The kernel no longer folds AML Device objects into the device tree — the
ring-3 acpi service is the sole builder of _HID device nodes. The kernel
keeps building the namespace only for the \_S5 sleep type, and still
seeds the static tables (MADT, HPET, MCFG, FADT) and the acpi-tables node.
The device manager matches ps2-bus from the service's _HID reports
(PNP0303 / PNP0F13, singleton-deduped) instead of boot-snapshot nodes;
its dead boot-snapshot ps2 arm is gone. The service registers every
device before reporting any, so a driver the manager spawns on the first
report already sees the full set — no keyboard-before-mouse race. The
acpi-ps2 scenario proves the whole chain: report -> spawn -> ps2-bus
finds the controller and attaches its keyboard, entirely in ring 3. The
ioport test moved to the acpi-tables I/O window, since the kernel-built
PS/2 node it used to scan for no longer exists. The retired
device-building functions in acpi.zig are dead but retained (a botched
mechanical deletion is worse mid-migration than a follow-up sweep, which
is flagged as a task). Suite 58/58.
AML method evaluation now runs in userspace touching real hardware: the
service builds an interpreter with a ring-3 Hal (port I/O routed through
its claimed acpi-tables node; a scratch page backs SystemMemory maps so a
stray OperationRegion degrades to zeros instead of faulting a process
that cannot map arbitrary physical memory). It walks the namespace and,
for each present _HID device that is not a PCI root, evaluates _CRS,
registers it under acpi-tables, and reports it with its EISA-decoded hid.
Containment for this needed the broker's irq check to become range-based
— an interrupt line is still indivisible, but a parent may own a range,
so the acpi-tables node's broad irq window contains its children's legacy
lines (a length-1 range is exactly the old equality, so single-irq
parents are unaffected). ChildAdded gained a hid field for firmware
string identity. Matching those reports to drivers stays off until M20.3,
so ps2-bus still comes up via the kernel path — no regression. The
acpi-report scenario proves the PS/2 keyboard (io 0x60/0x64 + IRQ) and
mouse (IRQ) are reported with their resources. Suite 57/57.
The AML module becomes a build module compiled into both the kernel (for
the \_S5 sleep state it still needs) and the new acpi service — one
source, two builds, no fork. The kernel publishes a single acpi-tables
node: the DSDT/SSDT blobs as memory resources, a broad io_port grant (the
honest trust boundary — firmware AML names whatever ports it chose, known
only after parsing), and the SCI for the M21 event track. The acpi
service claims the node, maps each blob through the ordinary mmio grant
(which preserves the sub-page offset onto the bytecode), and runs the
same parser the kernel does. It self-verifies its namespace Device count
against the kernel's — 34 = 34 — deterministically via an argv the
acpi-parse test passes, so no racing the shared serial buffer. Parse-only
touches no hardware; OperationRegion evaluation waits for _CRS/_STA in
M20.2. The manager spawns 'discovery' (the neutral ramdisk name) at
startup. Suite 56/56.
enumeratePci, addBars, pciConfigurationPtr, and the PciHeader struct are
deleted; the kernel seeds only the host bridge, and the ring-3 pci-bus
driver's reports are the sole source of PCI function nodes. The manager
matches PCI drivers from reported identity, deduped by registered device
id so a bus restart never double-spawns.
The flip did its job by exposing a latent SMP race: ring-3
device_register made the broker table concurrent for the first time, and
mmio_map read it lock-free — under load a torn resource length mapped
hpet's window wrong (its user fault) and underflowed r.len-1 into a
kernel integer-overflow panic. Fixed: the broker read in mmio_map (and
claim) runs under the big kernel lock, the arithmetic rejects
zero-length and wrapping windows cleanly, and pci-bus no longer registers
unimplemented size-0 BARs. driver-restart hammered 6x, suite 55/55.
Each function is registered under the bridge with the config-space slice
and BARs sized by the same all-ones probe the kernel uses — byte-for-byte
equal descriptors, so the idempotent register returns the kernel's
existing node ids during coexistence instead of duplicating the tree.
