SchOS/include/schinit.h
Nexoniarz d3c37f82b6 docs: the tree moved and the documentation did not
The site and several documents still described the system as it was before
virtual terminals, the new schinit, the hybrid work and descriptor passing.

docs/architecture/init.md described the wrong program. It documented a single
schinit that parses manifests and supervises jobs, which has not been true since
PID 1 was split: PID 1 forks a supervisor, spawns jobs on its behalf and reaps;
the job table lives in /proc/schinit; a heartbeat runs both ways; and
proc_reincarnate() re-execs PID 1 in place rather than panicking. Rewritten
around what exists, keeping the reasoning that is still load-bearing -- the five
failures of the sibling-init scheme, the escalation ladder, and the three bugs in
the reincarnation path that each had to happen before they were obvious.

docs/plan/init.md is deleted, which is the tree's own rule for finished work and
had not been applied. Fourteen source comments referenced it by part number, so
they are repointed at the architecture doc by section name rather than left
dangling -- a deleted document nobody notices is worse than a stale one.

docs/architecture/devices.md gained the section it has been missing since
/dev/pci existed: what a driver needs from a kernel, why mmap is checked against
the caller's claims, why DMA is a call and not a mapping, and why the write back
after an interrupt is not optional. Also that a released device does not come
back by itself, which is true and was nowhere.

docs/architecture/networking.md gained a descriptor-passing section, and
docs/architecture/README.md's stack diagram gained the two layers and the third
seam it was missing. "Two seams hold the whole thing together" has not been true
since /dev/pci.

docs/plan/README.md said the hybrid work was deliberately last, on the argument
that an interface with no consumer is wrong in ways nobody can see. The argument
was right; the conclusion was not, and the document now says why it changed --
the alternative to a driver compatibility layer is writing a driver for every
device that exists, and the original objection is answered rather than ignored
because SchOS's own drivers are the consumers.

The site: a Hybrid section with the eviction transcript, cards for virtual
terminals, schinit and drivers outside the kernel, and the numbers remeasured
rather than estimated -- 46,961 lines, 207 syscalls. The boot log in app.js is
from a boot taken today, and the lines are trimmed to what the console can show
without clipping, each still a verbatim prefix of real output.

Two small rendering fixes found by looking at the pages rather than assuming:
.console pre's min-height is now scoped to the hero, so a static transcript sizes
to its content instead of reserving eight lines it does not have; and the docs
reader's contents panel strips inline marks from headings, so a heading written
`proc_reincarnate()` no longer carries its backticks into the sidebar.

Every intra-doc link checked; none broken.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VQ7Qx8E1q1M1bbCq8QLHS2
2026-09-13 20:05:06 +02:00

123 lines
4.9 KiB
C

// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
//
// The protocol between PID 1 and the supervisor.
//
// docs/architecture/init.md warns about this file specifically: two
// processes that must agree is a compatibility surface where there was none,
// and docs/plan/schapi.md §3 is about how those go wrong. So the rules are
// written here rather than assumed.
//
// **Fixed-size messages.** Every message is exactly one struct, and PID 1
// reads sizeof(struct) or nothing. No length prefix to get wrong, no
// partial-parse state to be caught in, and -- the reason that matters --
// **PID 1 never allocates**. A supervisor that has gone mad cannot make PID 1
// allocate, block on a malloc, or run a parser.
//
// **Versioned in the first message.** SCHINIT_PROTO travels in the hello. A
// mismatch is a refusal, not a best-effort interpretation.
//
// **Entirely internal.** This is not SchAPI. Nothing but schinit and
// schinitd may speak it, and it may change shape whenever both change
// together, which is what keeping it in one header is for.
//
// The asymmetry is the design, not an accident: the supervisor *asks*, PID 1
// *acts*. Every job on the machine is therefore a child of PID 1 at all times,
// so a supervisor that dies orphans nothing and reparents nothing.
#ifndef SCHINIT_H
#define SCHINIT_H
#define SCHINIT_PROTO 1
#define SCHINIT_MAXARGS 16
#define SCHINIT_MAXENVV 16
#define SCHINIT_MAXLABEL 64
#define SCHINIT_MAXPATH 128
// One flat buffer for argv and envp strings, copied whole. Pointers cannot
// cross a process boundary, so the spec carries text and PID 1 rebuilds the
// arrays on its own stack after exec'ing -- which is the only place they are
// ever valid.
#define SCHINIT_STRBUF 1024
// supervisor -> PID 1
#define SCHINIT_HELLO 1 // struct schinit_hello
#define SCHINIT_SPAWN 2 // struct schinit_spawn
#define SCHINIT_PONG 3 // struct schinit_hello -- answer to a PING
// PID 1 -> supervisor
#define SCHINIT_WELCOME 128 // struct schinit_hello, echoed with PID 1's version
#define SCHINIT_SPAWNED 129 // struct schinit_reply -- pid, or negative on failure
#define SCHINIT_EXITED 130 // struct schinit_reply -- a child has been reaped
#define SCHINIT_PING 131 // struct schinit_hello -- answer within the deadline
// The heartbeat.
//
// docs/architecture/init.md, "The heartbeat" -- the failure the two-init scheme
// could not see:
// **the common way an init breaks is not dying, it is hanging.** wait() never
// returns for a process that is merely stuck, so a supervisor watching a
// wedged PID 1 -- or PID 1 watching a wedged supervisor -- reports everything
// normal forever.
//
// So each must be heard from. PID 1 sends a PING every interval and expects a
// PONG; silence past the deadline means the other end is stuck rather than
// busy, and stuck is the case worth acting on.
//
// Measured in seconds of uptime(), which counts ticks. Ticks can be *lost*
// when interrupts are off too long -- see kernel/core/time.c -- which makes a
// tick-measured deadline longer in real time than it looks, never shorter.
// That is the safe direction: a machine under load waits longer before
// declaring a hang, rather than declaring one that has not happened.
#define SCHINIT_PING_SECS 2
#define SCHINIT_DEADLINE_SECS 10
struct schinit_hello {
unsigned int op;
unsigned int proto;
unsigned int generation; // how many times PID 1 has been re-exec'd
unsigned int reserved;
};
// A job, flattened. `args` and `envs` index into `strbuf`, which holds
// NUL-terminated strings back to back.
struct schinit_spawn {
unsigned int op;
unsigned int cookie; // echoed in the reply, so the supervisor
// can match a spawn to the job it asked for
char label[SCHINIT_MAXLABEL];
char program[SCHINIT_MAXPATH];
char stdin_path[SCHINIT_MAXPATH];
char stdout_path[SCHINIT_MAXPATH];
char stderr_path[SCHINIT_MAXPATH];
unsigned int own_tty; // claim the terminal as controlling
unsigned int nargs;
unsigned int nenvs;
unsigned short args[SCHINIT_MAXARGS]; // offsets into strbuf
unsigned short envs[SCHINIT_MAXENVV];
char strbuf[SCHINIT_STRBUF];
};
struct schinit_reply {
unsigned int op;
unsigned int cookie;
int pid; // SPAWNED: the child, or negative errno
int status; // EXITED: wait status
};
// The largest message, which is what a reader must have room for. PID 1 reads
// into one of these on its own stack and never anywhere else.
union schinit_msg {
unsigned int op;
struct schinit_hello hello;
struct schinit_spawn spawn;
struct schinit_reply reply;
};
// The descriptor the supervisor inherits. Fixed rather than passed, because
// the supervisor is exec'd by PID 1 and there is nowhere to pass it -- and a
// well-known number is one less thing for the two to disagree about.
#define SCHINIT_SOCK_FD 3
#endif // SCHINIT_H