Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 02:22:50 -0500 From: Tim McMillen <timcm@umich.edu> To: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net>, Marc Tardif <intmktg@CAM.ORG> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: more info on system processes Message-ID: <01011202225000.00410@tim.elnsng1.mi.home.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0101101316400.22051-100000@pilchuck.reedmedia.net> References: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0101101316400.22051-100000@pilchuck.reedmedia.net>
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On Wednesday January 10, 2001 16:30, Jeremy C. Reed wrote: > On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Marc Tardif wrote: > > Did you ever get a response to this? > > > Where can I get more information about the system processes running > > on my 4.1-STABLE system (swapper, pagedaemon, vmdaemon, bufdaemon, > > syncer)? I'd be curious to understand what these processes actually > > do. > > I am also looking for this information. I grep'ed through a bunch of > sys source and the manual pages, but didn't find much. > > > I tried looking for manpages, but nothing was available. I then > > proceeded to look for "pagedaemon" on freebsd.org's search page (in > > faq and handbook), but nothing was available either. Short of > > reading the actual source code, where else can I find information > > on system processes? > > I have been directed to the "The Design and Implementation of the > 4.4BSD Operating System" book several times. But it seems like this > should be documented somewhere else (online). I think that that is really all the documentation there is for some of those system processes. The problem is the hard core kernel hackers hate writing documentation. I even saw someone comment on -hackers that they would rather write or debug code for 10 hours than write documentation for 1 hour. I remember someone stating there was no online documentation about those system processes. There certainly is information about the first two at least, in The Design and Implementation. I'm looking at it now, and while I could scan in a few pages, that would violate some copyrights. You probably want to get a hold of the book. Many good libraries have it, or www.bookpool.com has the cheapest price I've seen. Here are two summaries from the book. swapper is responsible for scheduling the transfer of whole processes between main memory and secondary storage when system resources are low pagedaemon is responsible for writing parts of the address space of a process to secondary storage in support of the paging facilities of the virtual memory system. Syncer has a manpage, see syncer(4) The other two don't appear in the index to D&I, so maybe they are new to FreeBSD. They certainly would not be the only thing undocumented in the kernel. Looks like the source code would be your only place to look for info now. There is supposed to be a new version of D&I coming out sometime in 2001 for FreeBSD, that would certainly cover all this. Hope that helped, Tim To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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