The bridge gained the 16-bit io_port aperture that functions' I/O BARs
need to pass containment. Reports carry the registered device_id, and
the pci-scan scenario drills a forced restart: kill the enumerator after
its reports, watch the respawn re-scan, and assert the broker's PCI node
count never grew. The usb-restart test trigger is pinned to the xHCI
reporter (pci-bus racing it to two reports used to steal the kill).
Harness hardening: failing cases preserve their serial logs; the heavy
scenarios run at 150s.
The manager matches the pci_host_bridge node and spawns pci-bus with the
bridge id as its assignment — hello, supervision, restart, all the M18
contract for free. The driver claims the bridge, maps the ECAM window
(resource 0) through the ordinary mmio grant, and repeats the kernel's
brute-force bus/device/function walk from user space. The pci-scan
scenario builds its expected marker from the kernel's own function count,
so the two enumerations must agree exactly — the equivalence that
licenses retiring the kernel walk in M19.3.
The host bridge now carries MMIO apertures derived from the boot memory
map's gaps below 4 GiB (largest three, sort-merged; a single after-the-
last-region hole dies on OVMF's flash at the top) plus one aperture above
the described space — so a user-space device_register of PCI functions
with BAR resources can pass containment. The discovery test asserts
every PCI memory resource lies inside a bridge window and names any
escapee. device_register is idempotent on exact (parent, class, identity,
resources) match — a restarted registering bus cannot duplicate its
children; proven directly against the broker in the bus test.
ChildAdded gains device_id so a report can carry the registered kernel
id a matched driver needs as its assignment.
system/services/acpi and system/services/fdt exist as documented
placeholders (silent clean-exit mains; the headers say exactly what each
becomes and why). The build's -Ddiscovery=acpi|fdt option fills the
ramdisk's neutral 'discovery' slot — the device manager will spawn
"discovery" by that name in M20.3 and never learn which firmware it is
on (m19-m20-plan.md decision 7). x86 defaults to acpi; the aarch64
target flips the default when it lands.
Applications ask the device manager for the tree (enumerate: a header
plus ChildEntry records) and subscribe to published add/remove events by
handing their endpoint over as the call's capability — the input-service
pattern; events are the same ChildAdded/ChildRemoved structs the bus
drivers send, one encoding in both directions. device-list is the first
client: it prints the tree, subscribes, and narrates the events through
a driver restart. The protocol's message maximum is capped at the
kernel's IPC MESSAGE_MAXIMUM (256 bytes, ten entries per reply; paging
joins the protocol when a tree outgrows one message). The startUserTask
debug print is gone: it wrote to serial unserialized against user-space
lines and sheared concurrent log markers in half — the root cause of the
scenario flakes.
child_added/child_removed join the device-manager protocol. The driver
maps its register BAR (resource 0 is the ECAM config space; the walk
starts at 1), reads CAPLENGTH and HCSPARAMS1, and reads one PORTSC per
port: the connect bit and speed class come straight from hardware, no
rings needed to see the devices. The manager mirrors reported children
keyed by (parent, port), remembers which instance reported each, and
prunes a dead reporter's children before deciding the restart — the
children describe protocol state that died with the process. The
usb-report scenario drives the whole loop: two QEMU devices reported,
reporter killed, children pruned, driver respawned with backoff, and the
new instance re-claims, re-scans, and re-reports.
The manager is now a harness service on the well-known .device_manager
endpoint. Every driver spawns supervised; drivers with an assignment must
hello (device-manager-protocol, versioned) within a deadline enforced by
a timer sweep. Exit reasons drive the restart decision: clean exits stay
down, faults restart with 300/600/1200ms backoff, and three fast deaths
mark a driver failed instead of respawning forever. usb-xhci-bus is the
first conforming driver; the crash-test fixture claims a device, hellos,
and faults on purpose — each respawn re-proving claim release on death
through the manager's own path. maximum_tasks grows 16 -> 32: the
initial-ramdisk sweep (15 binaries at once) was intermittently
overflowing the static pool.
