First of all, A/UX is based on AT&T System V R2.2 with BSD 4.3 Extensions, which include networking and software interrupts. Both AT&T System V.2.2 Interprocess communication (Message, Semaphores, and Shared Memory) and BSD Interprocess communication (Sockets) are supported by A/UX. Also, NFS (Network File System) from Sun Microsystems is supported by A/UX; services includes NFS, YP, and RPC (Remote Procedure Calls).
With the A/UX description above, and since UNIX is an industry standard operating system, the references for UNIX kernel functions can be found in any UNIX publications and reference books. A notable one is "The Design of the UNIX Operating System" by Maurice Bach. It covers most of the topics.
BSD 4.3 "UNIX System Manager's Manual" is a good reference for B-Net networking and Fast File System (UFS) supported under A/UX 2.0 and 3.0.
"Implementing Remote Procedure Calls" by Birrell and B.J. Nelson is good reference for RPC. It was published in ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, Vol. 2 No. 1, Feb 1984, pp. 39-59.
In addition, the "A/UX Network Applications Programming" documentation contains RPC, XDR, NFS, and YP Protocol specifications and a B-Net programming guide.
For UNIX system programming, the following books are recommended:
- "The UNIX Programming Environment" by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike
- "Advanced UNIX Programming" by Marc J. Rochkind
Also, O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. publishes the "Nutshell Handbook" series which covers a wide range of UNIX and TCP/IP topics.
Article Change History:
19 Sep 1994 - Reviewed.
Support Information Services