Search icon CANCEL
Subscription
0
Cart icon
Your Cart (0 item)
Close icon
You have no products in your basket yet
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Arrow up icon
GO TO TOP
Linux Kernel Programming

You're reading from   Linux Kernel Programming A comprehensive guide to kernel internals, writing kernel modules, and kernel synchronization

Arrow left icon
Product type Paperback
Published in Mar 2021
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781789953435
Length 754 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
Tools
Arrow right icon
Author (1):
Arrow left icon
Kaiwan N. Billimoria Kaiwan N. Billimoria
Author Profile Icon Kaiwan N. Billimoria
Kaiwan N. Billimoria
Arrow right icon
View More author details
Toc

Table of Contents (19) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Section 1: The Basics
2. Kernel Workspace Setup FREE CHAPTER 3. Building the 5.x Linux Kernel from Source - Part 1 4. Building the 5.x Linux Kernel from Source - Part 2 5. Writing Your First Kernel Module - LKMs Part 1 6. Writing Your First Kernel Module - LKMs Part 2 7. Section 2: Understanding and Working with the Kernel
8. Kernel Internals Essentials - Processes and Threads 9. Memory Management Internals - Essentials 10. Kernel Memory Allocation for Module Authors - Part 1 11. Kernel Memory Allocation for Module Authors - Part 2 12. The CPU Scheduler - Part 1 13. The CPU Scheduler - Part 2 14. Section 3: Delving Deeper
15. Kernel Synchronization - Part 1 16. Kernel Synchronization - Part 2 17. About Packt 18. Other Books You May Enjoy

Passing parameters to a kernel module

A common debugging technique is to instrument your code; that is, insert prints at appropriate points such that you can follow the path the code takes. Within a kernel module, of course, we would use the versatile printk function for this purpose. So, let's say we do something like the following (pseudo-code):

#define pr_fmt(fmt) "%s:%s():%d: " fmt, KBUILD_MODNAME, __func__, __LINE__
[ ... ]
func_x() {
pr_debug("At 1\n");
[...]
while (<cond>) {
pr_debug("At 2: j=0x%x\n", j);
[...]
}
[...]
}

Okay, great. But we don't want the debug prints to appear in a production (or release) version. That's precisely why we're using the pr_debug() : it emits a printk only when the symbol DEBUG is defined! Indeed, but what if, interestingly, our customer is an engineering customer and wants to dynamically turn on or turn off these debug prints? There are...

lock icon The rest of the chapter is locked
Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!
A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of
Renews at $19.99/month. Cancel anytime
Banner background image