Hi All,
Here are a few minor details/questions about the kernel code & documentation. (I've confirmed that these are present in the new seL4-12.1.0 release.)
1) kernel/include/arch/x86/arch/32/mode/machine.h has the following definition (some code elided):
static inline word_t FORCE_INLINE x86_read_fs_base_impl(void) { word_t base = 0; base &= ...; base &= ...; base &= ...; return base; }
I'm pretty sure that the three &= operators here should be |= or else the result is always going to be zero. The same issue occurs in x86_read_gs_base_impl in the same file.
Some follow-up questions: Can anyone say if this would have been detected if the PC99 (32-bit) platform had been verified? More generally, where can I find information about how ia32 segment registers are handled by the kernel? Why aren't they just stored/restored like other user-level registers on kernel entry/exit? Is there something that prevents user-level changes in the ES register, for example, from being observed in other threads? 2) A CNodeRotate will generate a FailedLookup error if the pivot slot either doesn't exist or contains a null capability. But, in the first case the "lookup failed for a source capability" field in the error message is 1, while in the second it is 0. Hardly a serious problem, but this does seem inconsistent. Is this intentional, or a mistake in the specification that has been carried over to the implementation?
3) Section "3.4 Lookup Failure Description" of the manual describes how capability lookup errors are represented in an IPC buffer. But it seems the layout information is incorrect. For example, Section 3.4.2 says that "Offset + 0" will contain seL4_MissingCapability while the number of bits left will be at "Offset + seL4_CapFault_BitsLeft", which is probably supposed to be equivalent to "Offset + 1". But, based on kernel/libsel4/include/sel4/shared_types.h, it would seem that this gives "Offset + 4". Sections 3.4.3 and 3.4.4 have similar problems.
4) On https://docs.sel4.systems/GettingStarted, in the section labeled "Fetching, Configuring and Building seL4test", there are missing line breaks between the commands in the text boxes for Steps 1 and 2, and there are some tags in the text box for Step 4 that probably should not be displayed.
Best wishes, and thanks for any feedback! Mark