1 .\" $NetBSD: 1.0.t,v 1.2 1998/01/09 06:54:40 perry Exp $
3 .\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1993, 1994
4 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
6 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
7 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
9 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
10 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
11 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
12 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
13 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
14 .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
15 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
16 .\" without specific prior written permission.
18 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
19 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
20 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
21 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
22 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
23 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
24 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
25 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
26 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
27 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
30 .\" @(#)1.0.t 8.3 (Berkeley) 5/26/94
32 .Sh 1 "Kernel primitives
34 The facilities available to a user process are logically
35 divided into two parts: kernel facilities directly implemented by
36 code running in the operating system, and system facilities
37 implemented either by the system, or in cooperation with a
39 The kernel facilities are described in section
42 The facilities implemented in the kernel are those which define the
43 \fI4.4BSD virtual machine\fP in which each process runs.
44 Like many real machines, this virtual machine has memory management hardware,
45 an interrupt facility, timers and counters. The 4.4BSD
46 virtual machine allows access to files and other objects through a set of
47 \fIdescriptors\fP. Each descriptor resembles a device controller,
48 and supports a set of operations. Like devices on real machines, some
49 of which are internal to the machine and some of which are external,
50 parts of the descriptor machinery are built-in to the operating system, while
51 other parts are implemented in server processes on other machines.
52 The facilities provided through the descriptor machinery are described in