DNIX

DNIX (original spelling: D-Nix) is a discontinues Unix-like real-time operating system from the Swedish company Dataindustrier AB (DIAB). A version called ABCenix was also developed for the ABC 1600 computer from Luxor. (Daisy Systems also had something called Daisy DNIX on some of their CAD workstations. It was unrelated to DIAB's product.)
History.
Inception at DIAB in Sweden.
Dataindustrier AB (literal translation: computer industries shareholding company) was started in 1970 by Lars Karlsson as a single-board computer manufacture in Sundsvall, Sweden, producing a Zilog Z80-based computer called "Data Board 4680". In 1978 DIAB started to work with the Swedish television company Luxor AB to produce the home and office computer series ABC 80 and ABC 800.
In 1983 DIAB independently developed the first UNIX-compatible machine, DIAB DS90 based on the Motorola 68000 CPU. D-NIX here made its appearance, based on a UNIX System V license from AT&T. DIAB was however an industrial automation company, and needed a real-time operating system, so the company replaced the AT&T-supplied UNIX kernel with their own in-house developed, yet compatible real-time variant. This kernel was originally a Z80 kernel called "OS8".
Over time, the company also replaced several of the UNIX standard userspace tools with their own implementations, to the point where no code was derived from UNIX, and their machines could be deployed independently of any AT&T UNIX license. Two years later and in cooperation with Luxor, a computer called ABC 1600 was developed for the office market, while in parallel, DIAB continue to produce enhanced versions of the DS90 computer using newer versions of the Motorola CPUs such as Motorola 68010, 68020, 68030 and eventually 68040. In 1990 DIAB was acquired by Groupe Bull who continued to produce and support the DS machines under the brand name "DIAB", with names such as "DIAB 2320", "DIAB 2340" etc., still running DIABs version of DNIX.
Derivative at ISC Systems Corporation.
ISC Systems Corporation (ISC) purchased the right to use DNIX in the late 1980s for use in its line of Motorola 68k-based banking computers. (ISC was later bought by Olivetti, and was in turn resold to Wang, which was then bought by Getronics. This corporate entity, most often referred to as 'ISC', has answered to a bewildering array of names over the years.) This code branch was the SVR2 compatible version, and received extensive modification and development at their hands. Notable features of this operating system were its support of demand paging, diskless workstations, multiprocessing, asynchronous I/O, the ability to mount processes (handlers) on directories in the file system, and message passing. Its real-time support consisted largely of internal event-driven queues rather than list search mechanisms (no 'thundering herd'), static process priorities in two classes (run to completion and timesliced), support for contiguous files (to avoid fragmentation of critical resources), and memory locking. The quality of the orthogonal asynchronous event implementation has yet to be equalled in current commercial operating systems, though some approach it. (The concept that has yet to be adopted is that the synchronous marshalling point of all the asynchronous activity "itself" could be asynchronous, ad infinitum. DNIX handled this with aplomb.) The asynchronous I/O facility obviated the need for Berkeley sockets "select" or SVR4's STREAMS "poll" mechanism, though there was a socket emulation library that preserved the socket semantics for backward compatibility. Another feature of DNIX was that "none" of the standard utilities (such as ps, a frequent offender) rummaged around in the kernel's memory to do their job. System calls were used instead, and this meant the kernel's internal architecture was free to change as required. The handler concept allowed network protocol stacks to be outside the kernel, which greatly eased development and improved overall reliability, though at a performance cost. It also allowed for foreign file systems to be user-level processes, again for improved reliability. The main file system, though it could have been (and once was) an external process, was pulled into the kernel for performance reasons. Were it not for this DNIX could well have been considered a microkernel, though it was not formally developed as such. Handlers could appear as any type of 'native' Unix file, directory structure, or device, and file I/O requests that the handler itself could not process could be passed off to other handlers, including the underlying one upon which the handler was mounted. Handler connections could also exist and be passed around independent of the filesystem, much like a pipe. One effect of this is that TTY-like 'devices' could be emulated without requiring a kernel-based pseudo terminal facility.
An example of where a handler saved the day was in ISC's diskless workstation support, where a bug in the implementation meant that using named pipes on the workstation could induce undesirable resource locking on the fileserver. A handler was created on the workstation to field accesses to the afflicted named pipes until the appropriate kernel fixes could be developed. This handler required approximately 5 kilobytes of code to implement, an indication that a non-trivial handler did not need to be large.
