From the course: Exploring Linux Internals: Advanced Insights and Practical Applications

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Understanding system calls

Understanding system calls - Linux Tutorial

From the course: Exploring Linux Internals: Advanced Insights and Practical Applications

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Understanding system calls

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- So system calls are defined in the kernel source code to allow programs to access functionality that is provided by the Linux kernel, and they provide a controlled interface between kernel space, and the programs which are typically used in user space, but system calls are not exclusively for programs in user space. They're also used for programs that are running in kernel space. If you want to know more about system calls, I would say check out the documentation for the system calls, which is in section 2. Try man two intro for a nice, and brief introduction to system calls. Now, when programs are executing system calls, they run specific parts of the kernel code from user space. The C library, which almost Linux systems is provided by glibc, provides user space wrappers around the kernel system calls, which makes it possible to use them from application code. Let me make a quick overview of how this works. Alright, so this is how it works. We have the line in the middle with on…

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