List of and documentation for system calls for XNU kernel in OSX

macos operating-system system-calls
Daniel Brotherston picture Daniel Brotherston · Apr 4, 2010 · Viewed 13.4k times · Source

I'm trying to figure out how to get a list of and documentation for the system calls available in the XNU kernel in OSX. I've googled around quite a bit, but haven't been able to find anything of use. As I understand the calling conventions match BSD, is that correct?

Thanks

Answer

Yuji picture Yuji · Apr 5, 2010

The "official" list is at Darwin page at Apple. Specifically, see the file syscalls.master in the XNU distribution. (If something you expect is missing, try a newer XNU version.)

The BSD part of the system calls comes from BSD, but there're mach calls which follow quite different conventions.

You'll definitely want to read Amit Singh's OS X kernel book, see the book's website. It's rewritten for 10.4 and mainly for PPC, but still is the greatest detailed info you can get on the kernel.

Related questions

What languages are Windows, Mac OS X and Linux written in?

I was just wondering who knows what programming languages Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are made up from and what languages are used for each part of the OS (ie: Kernel, plug-in architecture, GUI components, etc). I assume that …

Read More
Fixing 403 Forbidden on alias directory with Apache

I am trying to setup an alias to point to some directory on my filesystem not in DocumentRoot. Now I get a 403 Forbidden response. These are the steps taken: 1. edit http.conf, adding: Alias /example "/Users/user/Documents/example" then... &…

Read More
How closely are Mac OS X and BSD related?

I read that Mac OS X and bsd are related. How closely are they related. Can Mac OS X software be tweaked and installed on BSD?

Read More