Signals are statements delivered as coalescing notifications to the
endpoint a process nominates with signal_bind — never a hijacked stack,
never a question (liveness is the zero-length ping the harness answers).
process_signal is supervisor-or-self gated, like kill; unbound targets
accumulate a pending mask delivered on bind. timer_bind is the missing
timed wait: a one-shot deadline landing in the same replyWait as
everything else — what stop(), hello deadlines, and restart backoff are
built from. runtime.service.run folds requests, signals, and
notifications into callbacks; the VFS conversion deletes its hand-rolled
loop and gains the whole lifecycle contract. The signals scenario drives
ping, reload, terminate->exited, the timer, and the deaf-child
deadline->killed path from ring 3. docs/process-lifecycle.md increments
1-4 are now as-built.
process_subscribe adds an endpoint to a bounded, ref-counted subscriber
table; every death posts the same badge encoding a supervisor's exit
notification uses, equally late, so subscribers observe a fully-released
child. A dying subscriber's own subscriptions are removed first — it never
hears about itself. The VFS is the first subscriber: open handles now
record their owner and are swept when the owner dies, because a service
must never depend on clients cleaning up after themselves
(docs/process-lifecycle.md). Proven by the vfs-client-death scenario.
The kernel records an ExitReason at all three death sites — clean exit,
fault (classified by vector), and process_kill — into a bounded ring
before the exit notification posts, so a supervisor's query never races
the notice. process_exit_reason is gated by the same supervisor check as
kill; runtime.process.exitReason is the stable interface. This is the
input restart policy reads (docs/process-lifecycle.md iron rule 2).
Turn acpi-ids.zig's flat name table into a HardwareId enum modeled on
ps2-library's Port: one entry() switch holds the registry (variant ->
_HID string + human-readable name), with hid(), description(), and
fromHid() methods. The free description(hid) lookup the kernel's
device-tree dump uses survives, implemented over the enum, and a new
test round-trips every variant through fromHid.
Callers now name the device instead of quoting its id:
- ps2-library's DeviceType.hid() and ps2-bus's descriptor lookups use
HardwareId.ps2_keyboard / .ps2_mouse.
- device-manager's driverFor parses the HID once with fromHid and
switches on named values.
- acpi.zig's isPciRootNode carried the same ids twice, as strings and
as packed-EISA integers (0x030AD041/0x080AD041); both branches now
decode to the string form and answer through one isPciRootHid helper
using .pci_bus / .pci_express_root_bridge.
- build.zig threads the acpi-ids module (previously kernel-only) into
every user binary, like xkeyboard-config.
Replace the keyboard driver's synthetic stream with the real path:
- ps2-bus binds IRQ1 (interrupt bits set only after the bind), drains
port 0x60 on each interrupt, and forwards every byte to the attached
child driver over async ipc_send, routed by the status register's
auxiliary-output bit. Children attach via the new well-known ps2_bus
service, handing over their endpoint as a capability.
- scancode.zig (new, pure, host-tested): scancode set 2 -> USB HID
usage decoding (F0/E0/E1 prefix state machine) plus keyboard state —
pressed-key bitmap, typematic-repeat classification, modifier and
caps-lock tracking.
- keyboard.zig decodes the forwarded stream and publishes real
key_down/key_press/key_up events, filling key_press characters via
xkeyboard-config (layout from argv[2], default us) and synthesizing
ASCII control characters for Enter/Tab/Backspace/Escape.
- protocol.zig names the full HID usage set in Keycode; build.zig
threads the xkeyboard-config module into user binaries.
Verified end to end in QEMU via monitor sendkey: shift, caps lock,
and control-character synthesis all decode correctly. The mouse
driver still publishes its synthetic stream; attaching it to the
bus the same way is the follow-up.
Extend the input service beyond the keyboard so mouse and joystick/gamepad
drivers can broadcast too, with per-device publish and subscribe methods.
- protocol: KeyEvent joins MouseEvent (motion/buttons/scroll) and
JoystickEvent (axes/buttons), all carried in a common InputEvent envelope
tagged with a DeviceKind. A subscribe request carries a device_mask, so a
subscriber names the classes it wants and the service routes each event only
to interested subscribers (a mouse-only listener never wakes for keystrokes).
- runtime: per-device publish methods (publishKeyboardEvent/publishMouseEvent/
publishJoystickEvent) and subscribe helpers (subscribeKeyboard/Mouse/Joystick,
each typed, plus subscribe(mask)/subscribeAll returning the tagged envelope).
