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Hands-On System Programming with Go
Hands-On System Programming with Go

Hands-On System Programming with Go: Build modern and concurrent applications for Unix and Linux systems using Golang

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Hands-On System Programming with Go

An Introduction to System Programming

This chapter is an introduction to system programming, exploring a range of topics from its original definition to how it has shifted in time with system evolution. This chapter provides some basic concepts and an overview of Unix and its resources, including the kernel and the application programming interfaces (API). Many of these concepts are defined here and are used in the rest of the book.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

  • What is system programming?
  • Application programming interfaces
  • Understanding how the protection ring works
  • An overview of system calls
  • The POSIX standard

Technical requirements

This chapter does not require you to install any special software if you're on Linux.

If you are a Windows user, you can install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Follow these steps in order to install WSL:

  1. Open PowerShell as administrator and run the following: 
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
  1. Restart your computer when prompted.
  2. Install your favorite Linux distribution from the Microsoft Store.

Beginning with system programming

Over the years, the IT landscape has shifted dramatically. Multicore CPUs that challenge the Von Neumann machine, the internet, and distributed systems are just some of the changes that occurred in the last 30 years. So, where does system programming stand in this landscape?

Software for software

Let's start with the standard textbook definition first.

System programming (or systems programming) is the activity of programming computer system software. The primary distinguishing characteristic of system programming when compared to application programming is that application programming aims to produce software that provides services directly to the user (for example, a word...

Application programming interfaces

APIs are series subroutine definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software. The most important aspects of an API are the functionalities that it offers, combined with its documentation, which facilitates the user in the usage and implementation of the software itself in another software. An API can be the interface that allows an application software to use a system software.

An API usually has a specific release policy that is meant to be used by a specific group of recipients. This can be the following:

  • Private and for internal use only
  • Partner and usable by determined groups only—this may include companies that want to integrate the service with theirs
  • Public and available for every user

Types...

Understanding the protection ring

The protection ring, also referred to as hierarchical protection domainsis the mechanism used to protect a system against failure. Its name is derived from the hierarchical structure of its levels of permission, represented by concentric rings, with privilege decreasing when moving to the outside rings. Between each ring there are special gates that allow the outer ring to access the inner ring resources in a restricted manner.

Architectural differences

The number and order of rings depend on the CPU architecture. They are usually numbered with decreasing privilege, making ring 0 the most privileged one. This is true for i386 and x64 architecture that use four rings (from ring...

Diving into system calls

System calls are the way operating systems provide access to the resources for the applications. It is an API implemented by the kernel for accessing the hardware safely.

Services provided

There are some categories that we can use to split the numerous functions offered by the operating system. These include the control of the running applications and their flow, the filesystem access, and the network.

Process control

This type of services includes load, which adds a program to memory and prepares for its execution before passing control...

Understanding the POSIX standard

In order to ensure consistency between operating systems, IEEE formalized some standards for operating systems. These are described in the following sections.

POSIX standards and features

Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) for Unix represents a series of standards for operating system interfaces. The first version dates back to 1988 and covers a series of topics like filenames, shells, and regular expressions.

There are many features defined by POSIX, and they are organized in four different standards, each one focusing on a different aspect of the Unix compliance. They are all named POSIX followed by a number.

...

Summary

In this chapter, we saw what system programming means—writing system software that has some strict requirements, such as being tied to the hardware, using a low-level language, and working in a resource-constrained environment. Its practices can be really useful when building distributed systems that normally require optimizing resource usage. We discussed APIs, definitions that allows software to be used by other software, and listed the different types—the ones in the operating system, libraries and frameworks, and remote and web APIs.

We analyzed how, in operating systems, the access to resources is arranged in hierarchical levels called protection rings that prevent uncontrolled usage in order to improve security and avoid failures from the applications. The Linux model simplifies this hierarchy to just two levels called user and kernel...

