August 2003 - Darwin-kernel

Re[3]: Kernel Extension Activation without Reboot?
by Lance Drake 29 Aug '03

29 Aug '03

Dear Quinn, That was an especially encouraging note with lots of good info and a really good suggestion. Unfortunately, I have yet to overcome the basic hurdle of getting my KEXT to be active in the IORegistry stack without sustaining a reboot. The object I am over-riding is 'IOSCSIPeripheralDeviceType05' which is contained in the 'IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice' family bundle. By putting the kext in the /System/Library/Extensions folder and then performing an 'open() - read() - close()' sequence for the BSD path of "/dev/rdisk4' - which was the CD-ROM of interest in this case - I found (via kextstat and ioreg commands) that the kext did not get loaded into the place where it appears if one reboots the computer. Do you have any other ideas or paths that seem like something I might pursue? In any event, thanks very much for your input. Best Regards, Lance Drake _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Re: Kernel Beep
by Dean Reece 29 Aug '03

29 Aug '03

Srinidhi, Drivers are just supposed to drive hardware and make it available to user-space. They are not supposed to generate UI, and so there are no mechanisms available for doing these things from within the kernel. Instead you should create a user-space daemon that drives all these types of interactions. Cheers, - Dean On Friday, August 29, 2003, at 07:25 AM, Srinidhi Rao wrote: Hi all, Please pardon me if this is irrelevant query here. I am working on a kernel driver, when I need to play a system beep based on some event. But, so far I am unable to find any method of doing so. Can any one provide some pointers for this? Also, is there is any way of changing cursor (mouse) from the kernel driver? Thanks for any help.... Best Regards Srinidhi _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Kernel Beep
by Srinidhi Rao 29 Aug '03

29 Aug '03

Hi all, Please pardon me if this is irrelevant query here. I am working on a kernel driver, when I need to play a system beep based on some event. But, so far I am unable to find any method of doing so. Can any one provide some pointers for this? Also, is there is any way of changing cursor (mouse) from the kernel driver? Thanks for any help.... Best Regards Srinidhi -------------------------------------------------------------- Robosoft Technologies - Partners in Product Development _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Re: OpenFirmware, Booting and OS Development
by Ryan Rempel 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

On Wednesday, August 27, 2003, at 05:24 AM, Andrew McCall wrote: I am trying to write a simple bootsector that displays the phrase "Loading..." to the screen - much like the many, many x86 examples that can be found on the internet, but this time I want to do it on a mac. I have read all the information I can on OpenFirmware I understand that the OpenFirmware is basically the first stage in the boot process, this will then load software that is at the "real-base" address, and then this can b I am making it slightly harder for myself because I want to target old world Mac's first (as thats what I have), I understand that NewWorld Mac's can just boot straight to an elf kernel. Am I right in the above assumptions? How do I get my bootsector into the "real-base"? Can anyone help "fill" the gaps in my knowledge? t is quite correct that Open Firmware is the first stage in the boot process (well, the first stage you have any influence over, anyway). If I understand the process correctly, the difference between OldWorld and NewWorld macs in this respect is as follows. On OldWorld Macs, the Mac OS X installer makes certain adjustments to the partition map on the boot volume which, in effect, instructs Open Firmware to load and execute code which is located at a raw location (which is specified in the partition map). By "raw location" what I mean is that Open Firmware (on OldWorld Macs) does not understand the HFS+ file system, so you have to tell it exactly where the code to execute is located, as an offset into the partition. (And it has to be contiguous). The code which is actually executed at this point is called BootX. (Not to be confused with the Linux BootX, which is something completely different). The function of BootX is to load any kernel extensions required for booting, and load the kernel, and then hand off control to the kernel. BootX does understand the HFS+ file system (as well as several others), so it can do more useful work. BTW, the Mac OS X Installer installs BootX in a "special" part of the partition that is not part of the visible filesystem (on OldWorld macs). The difference in NewWorld Macs (again, if I understand this correctly), is that OpenFirmware does understand the HFS+ file system on NewWorld macs, so the "special" adjustment to the partition map and "special" install location for BootX are not necessary. BootX can simply be an ordinary file in the filesystem, and the NVRAM boot settings can point to it directly. (Actually, there is also a difference in the format of the BootX code, which you need to unpack and prepare for OldWorld systems in a different manner than for NewWorld). But in both cases, the flow of control is from Open Firmware to BootX to the kernel. So to make changes to the earliest part of the boot process, the easiest option is to create and install a customized version of BootX. (Another option is NVRAM patches to the Open Firmware boot process, which execute earlier. But there is limited space for them, especially on OldWorld machines). BootX itself is part of Darwin, and thus open-source. The process for installing it correctly is a little involved on OldWorld machines--if you want to see an example, you can look at the source for my XPostFacto application (which helps install Mac OS X on some OldWorld machines). The source is available at this location: http://www.opendarwin.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/projects/XPostFacto/ My BootX customization is in the "BootX" directory there. The code for installing it properly is scattered throughout http://www.opendarwin.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/projects/XPostFacto/ XPostFacto/Model/ This description leaves out a few of the complications involved, but should get you started. _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Re: OpenFirmware, Booting and OS Development
by Tim Seufert 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

