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Re: System architecture view
From: |
olafBuddenhagen |
Subject: |
Re: System architecture view |
Date: |
Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:24:28 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) |
Hi,
On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 11:45:31PM -0800, Praveen A wrote:
> Glibc sits in between the userspace and mach. It provides the complete
> posix api on top of mach. So all the libraries and translators use
> glibc.
This statement is correct, but a bit misleading: glibc does not provide
the POSIX API on top of Mach alone. For many system calls, it contacts
various translators -- most notably the low-level Hurd servers, but in
case of file operation, of course also the respective filesystem server.
(As I already pointed out, calls to other servers go through Mach IPC as
well; but unlike actual Mach calls, Mach doesn't handle them itself, but
forwards them to the respective server.)
Also, glibc not only provides POSIX. It also offers the basic
functionality -- mostly used in translators and the Hurd libraries used
by translators -- to talk to Mach and to other translators below the
POSIX level.
Admittedly, this is all pretty confusing :-)
-antrik-