Mastering Linux Kernel Development

Kernel stack

With current-generation computing platforms powered by multi-core hardware capable of running simultaneous applications, the possibility of multiple processes concurrently initiating kernel mode switch when requesting for the same process is built in. To be able to handle such situations, kernel services are designed to be re-entrant, allowing multiple processes to step in and engage the required services. This mandated the requesting process to maintain its own private kernel stack to keep track of the kernel function call sequence, store local data of the kernel functions, and so on.

The kernel stack is directly mapped to the physical memory, mandating the arrangement to be physically in a contiguous region. The kernel stack ...