Compiling and Booting the Nsys UNIX Kernel Warren Toomey Email: wkt@cs.adfa.edu.au 15th January, 1999 Introduction ------------ The `nsys' UNIX kernel was recently donated to the PUPS Archive by Dennis Ritchie. This file describes how you can boot a slightly-modified version of this kernel on a 5th Edition RK05 root filesystem. Background ---------- In January 1999, Dennis Ritchie sent in a copy of the `nsys' UNIX kernel for inclusion in the PUPS Archive. In the accompanying README, he says: So far as I can determine, this is the earliest version of Unix that currently exists in machine-readable form. ... The dates on the transcription are hard to interpret correctly; if my program that interprets the image are correct, the files were last touched on 22 Jan, 1973. ... What is here is just the source of the OS itself, written in the pre-K&R dialect of C. The file u is evidently a binary image of the kernel. It is intended only for PDP-11/45, and has setup and memory-handling code that will not work on other models (it's missing things special to the later, smaller models, and the larger physical address space of the still later 11/70.) It appears that it is intended to be loaded into memory at physical 0, and transferred to at location 0. I'm not sure how much work it would take to get this system to boot. Even compiling it might be a bit of a challenge, though I imagine that circa V5-V6 compilers would handle the language (maybe even V7). It is full of =+ and use of char * as unsigned integers, and integers used as pointers in locations like p->x. So far as I can determine, the disk format it expects is compatible with the layout of other earlyish research systems (V5, V6) for example. But perhaps not, and it's not certain that the source is complete. Even the compilation mechanism is a bit unclear, though it certainly used the shell script ken/rc, which appears to depend on having the *.o files from ken/* and dmr/* and also slib.a, which doesn't exist on the tape. My guess is that this was an archive of already compiled .o files, so that (for example) to test-build a system one would edit a file, compile it, and run ken/rc to load it. The 'ustr' routine referred to in ken/rc evidently stripped off the a.out header and the symbols from the a.out file. Best wishes with this. I'd be interested to hear whether anyone gets the u image to run. If you're in luck, all you need is an 11/45 processor or emulator and a V5/6/7 disk image. I decided to try and compile the `nsys' code, and get it to boot on a PDP-11/45 emulator. A secondary goal was to use the `nsys' compilation effort to find any remaining bugs in my Apout PDP-11 user-mode emulator. Tools Required -------------- Because the `nsys' kernel is dated 1973, I decided to use a 5th Edition development enviromnent to compile it. This minimised the changes I had to make to the source code. There are several ways you can obtain a 5th Edition development enviromnent: * Load a 5th Edition filesystem on an RK05, and boot it on a PDP 11/45; * Load a 5th Edition filesystem on an RK05 disk image, and boot it on a PDP 11/45 emulator; or * Unpack the 5th Edition root filesystem tree on a 32-bit little-endian Unix system, and use the Apout emulator. For convenience, I chose to use the Apout emulator (version 2.2alpha8) as my development environment, and Bob Supnik's PDP-11 simulator (version 2.3d) as the booting environment. With the latter, I used the 5th Edition RK05 disk image Distributions/research/Dennis_v5/v5root.gz (from the PUPS Archive) as the filesystem. Regardless of the method you choose, the modified `nsys' source must be unpacked in the directory /sys/nsys, relative to the top of the 5th Edition root directory, i.e the file u (size 26,266 bytes) becomes /sys/nsys/u. This file is the original `nsys' kernel image, as supplied by Dennis; we will build our own kernel image. Changes to the Nsys Source -------------------------- Several files in the `nsys' source had to be modified so as the `nsys' kernel would work with a 5th Edition filesystem & boot environment. The discovery of these changes took me several days of fiddling with C code, assembly code, single-stepping machine