- service: subscriber table gains a device_mask; broadcast routes by the
event's device class.
- mouse driver now publishes (synthetic) mouse events like the keyboard driver;
input-source cycles all three classes; input-test subscribes to all and only
emits its "ok" marker once it has received one of each class — so the passing
test proves per-device routing, not just delivery. Real HID decoding stays a
follow-up.
No kernel changes: ipc_send is generic and the 36-byte InputEvent fits its
64-byte payload. Full QEMU suite 48/48; serial log confirms keyboard, mouse,
and joystick all reach one subscription.
Programs can now subscribe to keyboard events (key_down/key_up/key_press)
and drivers can broadcast them, through a new user-space input service.
The delivery model is forced by danos IPC: a synchronous rendezvous holds
one pending reply, so a server cannot park N subscribers blocked in a
"wait for next event" call — delivery must be push. But a synchronous push
has no timeout and the kernel never wakes a sender parked on a dead peer's
endpoint, so one dying subscriber would hang all input. So this lands the
roadmap's planned asynchronous buffered send and builds the service on it:
- ipc_send (syscall 26): non-blocking post to an endpoint's bounded payload
ring, delivered through reply_wait as a buffered message (notify_message_bit).
A full ring drops the oldest. It can never hang on a dead/slow peer.
- input-protocol + runtime.input helpers (subscribe/next, connectSource/
publish) — the first real consumer of M13 capability passing: a subscriber
hands the service its own endpoint as a capability.
- input service (fan-out via ipc_send, dead-subscriber pruning), a synthetic
input-source, and input-test; the ps2-bus keyboard driver publishes to it.
Real IRQ1 scancode decoding (which must live in the bus, the PNP0303 owner)
is a documented follow-up; the source is synthetic for now.
- build/init wiring, an `input` QEMU case, and docs/input.md.
Full QEMU suite 48/48, including the new input case and every IPC/endpoint
regression (ipc, ipc-call, ipc-cap, vfs, hpet, bus, irqfree).
process_enumerate snapshots the task table (the device_enumerate shape, so
ps is a user program); system_spawn returns the child id, records the caller
as supervisor, and takes an exit endpoint; process_kill is allowed only for
the supervisor. Every death — exit, fault, or kill — posts a child-exit badge
to that endpoint (the IRQ-as-IPC pattern as SIGCHLD). A target caught off-CPU
is reaped in place; a running one is condemned and finished at its next
system call or tick, guarded so teardown never lands mid-kernel-operation.
Tested by process-list, process-kill, and supervision (a ring-3 supervisor
exercising the whole surface); design notes in docs/process-management.md.
Processes now start with C-compatible arguments: the kernel builds the
System V AMD64 entry block (argc, argv, empty envp, auxiliary vector)
at the top of the stack, argv[0] is the path or initial-ramdisk name
the process was spawned as, and system_spawn carries an optional
NUL-separated blob that becomes argv[1..]. The runtime parses the block
(runtime.argumentCount/argument) and its spawn wrappers pass arguments
through. The name is also recorded on the task, so a fault report says
which binary died, not just its id.
The user stack grows from one page to eight (32 KiB,
parameters.user_stack_pages), with the page below left unmapped as a
guard so an overflow faults into a clean process kill rather than
corrupting the image. Task.name_buffer is zero-initialised, not
undefined: an undefined default is materialised as a 0xAA fill that
moved the static task pool out of .bss and made the whole kernel ~7x
slower under QEMU TCG (caught by the affinity test).
Proven end to end by the new args test: args-echo respawns itself with
arguments via the syscall blob, burns more stack than one page could
hold, and echoes its argv intact. Full suite: 44/44.
ipc_call and ipc_reply_wait grow a `send_cap` argument (r9) and a `received_cap`
return (r8): an endpoint travels alongside a message, installed into the receiver's
handle table. The transfer is a share, not a move — the endpoint's refcount is bumped
and the sender keeps its handle. If the receiver's table is full the call fails
-ENOSPC and the message is NOT delivered (a half-delivered capability is worse than a
failed send); a bad handle fails -EBADF. Both directions carry a cap: a client's call
hands one to the server (seen in the server's replyWait), and the server's reply hands
one back (seen in the client's call return).
