VIDEOS 》 What is purpose of Kernel Development - Example SMOAD Networks SDWAN Orchestrator Firewall Kernel Engine

Often aspiring students may have this question, that what is the purpose of Linux Kernel Development. Since Linux Kernel is very mature and it has almost everything one would need. Usually, we need custom kernel development in the case of any new driver development for new upcoming hardware. And this happens on and on. But at times we may also come across few features/modules/components which are already provided by the Linux Kernel which are not adequate or atleast not the way we exactly intended to use.

Custom Kernel Firewall Engine/Stack for SMOAD Networks:
So here is my video which demonstrates live one such use-case. Such as writing an entire custom Security Layer (a Kernel Firewall Engine/Stack) for SMOAD Networks - who is a Managed SD-WAN Services provider. The idea is to use this engine which is built from scratch, instead using existing Kernel provided Netfilter based Iptables framework. One of the main advantages of this model is that we get complete control over security layer such as Firewall (network security) logs. The logs are further processed so that we dont end up collecting excessive per packet data (something like TCP-Dump/Wireshark). Instead, periodically create a log dump and feed into the database.

Deep Learning, Machine Learning and AI based IDS/IPS:
The security logs can further be fed into a custom Deep Learning or Machine Learning engine driven by AI. And thus extend its feature to support extensive data mining/collection and drive autonomous IDS/IPS engines. This can be driven with or without network admin (human) assisted. This is a complete heterogenous model and so we can avoid third-party dependencies such as Snort/Suricata/etc for IDS/IPS functionality. Since as far as I heard from various industry cyber-security experts, they are often quite bulky, cumbersome and way harder to maintain and configure.

So, this is the real-world example, sometimes no matter what Linux Kernel provides as a part of stock Kernel/OS features, sometimes we have to write our own custom kernel stack or module(s) which can specifically cater our exact needs. So here is my detailed multi-episode Youtube video series on /sysfs Interface.

I also conduct sessions/classes on Systems and Network software programming and architecture. If you are interested, click HERE for more details.

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Video Episodes :: Linux Kernel programming

What is purpose of Kernel Development - Example SMOAD Networks SDWAN Orchestrator Firewall Kernel Engine ↗
Monday' 18-Jul-2022

Often aspiring students may have this question, that what is the purpose of Linux Kernel Development. Since Linux Kernel is very mature and it has almost everything one would need. Usually, we need custom kernel development in the case of any new driver development for new upcoming hardware. And this happens on and on. But at times we may also come across few features/modules/components which are already provided by the Linux Kernel which are not adequate or atleast not the way we exactly intended to use. So, this is the real-world example, sometimes no matter what Linux Kernel provides as a part of stock Kernel/OS features, sometimes we have to write our own custom kernel stack or module(s) which can specifically cater our exact needs.

Linux Kernel - Containers and Namespaces ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

Linux Kernel /sysfs Interface ↗
Saturday' 14-May-2022

/sysfs is one of the most popular kernel to user-space interface which you can leverage to add an interface to your Kernel code such as Kernel modules, Kernel Device Drivers, etc. Although personally I prefer /proc interface than other alternatives such as /sysfs, ioctl() and so on for my personal Kernel modules/stack. So here is my detailed multi-episode Youtube video series on /sysfs Interface.

Linux ioctl() API interface ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

Watch detailed videos and read topics on Linux Kernel Programming and Linux ioctl() API interface

Linux Kernel Programming - Device Drivers ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

Watch detailed videos and read topics on Linux Kernel Programming - Device Drivers

Linux Kernel Architecture ↗
Wednesday' 18-May-2022

Linux Kernel FileSystems Subsystem ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

Linux Kernel /proc Interface ↗
Wednesday' 18-May-2022

/proc is one of the most popular kernel to user-space interface which you can leverage to add an interface to your Kernel code such as Kernel modules, Kernel Device Drivers, etc. Personally I prefer /proc interface than other alternatives such as /sysfs, ioctl() and so on for my personal Kernel modules/stack. So here is my detailed multi-episode Youtube video series on /sysfs Interface. I also conduct sessions/classes on Systems and Network software programming and architecture.

Linux Kernel Programming ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

Linux Operating System - User-space Processes ↗
Saturday' 14-May-2022

Linux Kernel vs User-space - Library APIs - Linux Kernel Programming ↗
Tuesday' 17-Jan-2023

One of the important aspects a beginner who is into Linux Kernel space systems software development has to understand is that unlike user-space C/C++ programming, where you can freely include any library APIs via respective #include files (which are dynamically linked during run-time via those /lib .so files), in the case of Kernel space programming, these library APIs are written within the Kernel source itself. These are the fundamental APIs which we commonly use, such as memcpy(), memcmp(), strlen(), strcpy(), strcpy() and so on. So here is my detailed Youtube video episode on the same with live demo, walk-through and examples.

Linux Kernel Compilation ↗
Wednesday' 18-May-2022