HP-UX 11i Internals

The kthread Table

Originally, HP-UX managed jobs only at the process level, and the proc table contained all information relating to the execution of a process by the kernel. HP-UX 10.0 introduced the kthread structure as a first step toward implementation of a fully threaded kernel environment. Although this was only a first step toward a true multithreaded environment, it initiated the division of static process-related parameters and dynamic thread–related values into separate structures. The proc table contains static values and pointers to resources shared equally by all of its threads, while the kthread structure(s) contain dynamic information relating to their execution and runtime environment.

First, let's examine the manner in which ...