code, and perusing the Lions' commentary. Email me if you really want to know the gory details. The changes to the ten `nsys' source code files are described below: Filesystem The 5th Edition filesystem is laid out slightly differently to that which the `nsys' kernel is expecting. The filsys struct needs an extra field, s_ronly, and the inode struct needs an extra field, i_lastr. The two files affected are filsys.h and inode.h. C language The C language changed slightly from the `nsys' kernel to the 5th Edition. Sub-structures defined within a structure were delimited by parentheses in `nsys', but by braces in 5th Edition. The only file affected is user.h. Several lines in the psig() routine in ken/sig.c were rearranged because the 5th Edition C compiler refused to parse them. The actual operations performed are unchanged. Device table changes The `nsys' kernel is configured to have four block device drivers (rf, rk, tc and tm), and ten character device drivers (kl, dc, pc, dp, dn, mm, vt, da, ct, vs). To minimise debugging, I chose to remove as many of the drivers as possible. I left two block device drivers, rk and tm, and two character device drivers, kl and mm. The two main files affected were conf/c.c and conf/l.s. The device driver dmr/rk.c also had to be modified, as it was hard-wired to be block device number 1. It is now block device number 0. Deficiencies In the putchar() routine in prf.c, a test is made on a register in the console KL device. This register isn't described in my PDP-11 peripherals handbook (dated 1973), and it isn't implemented in Bob Supnik's simulator, so I removed the code. The declaration of the clist struct in tty.h need a semicolon to end the declaration; again, this could be due to a change in the C language. The machine code for location 0 in conf/l.s has the octal value 4 then the instruction br 1f. In 5th Edition, these two are transposed. It appears that the entry to the `nsys' kernel must have been at location 2 (i.e the br instruction), whereas the 5th Edition kernel starts at location 0. Octal 4 is an IOT instruction, which causes an immediate hardware exception on the PDP-11. I have transposed these two lines in the `nsys' code. Cosmetic changes While trying to get the `nsys' kernel to boot properly, I added the 5th Edition printf line to main() in main.c, which outputs the amount of physical memory available on the machine. As well as these changes, I have moved a few files around so that those parts of the kernel which must be tailored for each hardware configuration are kept in the conf/ directory. Final linking of the `nsys' kernel is also done in this directory. A few other files have been renamed or moved, again to tidy up the layout of the source. The changes are: * dmr/malloc.c becomes dmr/mem.c * tables.c becomes dmr/partab.c * ken/45.s becomes conf/mch.s * ken/low.s becomes conf/l.s * ken/conf.c becomes conf/c.c There are several new RCS directories, which hold the changes to the ten `nsys' files listed above. Finally, three short shell scripts have been created to make compilation of the `nsys' kernel relatively easy: ken/mklib, dmr/mklib and conf/mkunix. Compiling the Nsys Kernel ------------------------- Here is a typescript of the commands required to compile the `nsys' kernel. I have added some comments to the typescript. % alias 5sh setenv APOUT_ROOT /usr/local/src/V5; apout $APOUT_ROOT/bin/sh % 5sh # Run Apout # chdir /sys/nsys Move to the `nsys' directory # chdir ken Start with the kernel code # cat mklib cc -c -O *.c rm ../lib1 ar vr ../lib1 main.o alloc.o iget.o prf.o rdwri.o slp.o subr.o text.o trap.o \ sig.o sysent.o clock.o fio.o malloc.o nami.o prproc.o sys1.o sys2.o \ sys3.o sys4.o # sh mklib Run the script to build lib1 alloc.c: clock.c: fio.c: iget.c: main.c: malloc.c: nami.c: prf.c: prproc.c: rdwri.c: sig.c: slp.c: subr.c: sys1.c: sys2.c: sys3.c: sys4.c: sysent.c: text.c: trap.c: ../lib1: non existent a main.o a alloc.o a iget.o a prf.o a rdwri.o a slp.o a subr.o a text.o a trap.o a sig.o a sysent.o a clock.o a fio.o a malloc.o a nami.o a prproc.o a sys1.o a sys2.o a sys3.o a sys4.o # chdir ../dmr Move to the devices directory # cat mklib cc -c -O *.c as gput.s mv a.out gput.o rm ../lib2 ar vr ../lib2 *.o # sh mklib Run the script to build lib2 bio.c: cat.c: dc.c: dn.c: dp.c: draa.c: kl.c: mem.c: partab.c: pc.c: rf.c: rk.c: tc.c: tm.c: tty.c: vs.c: vt.c: ../lib2: non existent a bio.o a cat.o a dc.o a dn.o a dp.o a draa.o a gput.o a kl.o a mem.o a partab.o a pc.o a rf.o a rk.o a tc.o a tm.o a tty.o a vs.o a vt.o # chdir ../conf Move to the configuration directory # cat mkunix as mch.s mv a.out mch.o cc -c c.c as l.s mv a.out l.o ld -x l.o mch.o c.o ../dmr/gput.o ../lib1 ../lib2 mv a.out unix nm -n unix > namelist ls -l unix size unix # sh mkunix Build config, link the kernel -rwxrwxrwx 1 root 25322 Jan 14 22:02 unix 21286+888+15962=38136 (0112370) # ls -l And see what other files we have total 82 drwxr-xr-x 2 root 512 Jan 14 05:37 RCS -r--r--r-- 1 root 307 Jan 14 00:31 c.c -rw-rw-rw- 1 root 292 Jan 14 22:02 c.o -rw-rw-rw- 1 root 1200 Jan 14 22:02 l.o -r--r--r-- 1 root 2004 Jan 13 22:37 l.s -rw-rw-rw- 1 root 1888 Jan 14 22:02 mch.o -r--r--r-- 1 root 3896 Jan 10 18:19 mch.s -r--r--r-- 1 root 161 Jan 14 19:37 mkunix -rw------- 1 root 3995 Jan 14 22:02 namelist -rwxrwxrwx 1 root 25322 Jan 14 22:02 unix # Installing the Nsys Kernel -------------------------- Now that the `nsys' kernel is compiled, we have to install it in the root directory of an RK05 5th Edition UNIX root filesystem. I used the bootable 5th Edition disk image v5root and Bob Supnik's emulator to do this. 5th Edition UNIX doesn't have tar, so I mounted v5root as RK pack 0, and I mounted the new `nsys' kernel as RK pack 1, after doing some padding to the file. % ls -l -rwx------ 1 wkt wheel 117728 Jan 11 14:02 pdp Supnik simulator -rw------- 1 wkt wheel 55 Jan 15 14:12 v5 Config file -r-------- 1 wkt wheel 2494464 Jan 15 13:35 v5root V5 filesystem -rw------- 1 wkt wheel 4096 Jan 14 12:06 zero File of zeroes % cp ../V5/sys/nsys/conf/unix nsys.binary Copy the kernel here % cat zero >> nsys.binary Pad it with zeroes % cat v5 Here is the config file set cpu 18b att rk0 v5root att rk1 nsys.binary boot rk % ./pdp v5 Run the simulator PDP-11 simulator V2.3d @unix Start V5 UNIX login: root # check /dev/rrk0 Check root filesystem /dev/rrk0: spcl 5 files 566 large 126 direc 28 indir 126 used 3790 last 3985 free 128 # ls -l /dev You may need to /etc/mknod total 0 at least /dev/rrk1 cr--r--r-- 1 bin 1, 0 Nov 26 18:13 mem crw-rw-rw- 1 bin 1, 2 Nov 26 18:13 null crw-rw-rw- 1 root 2, 0 Mar 21 13:53 rrk0 crw-rw-rw- 1 root 2, 1 Mar 21 14:18 rrk1 crw--w--w- 1 root 0, 0 Mar 21 15:26 tty8 # dd if=/dev/rrk1 count=50 of=z Load in `nsys' kernel + pad 50+0 records in 50+0 records out # dd if=z of=nsys bs=11761 count=2 Trim back to correct size 2+0 records in 2+0 records out # rm z Remove temporary files # ls -l nsys Check correct size -rw-rw-rw- 1 root 23522 Mar 21 15:29 nsys # size nsys Verify a.out values, should 21286+888+15962=38136 (0112370) be the same as before # sync Shut down V5 UNIX # sync # ^E and exit the simulator Simulation stopped, PC: 014116 (BNE 14150) sim> q Goodbye You now have the `nsys' kernel stored in the root directory of the 5th Edition root filesystem. You can now boot it and see that it works. % ./pdp v5 Run the simulator PDP-11 simulator V2.3d @nsys Load the nsys kernel mem = 64539 Printout of avail memory login: root /etc/init works! # ls -l So does /bin/ls total 107 drwxr-xr-x 2 bin 944 Nov 26 18:13 bin drwxr-xr-x 2 bin 112 Mar 21 14:21 dev drwxr-xr-x 2 bin 240 Mar 21 12:07 etc drwxr-xr-x 2 bin 224 Nov 26 18:13 lib drwxr-xr-x 2 bin 32 Nov 26 18:13 mnt -rw-rw-rw- 1 root 23522 Mar 21 15:29 nsys drwxrwxrwx 2 bin 128 Mar 21 14:16 tmp -rwxrwxrwx 1 bin 25802 Mar 21 12:07 unix drwxr-xr-x 14 bin 224 Nov 26 18:13 usr # sync # ^E Exit the simulator Simulation stopped, PC: 015140 (BLT 15050) Final Notes ----------- The `nsys' kernel can now boot and run some 5th Edition UNIX a.out binaries. However, `nsys' is an earlier version than 5th Edition, so there will be some V5 functionality which `nsys' does not support. In particular, `nsys' does not have the pipe() system call. I have only just got the `nsys' kernel to boot, so I have not had a chance to sit down and work out exactly what functionality is missing.