ostoo

A hobby x86-64 kernel written in Rust with a userspace shell, VFS, syscall layer, and virtio drivers.

Requirements

• Rust nightly (rustc, cargo, rustup)
• QEMU (qemu-system-x86_64)
• Docker (for building userspace programs)

Rustup components

rustup component add rust-src llvm-tools-preview

Cargo packages

cargo install cargo-xbuild bootimage

Cross-compiler (one-time setup)

Userspace programs (the shell, etc.) are compiled with a musl-targeting cross-compiler that runs inside a Docker container. Build the compiler image once before your first make:

./crosstool/build.sh

This creates a Docker image called ostoo-compiler. You only need to re-run this if the toolchain configuration changes.

Build

make build

This builds the userspace programs (via the Docker cross-compiler) and then the kernel bootimage.

To build just the userspace programs or just the kernel:

make user # cross-compile userspace only
cargo bootimage --manifest-path kernel/Cargo.toml # kernel only

Run

# Build and boot with virtio-9p host sharing (default):
make run
# Build and boot with a virtio-blk disk image (created automatically):
make run-disk

The kernel boots under QEMU's Q35 machine type. By default, the host user/ directory is shared into the guest via virtio-9p, so changes to userspace binaries are visible immediately without rebuilding a disk image.

Test

make test

Shell

The kernel auto-launches a userspace shell (/shell) if one is found on the filesystem. If not, it falls back to a built-in kernel shell (prompt kernel:# vs $ for the userspace shell).

Userspace shell commands

Command	Description
ls [path]	List directory contents
cat <file>	Print file contents
echo <text>	Echo text
pwd	Print working directory
cd <dir>	Change directory
exit	Exit the shell
help	List available commands

Kernel shell commands

Command	Description
help	List available commands
ls [path]	List directory / file info
cat <file>	Print file contents
mount	Show mounted filesystems
driver list	List registered drivers and status
driver info <name>	Print driver-specific info
driver start/stop <name>	Start or stop a driver
blk info	virtio-blk capacity and I/O counters
blk read <sector>	Read and hex-dump a 512-byte sector

Documentation

Document	Description
docs/status.md	Overall project status and feature list
docs/virtio-blk.md	virtio-blk PCI block device driver
docs/virtio-9p.md	virtio-9p host directory sharing
docs/vfs.md	Virtual filesystem layer
docs/actors.md	Actor/driver framework and proc-macro reference
docs/scheduler.md	Async scheduler and preemption
docs/process-spawning.md	ELF loading and process creation
docs/file-descriptors.md	File descriptor system and syscalls
docs/userspace-shell.md	Userspace shell design
docs/apic-ioapic.md	APIC and IO APIC initialization
docs/lapic-timer.md	LAPIC timer calibration
docs/paging.md	Paging and memory management
docs/cross-compiling-c.md	Cross-compiling C for the kernel
docs/testing.md	Testing strategy and infrastructure
docs/code-audit.md	Code quality audit and improvement tracking
docs/display-input-ownership.md	Display & input handoff, compositor, window management

License

This work is derived from blog_os by Philipp Oppermann: https://os.phil-opp.com/

Dual licensed Apache-2 and MIT.