ISC also received the right to manufacture DIAB's DS90-10 and DS90-20 machines as its file servers. The multiprocessor DS90-20's, however, were too expensive for the target market and ISC designed its own servers and ported DNIX to them. ISC designed its own GUI-based diskless workstations for use with these file servers, and ported DNIX again. (Though ISC used Daisy workstations running Daisy DNIX to design the machines that would run DIAB's DNIX, there was negligible confusion internally as the drafting and layout staff rarely talked to the software staff. Moreover, the hardware design staff didn't use "either" system! The running joke went something like: "At ISC we "build" computers, we don't "use" them.") The asynchronous I/O support of DNIX allowed for easy event-driven programming in the workstations, which performed well even though they had relatively limited resources. (The GUI diskless workstation had a 7 MHz 68010 processor and was usable with only 512K of memory, of which the kernel consumed approximately half. Most workstations had 1 MB of memory, though there were later 2 MB and 4 MB versions, along with 10 MHz processors.) A full-blown installation could consist of one server (16 MHz 68020, 8 MB of RAM, and a 200 MB hard disk) and up to 64 workstations. Though slow to boot up, such an array would perform acceptably in a bank teller application. Besides the innate efficiency of DNIX, the associated DIAB C compiler was key to high performance. It generated particularly good code for the 68010, especially after ISC got done with it. (ISC also retargeted it to the Texas Instruments TMS34010 graphics coprocessor used in its last workstation.) The DIAB C compiler was, of course, used to build DNIX itself which was one of the factors contributing to its efficiency, and is still available (in some form) through Wind River Systems.
These systems are still in use as of this writing in 2006, in former Seattle-First National Bank branches now branded Bank of America. There may be, and probably are, other ISC customers still using DNIX in some capacity. Through ISC there was a considerable DNIX presence in Central and South America.
Asynchronous events.
DNIX's native system call was the "dnix(2)" library function, analogous to the standard Unix "unix(2)" or "syscall(2)" function. It took multiple arguments, the first of which was a function code. Semantically this single call provided all appropriate Unix functionality, though it was syntactically different from Unix and had, of course, numerous DNIX-only extensions.
DNIX function codes were organized into two classes: Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 commands were those that were associated with I/O activity, or anything that could potentially cause the issuing process to block. Major examples were "F_OPEN", "F_CLOSE", "F_READ", "F_WRITE", "F_IOCR", "F_IOCW", "F_WAIT", and "F_NAP". Type 2 were the remainder, such as "F_GETPID", "F_GETTIME", etc. They could be satisfied by the kernel itself immediately.
To invoke asynchronicity, a special file descriptor called a trap queue had to have been created via the Type 2 opcode "F_OTQ". A Type 1 call would have the "F_NOWAIT" bit OR-ed with its function value, and one of the additional parameters to "dnix(2)" was the trap queue file descriptor. The return value from an asynchronous call was not the normal value but a kernel-assigned identifier. At such time as the asynchronous request completed, a "read(2)" (or "F_READ") of the trap queue file descriptor would return a small kernel-defined structure containing the identifier and result status. The "F_CANCEL" operation was available to cancel any asynchronous operation that hadn't yet been completed, one of its arguments was the kernel-assigned identifier. (A process could only cancel requests that were currently owned by itself. The exact semantics of cancellation was up to each request's handler, fundamentally it only meant that any waiting was to be terminated. A partially completed operation could be returned.) In addition to the kernel-assigned identifier, one of the arguments given to any asynchronous operation was a 32-bit user-assigned identifier. This most often referenced a function pointer to the appropriate subroutine that would handle the I/O completion method, but this was merely convention. It was the entity that read the trap queue elements that was responsible for interpreting this value.
struct itrq { /* Structure of data read from trap queue. */
 short it_stat; /* Status */
 short it_rn; /* Request number */
 long it_oid; /* Owner ID given on request */
 long it_rpar; /* Returned parameter */
Of note is that the asynchronous events were gathered via normal file descriptor read operations, and that such reading was itself capable of being made asynchronous. This had implications for semi-autonomous asynchronous event handling packages that could exist within a single process. (DNIX 5.2 did not have lightweight processes or threads.) Also of note is that "any" potentially blocking operation was capable of being issued asynchronously, so DNIX was well equipped to handle many clients with a single server process. A process was not restricted to having only one trap queue, so I/O requests could be grossly prioritized in this way.
Compatibility.
In addition to the native "dnix(2)" call, a complete set of 'standard' libc interface calls was available.
