Unix Internals

The dedicated Unix wizard knows not only how to use his or her system, but how it works.

1. Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code , John Lions, Peer-to-Peer Communications, San Jose, CA, USA, 1996. ISBN: 1-57398-013-7. See http://www.peer-to-peer.com/catalog/opsrc/lions.html .

   This classic work provides a look at the internals of the Sixth Edition Unix system.

2. The Design of the UNIX Operating System , Maurice J. Bach, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1986. ISBN: 0-13-201799-7.

   This book very lucidly describes the design of System V Release 2, with some discussion of important features in System V Release 3, such as STREAMS and the filesystem switch.

3. The Magic Garden Explained: The Internals of Unix System V Release 4: An Open Systems Design , Berny Goodheart, James Cox, John R. Mashey, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1994. ISBN: 0-13-098138-9.

4. Unix Internals: The New Frontiers , Uresh Vahalia, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1996. ISBN: 0-13-101908-2.

5. Unix Internals: A Practical Approach , Steve D. Pate, Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, USA, 1996. ISBN: 0-201-87721-X.

6. The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System , Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels and John S. Quarterman, Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, USA, 1989. ISBN: 0-201-06196-1.

   This book describes the 4.3BSD version of Unix. Many important features found in commercial Unix systems first originated in the BSD Unix systems, such as long filenames, job control, and networking.

7. The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System , Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman, Addison Wesley Longman, Reading, MA, USA, 1996. ISBN 0-201-54979-4.

   This book is an update of the previous one, for 4.4BSD, the last Unix system released from UCB. To quote from the publisher's description, the book "details the major changes in process and memory management, describes the new extensible and stackable filesystem interface, includes an invaluable chapter on the new network filesystem, and updates information on networking and interprocess communication."