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.
The one giant `runtime` module (with a `system.zig` that was itself a dumping
ground of unrelated syscalls) is split into directly-importable, flat concern
modules under library/kernel/:
system-call ipc memory process thread time logging file-system service start
(+ the device/service clients: device, device-manager, block, display, input)
system.zig is dissolved — its functions moved to their concern home (mmap ->
memory, spawn/kill/exit -> process, sleep/clock -> time, write/klog -> logging,
fs* -> file-system). `memory` merges heap+dma+shared-memory behind one flat API
(memory.allocator/dmaAlloc/sharedCreate/mmap), keeping heap's state and malloc
export single. The memory<->thread dependency cycle (heap needs Thread.Mutex,
thread needs mmap) is broken by having thread allocate its own stack via the raw
mmap syscall, so the module graph is a DAG.
This is the atomic step: all 42 internal cross-imports flip from relative to
module imports at once. `runtime.zig` and `system.zig` become thin re-export
SHIMS so the ~38 consumers keep compiling on `runtime.*` untouched; they migrate
to direct imports in C2, after which the shims are deleted (C5).
zig build + zig build test green; 14 QEMU cases pass (smoke, process,
process-kill, thread-spawn/join, logger, vfs, fat-mount, display-native,
usb-storage, virtio-gpu, device-manager, input, power-button).
First step of splitting the runtime dumping ground. Pure directory rename
(git mv library/runtime library/kernel) + the six build.zig path references
repointed. The module is still named "runtime" for now; the next commits split
it into concern modules (ipc, memory, process, time, logging, file-system, ...),
dissolve system.zig, and delete the runtime aggregator.
The library/kernel name follows the kernel32 model: it is the userspace library
that wraps the private kernel ABI, distinct from system/kernel/ (the kernel).
zig build green.
Daniel Samson