"open(2)", "close(2)", "read(2)", "write(2)", etc. Besides being useful for backwards compatibility, these were implemented in a binary-compatible manner with the NCR Tower computer, so that binaries compiled for it would run unchanged under DNIX. The DNIX kernel had two trap dispatchers internally, one for the DNIX method and one for the Unix method. Choice of dispatcher was up to the programmer, and using both interchangeably was acceptable. Semantically they were identical wherever functionality overlapped. (In these machines the 68000 trap #0 instruction was used for the "unix(2)" calls, and the trap #4 instruction for "dnix(2)". The two trap handlers were really quite similar, though the [usually hidden] "unix(2)" call held the function code in the processor's D0 register, whereas "dnix(2)" held it on the stack with the rest of the parameters.)
DNIX 5.2 had no networking protocol stacks internally (except for the thin X.25-based Ethernet protocol stack added by ISC for use by its diskless workstation support package), all networking was conducted by reading and writing to Handlers. Thus, there was no socket mechanism, but a "libsocket(3)" existed that used asynchronous I/O to talk to the TCP/IP handler. The typical Berkeley-derived networking program could be compiled and run unchanged (modulo the usual Unix porting problems), though it might not be as efficient as an equivalent program that used native asynchronous I/O.
Handlers.
Under DNIX, a process could be used to handle I/O requests and to extend the filesystem. Such a process was called a "Handler", and was a major feature of the operating system. A handler was defined as a process that owned at least one "request queue", a special file descriptor that was procured in one of two ways: with a "F_ORQ" or a "F_MOUNT" call. The former invented an isolated request queue, one end of which was then typically handed down to a child process. (The network remote execution programs, of which there were many, used this method to provide standard I/O paths to their children.) The latter hooked into the filesystem so that file I/O requests could be adopted by handlers. (The network login programs, of which there were even more, used this method to provide standard I/O paths to their children, as the semantics of logging in under Unix requires a way for multiple perhaps-unrelated processes to horn in on the standard I/O path to the operator.) Once mounted on a directory in the filesystem, the handler then received all I/O calls to that point.
A handler would then read small kernel-assigned request data structures from the request queue. (Such reading could be done synchronously or asynchronously as the handler's author desired.) The handler would then do whatever each request required to be satisfied, often using the DNIX "F_UREAD" and "F_UWRITE" calls to read and write into the request's data space, and then would terminate the request appropriately using "F_TERMIN". A privileged handler could adopt the permissions of its client for individual requests to subordinate handlers (such as the filesystem) via the "F_T1REQ" call, so it didn't need to reproduce the subordinate's permission scheme. If a handler was unable to complete a request itself, the "F_PASSRQ" function could be used to pass I/O requests from one handler to another. A handler could perform part of the work requested before passing the rest on to another handler. It was very common for a handler to be state-machine oriented so that requests it was fielding from a client were all done asynchronously. This allowed for a single handler to field requests from multiple clients simultaneously without them blocking each other unnecessarily. Part of the request structure was the process ID and its priority so that a handler could choose what to work on first based upon this information, there was no requirement that work be performed in the order it was requested. To aid in this, it was possible to poll both request and trap queues to see if there was more work to be considered before buckling down to actually do it.
struct ireq { /* Structure of incoming request */
 short ir_fc; /* Function code */
 short ir_rn; /* Request number */
 long ir_opid; /* Owner ID that you gave on open or mount */
 long ir_bc; /* Byte count */
 long ir_upar; /* User parameter */
 long ir_rad; /* Random address */
 ushort ir_uid; /* User ID */
 ushort ir_gid; /* User group */
 time_t ir_time; /* Request time */
 ulong ir_nph;
 ulong ir_npl; /* Node and process ID */
There was no particular restriction on the number of request queues a process could have. This was used to provide networking facilities to chroot jails, for example.
Examples.
To give some appreciation of the utility of handlers, at ISC handlers existed for:
ISC's extensions.
ISC purchased both 5.2 (SVR2 compatible) and 5.3 (SVR3 compatible) versions of DNIX. At the time of purchase, DNIX 5.3 was still undergoing development at DIAB so DNIX 5.2 was what was deployed. Over time, ISC's engineers incorporated most of their 5.3 kernel's features into 5.2, primarily shared memory and IPC, so there was some divergence of features between DIAB and ISC's versions of DNIX. DIAB's 5.3 likely went on to contain more SVR3 features than ISC's 5.2 ended up with. Also, DIAB went on to DNIX 5.4, a SVR4 compatible OS.
At ISC, developers considerably extended their version of DNIX 5.2 (only listed are features involving the kernel itself) based upon both their needs and the general trends of the Unix industry:
Features that were never added.
When DNIX development at ISC effectively ceased in 1997, a number of planned OS features were left on the table: