Daniel Samson
729b40ece7
max_interfaces was 4. A composite device — a headset, a webcam with audio, a dock, a multifunction printer — routinely has more, and the fifth did not merely go missing. parseConfiguration's cap branch had no `else`, so when the count was reached `current` kept pointing at interface 3 and the fifth interface's endpoint descriptors were appended to interface 3's array. A class driver bound to interface 3 could then be handed an endpoint belonging to something else entirely, and subscribe or bulk-transfer on it. The alternate-setting arm one line above cleared `current` correctly, which is what the cap branch should have done. Interfaces are now counted from the block in a first pass and allocated to exactly that number, so the ceiling is bNumInterfaces' u8 — the USB specification's. The missing `else` is added too, though after this the bug is unreachable by construction: interface_count cannot reach interfaces.len mid-parse when the list was sized from the same walk. max_configured_endpoints was max_interfaces * max_endpoints_per_interface = 16, a derived guess that moved whenever either input moved. It is now 31, which is the xHCI specification's own limit: a Device Context holds a slot context plus at most 31 endpoint contexts, because the Context Entries field addressing them is 5 bits. max_endpoints_per_interface stays at 4 with its reason recorded — the usb-transfer wire protocol reports exactly max_reported_endpoints (4) per interface, so widening it alone would change nothing a class driver sees. Lifting it is a protocol change. No direct test, and that is written down as open question 5 rather than glossed. The parser is pure and wants a host unit test, but usb-xhci-library.zig imports memory, mmio and time so it cannot be a standalone test root, and QEMU offers nothing that reaches the path — the largest device available is usb-audio,multi=on at 2 interfaces and 211 bytes. The alternate-setting path that shares the same `current = null` logic is exercised by that device. Suite 116/116.
DanOS
Codename: Shodan
A very small resilient operating system.
Zen of DanOS:
- Resilient Micro-Kernel Architecture.
- Every process run in an isolated user space not kernel space.
- Processes cannot take down the entire OS with it when they die or is killed
- Stable public runtime library, private OS ABI.
- Keeps a stable runtime for user space processes between OS versions (great for backwards compatibility)
- Allows the underlying OS to be changed without effecting applications
- Provides a boundary to enable compatibility between OS's e.g. POSIX, MUSL etc
- Drivers are just isolated processes in user space.
- Thin binaries that can be restarted like applications.
- Useful during driver development.
- Drivers can claim MMIO / ports
- Driver resources (e.g. IRQ/Port/MMIO) claims are automatically cleaned up if the driver dies or is killed
- Drivers can also hook into the process lifecycle to clean up or reset hardware
- No legacy to deal with
- Zig code uses a clean coding style (Zen of Zig)
- Favor reading code over writing code.
- No magic numbers.
- No shortened names unless its for ABI compatibility or acronyms
- Inter-Process Communication (IPC)
- Publish and subscribe to Asynchronous Messages
- Talk to services and processes synchronously
Prerequisites
- Zig 0.16.x — the build is pinned to this line (
.zig-version); other minor versions are rejected, because Zig makes breaking changes between releases pre-1.0. A toolchain manager such as zvm orzigupwill pick up.zig-versionautomatically. - QEMU (
qemu-system-x86_64) — to run and test the kernel. On macOS,brew install qemualso bundles the OVMF firmware below. - OVMF UEFI firmware — the
edk2-ovmfpackage (Arch),ovmf(Debian/Ubuntu), oredk2-ovmf(Fedora); on macOS it ships inside the Homebrewqemuformula. Both the build and the test harness probe the known Arch/Debian/Fedora/macOS layouts and use the first that exists, so no configuration is normally needed. Override with-Dovmf-code=/-Dovmf-vars=(build) if yours lives elsewhere. - Python 3 — for the QEMU integration test harness.
Build
zig build
Produces a FHS-shaped zig-out/ that is the danos filesystem and the boot volume:
the UEFI bootloader at zig-out/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi, the kernel at
zig-out/system/kernel, init at zig-out/system/services/init, drivers under
zig-out/system/drivers/, the test fixtures under zig-out/test/system/services/,
and the initial-ramdisk at zig-out/boot/.
Release media
zig build release-x86-64
Produces zig-out/danos-x86-64.iso, a hybrid ISO that boots flashed raw to a
USB stick (balenaEtcher, dd) or burned to optical media — see
docs/release-iso.md. zig build check-iso-image
validates it without booting.
Run
Boot it in QEMU with OVMF (opens a display window):
zig build run-x86-64
# distro with OVMF elsewhere:
zig build run-x86-64 -Dovmf-code=/path/OVMF_CODE.fd -Dovmf-vars=/path/OVMF_VARS.fd
Test
zig build test # host unit tests (the platform-independent shared code)
python3 test/qemu_test.py # QEMU integration tests: boots the kernel and asserts
# on its serial output (see docs/testing.md)
The integration harness builds and boots the kernel once per test case, checking memory, the frame allocator, paging (incl. NX and the null guard), the heap, interrupts, and exception handling. It exits non-zero on any failure, so it drops straight into CI.
Documentation
Design notes explaining why behind the code live in
docs/ — start with docs/README.md.
For the hardware needed to run DanOS — minimum specs plus a plain-language guide
matching Intel/AMD CPU generations by name — see
docs/system-requirements.md.
Logo
San Serif Text "Dan OS" with a black karate belt around it.