On Wednesday, August 27, 2003, at 03:24 AM, Andrew McCall wrote: This isn't strictly Darwin kernel development, and if anyone complains I will take it off list. I am trying to write a simple bootsector that displays the phrase "Loading..." to the screen - much like the many, many x86 examples that can be found on the internet, but this time I want to do it on a mac. I have read all the information I can on OpenFirmware I understand that the OpenFirmware is basically the first stage in the boot process, this will then load software that is at the "real-base" address, and then this can b I am making it slightly harder for myself because I want to target old world Mac's first (as thats what I have), I understand that NewWorld Mac's can just boot straight to an elf kernel. Andrew, I can't help you directly, but I can suggest that you take a look at the Linux 'quik' bootloader. It is a full featured boot sector based loader for Old World Macs (and some CHRP systems too, IIRC). BTW, New World Macs cannot boot straight to an ELF kernel as far as I know. Linux on New World Macs is typically booted by having OF load a bootstrap program, yaboot, from a small HFS bootstrap partition. yaboot in turn reads the Linux kernel from a filesystem (HFS/HFS+ or ext2/3) and starts it. _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Re[2]: Kernel Extension Activation without Reboot?
by Quinn 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

At 13:28 -0600 26/8/03, Lance Drake wrote: Would anyone care to chime in with mitigating circumstances or insights that might help me to better understand why this is or is not possible? Matching only happen when a service is registered in the I/O Registry. If your KEXT isn't present at that time, it's not considered a candidate for matching. Once the best match has been found, there's no standard way to cause it to unload it and trigger a rematch. However, there may be family-specific techniques you can use. For example, for mass storage drivers, opening the BSD raw device node terminates the I/O Kit stack on top of the device, and closing it triggers a rematch. This is typically used by disk formatter programs to modify the partition table, and then trigger I/O Kit to rematch against the new partitions. If you can supply some more details about your KEXT (what family it lives in, what it's trying to do, and so on), we may be able to help more. S+E -- Quinn "The Eskimo!" <http://www.apple.com/developer/> Apple Developer Technical Support * Networking, Communications, Hardware _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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OpenFirmware, Booting and OS Development
by Andrew McCall 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

Hi Folks, This isn't strictly Darwin kernel development, and if anyone complains I will take it off list. I am trying to write a simple bootsector that displays the phrase "Loading..." to the screen - much like the many, many x86 examples that can be found on the internet, but this time I want to do it on a mac. I have read all the information I can on OpenFirmware I understand that the OpenFirmware is basically the first stage in the boot process, this will then load software that is at the "real-base" address, and then this can b I am making it slightly harder for myself because I want to target old world Mac's first (as thats what I have), I understand that NewWorld Mac's can just boot straight to an elf kernel. Am I right in the above assumptions? How do I get my bootsector into the "real-base"? Can anyone help "fill" the gaps in my knowledge? Thanks, Andrew McCall _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Re[2]: Kernel Extension Activation without Reboot?
by Lance Drake 26 Aug '03

26 Aug '03

The object that should have over-ridden is sitting in the IOreg listing there where my KEXT should be loaded. If I reboot, myKext is in place and works fine. If the object you are matching to already has a kext loaded to it, your loading of a new kext, even with a higher matching criteria, will not load against it. On reboot, your kext will match to it with a higher matching critera and hence will load against that object. Hi Nano, Thanks for your response. Yes, that pretty much describes the situation. My question is, "Is there some way to cause this binding evaluation to take place, once again, after boot-time?" Looking at the darwin source, it appears there is code activity which, when executed, creates the files "/System/Library/Extensions.kextcache" and "/System/Library/Extensions.mkext". I am guessing that, if refs to your kext bundle are not included in those files, you are not in the pool of kexts that will be evaluated for instantiation in the IORegistry. Perhaps that is why simply calling 'kextload' doesn't really do anything useful as it does not cause your kext to be added into that file. Once your kext was embedded in those files - perhaps by invoking the kextcache tool - I am guessing it would then be possible to request IORegistry objects be removed and then re-added based on the criteria available at that time. Is this the key? Maybe this desire to not have to insist the User restart the machine in order to make use of the software is something that cannot be avoided. Would anyone care to chime in with mitigating circumstances or insights that might help me to better understand why this is or is not possible? Thanks, Lance Drake _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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Re: [OT] How can I tell Project Builder to let me use vi as an editor?
by Corey O'Connor 26 Aug '03

26 Aug '03

Perhaps this would be better if this wasn't on the kernel list? Anyways, I get around this with a tiny wrapper application that opens any file in gvim. So I set my preferred editor to this Cocoa app and then everything opens in gVim like I expected. It's definitely just a hack, and I'd rather a more robust solution, but it does work. Get the 20 line app here: http://www.tothepowerofdisco.com/gVimWrapper.tgz Corey O'Connor DogHeadBone LLC http://www.dogheadbone.com On Tuesday, August 26, 2003, at 11:17 AM, Jeff Collins wrote: It is very frustrating not to be able to use vi as an editor. Looking at: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/ ProjectBuilder/ProjectBuilder.help/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/ Files/chapter_6_section_4.html After clicking on Preferences in the Project Builder, I found the File Types setup menu, but do not see vi as an option. I am sure the solutions is easy, and would appreciate help. Thank you. Jeff Collins _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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How can I tell Project Builder to let me use vi as an editor?
by Jeff Collins 26 Aug '03

26 Aug '03

It is very frustrating not to be able to use vi as an editor. Looking at: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/ProjectBuilder/Proj… After clicking on Preferences in the Project Builder, I found the File Types setup menu, but do not see vi as an option. I am sure the solutions is easy, and would appreciate help. Thank you. Jeff Collins _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel(a)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

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