A protocol is reached by name now, not by a compile-time integer. Init is
PID 1 and already knows which binary it started, so init serves /protocol
as a vfs backend: bind claims a contract with the provider's endpoint
attached, open answers with that endpoint as the reply's capability, and
readdir lists what is bound with the task and binary behind it. The kernel
reserves the prefix — nothing may mount over it, under it, or unmount it —
and ServiceId, ipc_register and ipc_lookup are gone, their syscall numbers
left vacant.
A bind is authorized by who the caller *is*: the kernel-stamped binary
together with the supervising task's identity, matched against
/system/configuration/protocol.csv. Identity, not spelling — spawn is
ungated, so an attacker can run any bundled binary, and a name-only rule
would have let it launder grants through an init of its own making. A name
a live process holds is refused to everyone else; a dead one's is released.
Three review rounds against a hostile ring-3 process found what 108 green
tests could not, because the suite contains no attacker. Publishing init's
supervision endpoint as the registry put PID 1's mailbox in every process's
hands, where two forged bytes reached the shutdown path: privileged traffic
is now believed only from the task that holds the contract it speaks for.
A capability arriving on a request outlived every path that ignored it,
one handle per call until the table was full — in init, and in the harness
ten services share — so the arriving capability is owned by the turn and
released unless a handler says otherwise. And the kernel let anyone holding
an endpoint handle aim signals, timers, exit notices and interrupts at it:
binding now requires having created it.
Suite 108/108. The new protocol-registry case asserts eleven properties,
each one an attack that must fail.
/etc/init.csv and /etc/devices.csv become /system/configuration/*.csv (the
repo's etc/ moves to system/configuration/, mirroring the runtime tree),
/var/log becomes /system/logs, and /mnt/usb becomes /volumes/usb. The
kernel VFS gains a carve-out so FAT may serve exactly /system/configuration
and /system/logs beneath the initrd-backed /system while /system and /test
themselves stay unshadowable; FAT's single /var mount splits into those two
rewritten mounts. The kvfs readdir check learns /system's third child and
the ramdisk spawn sweep skips the configuration tree.
Suite 106/106.
Every user binary and the two device-logic library modules (pci, usb) now
`@import` the concern modules directly instead of aliasing through `runtime`:
runtime.ipc/process/time/service/input/block/display -> @import("<module>")
runtime.device / runtime.device_manager -> @import("driver")
runtime.fs -> @import("file-system")
runtime.Thread -> @import("thread").Thread
runtime.system.{write,writeRecord,klog*} -> logging.*
runtime.system.{sleep,timerOnce,wallClock,clock} -> time.*
runtime.system.{spawn*,kill,exit,yield,processes,...}-> process.*
runtime.system.{mmap,munmap,PROT_*} -> memory.*
runtime.dma.* / runtime.shared_memory.* / runtime.allocator -> memory.*
Each consumer keeps its own alias name (e.g. `const device = @import("driver")`),
so call sites are unchanged and there are no collisions with local `driver`
variables. build.zig now injects the concern modules into every user binary via
`default_imports`; pci/usb module import lists were updated to match.
The `runtime` and `system` shims remain for one more step (root.zig still uses
runtime); they are deleted in C5. Nothing but root.zig imports `runtime` now.
Verified: zig build, zig build test, and 17 QEMU cases (smoke, device-manager,
logger, fat-mount, fat-mutations, usb-storage, usb-hid, display-native,
virtio-gpu, input, thread-spawn, thread-mutex, process-kill, shared-memory,
driver-restart, acpi-ps2, pci-scan).
Its only content was the redundant announce line — the useful shutdown
marker was written AFTER the final drain, so it reached serial and the
ring but never a file, and a truncated boot could only be inferred from
what was missing. The marker now enters the ring BEFORE the drain, so
the drain carries it into logger.log: a directory whose logger.log ends
with 'shutting down; final flush' is complete through shutdown; one
without it was cut early. The sequence-count epilogue stays serial-only,
after the drain, by design.
runtime.fs now routes every path through fs_resolve: kernel-served
/system nodes are read via fs_node (tokens, no open state); everything
under a userspace mount goes straight to the owning backend's endpoint
with the kernel-rewritten mount-relative path — one syscall of naming,
then the unchanged vfs-protocol rendezvous, public API untouched. mkdir/
unlink/rename resolve-then-forward (rename checks both paths land on
the SAME backend); mount is the fs_mount syscall.
The fat server mounts twice — /mnt/usb from the volume root and /var
from its /var subtree — so the logger now writes the FHS path
/var/log/<boot-stamp>/... and swapping the persistent medium later
touches only fat's two mount calls. With clients holding fat's node ids
directly, fat records each handle's owner, checks it, and sweeps a dead
client's handles via the published exit events (the old router's
pattern, now where the state actually lives).
The userspace vfs server and its router die; ServiceId.vfs=1 stays
reserved-retired; protocol.zig moves to system/vfs-protocol.zig (the
wire contract is backend-only now). vfs-test becomes the ring-3 proof
of the kernel VFS (own-binary ELF magic through /system, read-only
refusals, listing); vfs-client-death becomes the fat sweep test over
the full storage chain, with a ring-scanning check (the last-write
buffer is too racy under a chattering tree).
The logger service drains the tagged ring every 250 ms and demultiplexes
it into one file per process on the flash volume:
/mnt/usb/var/log/2026-07-21T150434Z/system/services/fat.log
[ 0.214] mounted FAT (fat32, 128992 clusters, partition lba 0)
The boot stamp is the wall-clock anchor from klog_status (FAT-safe, no
colons); the kernel's records go to kernel.log; each line carries the
record's monotonic timestamp and level. Storage is best-effort and
late — the ring buffers a whole boot until the mount appears, then the
first drain writes the backlog, storage-stack records included. Lost
records surface as '-- N records lost --' from sequence gaps. Files
close (= fat's device cache flush) after a 2 s quiet period, bounding
data-at-risk without per-record flush thrash. The logger announces
itself once — a periodic status line would feed the stream it drains.
init spawns the logger last, so the reverse-order shutdown stops it
first and its final drain runs over a live storage chain; log-flush and
init's own DANOS.LOG shutdown flush retire (superseded). runtime.fs
makePath treats components at or above a mount point as router names —
create is best-effort per prefix, the final verdict is exists(path).
Daniel Samson