2.1. Hello, World (part 1): The Simplest Module

When the first caveman programmer chiseled the first program on the walls of the first cave computer, it was a program to paint the string `Hello, world' in Antelope pictures. Roman programming textbooks began with the `Salut, Mundi' program. I don't know what happens to people who break with this tradition, but I think it's safer not to find out. We'll start with a series of hello world programs that demonstrate the different aspects of the basics of writing a kernel module.

Here's the simplest module possible. Don't compile it yet; we'll cover module compilation in the next section.

Example 2-1. hello-1.c

/* hello-1.c - The simplest kernel module. */ #include <linux/module.h> /* Needed by all modules */ #include <linux/kernel.h> /* Needed for KERN_ALERT */ int init_module(void) { printk("<1>Hello world 1./n"); // A non 0 return means init_module failed; module can't be loaded. return 0; } void cleanup_module(void) { printk(KERN_ALERT "Goodbye world 1./n"); }

Kernel modules must have at least two functions: a "start" (initialization) function called init_module() which is called when the module is insmoded into the kernel, and an "end" (cleanup) function called cleanup_module() which is called just before it is rmmoded. Actually, things have changed starting with kernel 2.3.13. You can now use whatever name you like for the start and end functions of a module, and you'll learn how to do this in Section 2.3. In fact, the new method is the preferred method. However, many people still use init_module() and cleanup_module() for their start and end functions.

Typically, init_module() either registers a handler for something with the kernel, or it replaces one of the kernel functions with its own code (usually code to do something and then call the original function). The cleanup_module() function is supposed to undo whatever init_module() did, so the module can be unloaded safely.

Lastly, every kernel module needs to include linux/module.h. We needed to include linux/kernel.h only for the macro expansion for the printk() log level, KERN_ALERT, which you'll learn about in Section 2.1.1.

2.1.1. Introducing printk()

Despite what you might think, printk() was not meant to communicate information to the user, even though we used it for exactly this purpose in hello-1! It happens to be a logging mechanism for the kernel, and is used to log information or give warnings. Therefore, each printk() statement comes with a priority, which is the <1> and KERN_ALERT you see. There are 8 priorities and the kernel has macros for them, so you don't have to use cryptic numbers, and you can view them (and their meanings) in linux/kernel.h. If you don't specify a priority level, the default priority, DEFAULT_MESSAGE_LOGLEVEL, will be used.

Take time to read through the priority macros. The header file also describes what each priority means. In practise, don't use number, like <4>. Always use the macro, like KERN_WARNING.

If the priority is less than int console_loglevel, the message is printed on your current terminal. If both syslogd and klogd are running, then the message will also get appended to /var/log/messages, whether it got printed to the console or not. We use a high priority, like KERN_ALERT, to make sure the printk() messages get printed to your console rather than just logged to your logfile. When you write real modules, you'll want to use priorities that are meaningful for the situation at hand.

2.2. Compiling Kernel Modules

Kernel modules need to be compiled with certain gcc options to make them work. In addition, they also need to be compiled with certain symbols defined. This is because the kernel header files need to behave differently, depending on whether we're compiling a kernel module or an executable. You can define symbols using gcc's -D option, or with the #define preprocessor command. We'll cover what you need to do in order to compile kernel modules in this section.

• -c: A kernel module is not an independant executable, but an object file which will be linked into the kernel during runtime using insmod. As a result, modules should be compiled with the -c flag.

• -O2: The kernel makes extensive use of inline functions, so modules must be compiled with the optimization flag turned on. Without optimization, some of the assembler macros calls will be mistaken by the compiler for function calls. This will cause loading the module to fail, since insmod won't find those functions in the kernel.

• -W -Wall: A programming mistake can take take your system down. You should always turn on compiler warnings, and this applies to all your compiling endeavors, not just module compilation.

• -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include: You must use the kernel headers of the kernel you're compiling against. Using the default /usr/include/linux won't work.

• -D__KERNEL__: Defining this symbol tells the header files that the code will be run in kernel mode, not as a user process.

• -DMODULE: This symbol tells the header files to give the appropriate definitions for a kernel module.

We use gcc's -isystem option instead of -I because it tells gcc to surpress some "unused variable" warnings that -W -Wall causes when you include module.h. By using -isystem under gcc-3.0, the kernel header files are treated specially, and the warnings are surpressed. If you instead use -I (or even -isystem under gcc 2.9x), the "unused variable" warnings will be printed. Just ignore them if they do.

So, let's look at a simple Makefile for compiling a module named hello-1.c:

Example 2-2. Makefile for a basic kernel module

TARGET := hello-1 WARN := -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes INCLUDE := -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include CFLAGS := -O2 -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ ${WARN} ${INCLUDE} CC := gcc-3.0 ${TARGET}.o: ${TARGET}.c .PHONY: clean clean: rm -rf {TARGET}.o

As an exercise to the reader, compile hello-1.c and insert it into the kernel with insmod ./hello-1.o (ignore anything you see about tainted kernels; we'll cover that shortly). Neat, eh? All modules loaded into the kernel are listed in /proc/modules. Go ahead and cat that file to see that your module is really a part of the kernel. Congratulations, you are now the author of Linux kernel code! When the novelty wares off, remove your module from the kernel by using rmmod hello-1. Take a look at /var/log/messages just to see that it got logged to your system logfile.

Here's another exercise to the reader. See that comment above the return statement in init_module()? Change the return value to something non-zero, recompile and load the module again. What happens?

2.3. Hello World (part 2)

As of Linux 2.4, you can rename the init and cleanup functions of your modules; they no longer have to be called init_module() and cleanup_module() respectively. This is done with the module_init() and module_exit() macros. These macros are defined in linux/init.h. The only caveat is that your init and cleanup functions must be defined before calling the macros, otherwise you'll get compilation errors. Here's an example of this technique:

Example 2-3. hello-2.c

/* hello-2.c - Demonstrating the module_init() and module_exit() macros. This is the * preferred over using init_module() and cleanup_module(). */ #include <linux/module.h> // Needed by all modules #include <linux/kernel.h> // Needed for KERN_ALERT #include <linux/init.h> // Needed for the macros static int hello_2_init(void) { printk(KERN_ALERT "Hello, world 2/n"); return 0; } static void hello_2_exit(void) { printk(KERN_ALERT "Goodbye, world 2/n"); } module_init(hello_2_init); module_exit(hello_2_exit);

So now we have two real kernel modules under our belt. With productivity as high as ours, we should have a high powered Makefile. Here's a more advanced Makefile which will compile both our modules at the same time. It's optimized for brevity and scalability. If you don't understand it, I urge you to read the makefile info pages or the GNU Make Manual.

Example 2-4. Makefile for both our modules

WARN := -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes INCLUDE := -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include CFLAGS := -O2 -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ ${WARN} ${INCLUDE} CC := gcc-3.0 OBJS := ${patsubst %.c, %.o, ${wildcard *.c}} all: ${OBJS} .PHONY: clean clean: rm -rf *.o

As an exercise to the reader, if we had another module in the same directory, say hello-3.c, how would you modify this Makefile to automatically compile that module?