This is the "open" primitive the driver model was blocked on: a bus driver mints a
per-device endpoint and hands it to a class driver, giving it a private channel to one
device without the 8-slot global name registry.
Kernel: shareCapability in ipc-synchronous.zig at both copy points; new
setSystemCallResult3 (r8, saved/restored by the syscall stub); Task gains
ipc_send_cap / ipc_received_cap. Runtime: callCap + Reply, replyWait gains send_cap
and Received.cap; plain call/replyWait delegate with no_cap. New abi.no_cap.
New ipc-cap test (two kernel tasks exercise both directions, each verifying the
endpoint it received is the same object shared, refcount bumped to 2). No class driver
consumes callCap yet — it lands with the first one. Suite 37/37 plus host tests.
Retire the kernel's spawn-every-initial-ramdisk-binary loop, resolving the
service/driver split into a real three-level supervision hierarchy:
kernel -> spawns init (PID 1) only, and publishes the initial-ramdisk
init -> the service supervisor: spawns the system services (vfs, device-manager)
device-manager -> spawns the drivers it matches (hpet)
The kernel now only hands the initial-ramdisk image to the process layer
(publishInitialRamdisk) so user space can system_spawn from it; it launches nothing
bundled itself. init gains a boot-services list ("vfs", "device-manager") and spawns
them best-effort before settling into its heartbeat — policy lives in user space,
where a microkernel keeps it. Drivers are absent from that list on purpose: the
device manager owns them. Test-only binaries (vfs-test, bus) no longer run at boot;
their kernel self-tests still spawn them directly.
This removes increment 2's transitional double-spawn: a real boot now brings hpet up
exactly once (verified — kernel -> init -> vfs/device-manager -> hpet, zero "claim
failed"). The automated suite is unaffected: test builds run their case and halt
before the normal boot path, so each already spawns its own binaries. Suite 36/36
plus host tests; normal boot verified by hand under QEMU.
Add a `system_spawn(name)` system call: the kernel loads a binary bundled in the
initial-ramdisk, by name, as a fresh ring-3 process. It's the mechanism a user-space
supervisor needs — discovery and policy stay in user space, the kernel only spawns.
The kernel already holds the initial-ramdisk image from the boot handoff; it now
stashes it (process.setInitialRamdisk) so the handler can resolve names, bounds-checks
the name into the user half like debug_write, and returns -1 for an unknown name or a
load failure. Ungated for now (any process may spawn any bundled binary); a spawn
capability belongs here once the model grows one.
The device manager stops logging "would spawn it" and calls runtime.system.spawn on
its matched driver. On QEMU it discovers the HPET, matches `hpet`, and spawns it — and
the driver comes all the way up (claims the timer, maps its MMIO, binds and services
its IRQ, prints "hpet: ok"). The device-manager test now keys on that final marker:
since only the manager is spawned, `hpet: ok` appearing proves the whole
discover -> match -> system_spawn -> driver-up chain end to end.
Transitional: the kernel still auto-spawns the whole initial-ramdisk at boot, so a
real boot briefly double-spawns hpet (the second claim fails harmlessly). Increment 3
removes that redundancy so the manager is the sole owner of driver spawning. Suite
36/36 plus host tests.
The reorg moved user binaries under /system (init -> /system/services/init,
drivers -> /system/drivers/<name>, vfs-test -> /system/services/vfs/vfs-test), but
many comments and log strings still named the old /sbin/ home. Retarget them all:
kernel/loader/test comments and the two boot log lines, plus vision.md and the
driver-model.md proposed tree (also dropped the stale `d` suffixes and rt->runtime
there). The initial-ramdisk spawn log no longer fakes a /sbin/ prefix, since those
binaries live in different homes (services vs drivers).
Left the FSH design doc's /sbin and /lib rows alone — whether /sbin stays a
directory at all is a design call for its owner, not a stale-comment fix.
The device manager is the ring-3 process that turns the device tree into a running
system — the udev-analog. It is mechanism-vs-policy done right: the kernel
enumerates the hardware and enforces the claim capability; this decides which
driver serves which device, using no special privilege (the same device_enumerate
any process could call).
