTT)"

    Karim Yaghmour wrote:
    
    > Thanks, but I didn't mean eternally self-modifying code. What I
    > meant is that you insert a couple of nops in the normal flow
    > of code and when you want to hook onto an event, you simply
    > overwrite the nops with a call to the function you want. This
    > isn't something that should happen more than once in normal
    > system behavior. Hence, it costs a lot the first time, but
    > after that, it's business as usual.
    
    Yup, that's the way to do it.  The "structured programming view of
    self-modifying operating systems" is embodied in the Synthesis Kernel work of
    Massalin & Pu.  My favorite example of this is that the ready queue of
    exeuctable task control blocks in Synthesis.  Normally a linked list that the
    scheduler walks along, Synthesis made the context switch code for each task
    be a jump to the next task.  Queue order was manipulated by changing the jump
    address in the code. Here's some links:
    
       *  http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/massalin89threads.html
       *  http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~gribble/osprelims/summaries/synthesis.html
    
    Crispin
    
    --
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
    Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
    
    
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