Questions

  1. What is the difference between application and system programming?
  2. What is an API? Why are APIs so important?
  3. Could you explain how protection rings work?
  4. Can you make some examples of what cannot be done in user space?
  5. What's a system call?
  6. Which calls are used in Unix to manage a process?
  7. Why is POSIX useful?
  8. Is Windows POSIX compliant?
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Key benefits

  • Learn how to write Unix and Linux system code in Golang v1.12
  • Perform inter-process communication using pipes, message queues, shared memory, and semaphores
  • Explore modern Go features such as goroutines and channels that facilitate systems programming

Description

System software and applications were largely created using low-level languages such as C or C++. Go is a modern language that combines simplicity, concurrency, and performance, making it a good alternative for building system applications for Linux and macOS. This Go book introduces Unix and systems programming to help you understand the components the OS has to offer, ranging from the kernel API to the filesystem. You'll then familiarize yourself with Go and its specifications. You'll also learn how to optimize input and output operations with files and streams of data, which are useful tools in building pseudo-terminal applications. You'll gain insights into how processes communicate with each other, and learn about processes and daemon control using signals, pipes, and exit codes. This book will also enable you to understand how to use network communication using various protocols, including TCP and HTTP. As you advance, you'll focus on Go's best feature - concurrency, which will help you handle communication with channels and goroutines, other concurrency tools to synchronize shared resources, and the context package to write elegant applications. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to build concurrent system applications using Go

Who is this book for?

If you are a developer who wants to learn system programming with Go, this book is for you. Although no knowledge of Unix and Linux system programming is necessary, intermediate knowledge of Go will help you understand the concepts covered in the book

What you will learn

  • Explore concepts of system programming using Go and concurrency
  • Gain insights into Golang s internals, memory models and allocation
  • Familiarize yourself with the filesystem and IO streams in general
  • Handle and control processes and daemons lifetime via signals and pipes
  • Communicate with other applications effectively using a network
  • Use various encoding formats to serialize complex data structures
  • Become well-versed in concurrency with channels, goroutines, and sync
  • Use concurrency patterns to build robust and performant system applications
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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jul 05, 2019
Length: 458 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789804072
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Publication date : Jul 05, 2019
Length: 458 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789804072
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Table of Contents

23 Chapters
Section 1: An Introduction to System Programming and Go Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
An Introduction to System Programming Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Unix OS Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
An Overview of Go Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 2: Advanced File I/O Operations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with the Filesystem Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Streams Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building Pseudo-Terminals Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 3: Understanding Process Communication Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Processes and Daemons Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exit Codes, Signals, and Pipes Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Network Programming Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Data Encoding Using Go Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 4: Deep Dive into Concurrency Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Dealing with Channels and Goroutines Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Synchronization with sync and atomic Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Coordination Using Context Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Implementing Concurrency Patterns Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 5: A Guide to Using Reflection and CGO Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Reflection Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using CGO Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Assessments Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3
(3 Ratings)
5 star 33.3%
4 star 33.3%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 33.3%
Rok Biderman Sep 22, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I would really recommend this book to someone starting out, but not completely new to Go. It would be a solid intro into systems programming but also appropriate for any programmers starting to work in Go who is struggling with applying concurrency patterns. It can also serve as a nice refresher for more experienced developers, as it's a more advanced book. Get yourself a good intro book into Go programming (there are plenty out there), and then go for this book to get you into the systems side of it.A basic understanding of programming concepts and of Go are worked through the book from a system's perspective, discovering the details that the usual programming books won't cover. The book is concise and well written, with good examples and can ease you into using Go as a tool to do Linux systems programming.Having picked up this book as a helper for a toy implementation of network accessible file system in Go I am building, the patterns in the third part of the book came pretty handy. It goes and delivers a comprehensive overview of concurrency patterns to ease the transition.Going deeper into these topics is essential for anyone interested in aspects of security, handy if you're trying to design high-performance applications or for someone like me, just trying to expand my knowledge.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Jaime A Jul 03, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Muy bueno, lo estoy leyendo todavía. estoy aprendiendo muchísimo sobre algunoz aspectos del lenguaje más orientados a sistemas. Muy recomendable
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Jerome Lanteri Apr 08, 2020
Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 1
Il n'y a que les titres et les introduction sur chaque chapitre. Ensuite tout le reste est inexistant.Bravo !
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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