This first increment does the discovery + matching half: system/services/
device-manager enumerates /system/devices, matches each device to a driver by
class (a small static policy table), and logs the decision — finding the HPET
(a timer) and deciding `hpet` serves it. It does not spawn yet: spawning needs a
`system_spawn` system call (the kernel spawns every initial-ramdisk binary in a
loop today), which is the next increment. New `device-manager` test; suite 36/36
plus host tests.
The shared kernel<->user ABI contract (BootInformation, the SystemCall numbers,
DeviceDescriptor, page_size, ...) is now the `system` module at
system/system.zig, following the convention that a directory's root file takes
the directory's name.
One overlap to note: the runtime's syscall wrappers are already `runtime.system`,
so the single file that uses both the contract and those wrappers
(library/runtime/heap.zig) aliases the wrappers locally as `system_calls`. The
two are distinct (top-level `system` vs `runtime.system`); everywhere else the
contract is just `system`.
Also: the QEMU run's serial capture now lands in the FHS log location,
zig-out/var/log/system/serial0-<timestamp>.log — a stand-in for the kernel's own
logging system, which will eventually write there itself.
Suite 35/35 plus host tests green.
Follow-up to the monorepo re-org. Suite 35/35 plus host tests green.
POSIX compatibility is now its own library, library/posix/ (unistd, stdio),
layered strictly over the runtime — it calls the runtime's IPC/heap, never
system calls directly. The runtime is now POSIX-free (the danos-native
application ABI). The VFS wire protocol is danos-native throughout
(Stat -> FileStatus, .stat -> .status, O_CREAT -> create); the POSIX layer
maps the POSIX spellings at the boundary. The coding standard's ABI-name
exception is scoped to one place: a file is allowed POSIX spellings only if it
lives under library/posix/ — everywhere else, danos naming with no exception.
Naming fixes, all mechanical:
- initrd -> initial-ramdisk: the source file, the module, the tool
(make-initial-ramdisk.py), the artifact (initial-ramdisk.img, including the
bootloader's load path), and the identifiers.
- system/kernel/device-service.zig -> devices-broker.zig: it is ring-0 kernel
code (the trusted device table + claim capability), not a ring-3 service. The
future user-space device *manager* (policy) will live in system/services/.
- Dropped the daemon `d` suffix: hpetd -> hpet, busd -> bus. A driver lives in
system/drivers/, so the folder already says what it is; encoding the role in
the name too is redundant. The coding standard drops that exception.
- system/devices/aml/interp.zig -> interpreter.zig (the type was already
Interpreter).
The source layout now mirrors the runtime filesystem hierarchy
(docs/danos-file-system-hierarchy-FSH.md): what lives under system/ in the
source is what a running danos represents under /system. Each service and
driver is a sub-project directory that is its own Zig module — cross-project
references go by module name, never by a path into another project's files.
Moves (all git mv, history preserved):
- src/ -> system/ (danos internals; the self-representation)
root.zig -> danos.zig (the kernel<->user contract module)
kernel/arch/ -> kernel/architecture/ (arch -> architecture)
device/ -> devices/ (what /system/devices reflects)
boot/ -> /boot (the loaders, top level)
- sbin/ -> split by role:
init, vfs -> system/services/<name>/<name>.zig
hpetd, busd -> system/drivers/<name>/<name>.zig
vfs-test -> system/services/vfs/vfs-test.zig (inside the vfs project)
- lib/ -> library/runtime/ (room for other libraries beside runtime)
The VFS wire protocol becomes its own module, system/services/vfs/protocol.zig
("vfs-protocol"): the vfs sub-project exposes its interface, and the runtime's
file layer imports it by name. First instance of the "protocol module" pattern
(docs/driver-model.md); usb/block will expose theirs the same way.
Also: fix a naming-standard violation in the protocol — Op -> Operation (and
req -> request, _pad -> _padding). Docs updated: /system/services added to the
FHS doc, a repository-layout section added to the docs index, and stale source
paths swept across comments and docs.
Runtime boot paths are unchanged (the bootloader still loads /sbin/init);
aligning the runtime filesystem to the FHS is a separate follow-up. Suite 35/35
plus host tests green.
Daniel Samson
Daniel Samson