Architecture 2001: x86-64 OS Internals

This is it! This is the class that *actually* teaches you how ring 0 vs. ring 3 privilege separation works at a deep deep level on Intel hardware!!! But so much more too! This class gives you an incredibly strong foundation for Windows, Linux, *BSD, or macOS OS Internals classes. Because if covers the hardware-specific requirements that every OS (or VMM or BIOS) must deal with if they want to run on Intel hardware.

 

After this class you will feel exploring wherever you want in the Intel manuals, because this class covers some of the most difficult to understand underlying technologies that OSes depend on.

 

1. Intro
2. CPUID
3. Processor Execution Modes
4. Model-Specific Registers (MSRs)
5. Privilege Rings & Segmentation
6. Interrupts
7. System Calls
8. Read the TimeStamp Counter (RDTSC)
9. Paging
10. Debugging
11. Port I/O
12. Class Conclusion