UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hey everyone,
I'm reading a tutorial on the Mach kernel principles, however, the port and port rights part are kind of confusing to me. I don't know if the book has typos or something but it seems a bit contradictory. It says that "ports, themselves, are not named. It is the port rights that are" and then it later says that "a port is specified by a port name", so how can a port have a port name if the ports themselves aren't named. If anyone can clarify this for me I would greatly appreciate it. Also just to be absolutely certain, is the "port' sort of like an endpoint while the "port right" is like a channel to that endpoint?
thanks in advance

please help

The Mach kernel went though a number of major redesigns between V1 in 1986 (VAX 11/784, IBM PC RT, Sun 3) and v3.0 in 1989 which was the basis for the OSF/1 effort. For example, Mach 2.5 was a large monolithic kernel containing substantial amounts of BSD code whereas Mach 3 on the other hand was closer to a true microkernel. Kernel ports had slightly different capabilities in each version and different terminology was also used at times in the various versions and technical literature.

Perhaps if you gave us a pointer to the tutorial that you have read, somebody on this forum would be prepared to help you. My hunch is that "port name" is actually referring to "capability name" but without seeing the tutorial you are referring to, I cannot be certain.

The name of the tutorial is "Mach kernel principles" which deals with the Mach 3 kernel

http://www.shakthimaan.com/downloads...principles.pdf

so can anyone help me?

I checked that document for the phrase "a port is specified by a port name" but could not find such a phrase.

What the document does say is:
and this is correct.

Are you sure you understand the concept of namespaces?

It's on page 36 under the port name space heading. I understand the concepts of namespaces which is just like a container for holding object names, so that objects in different namespaces are allowed to have the same name...etc, but this Mach port concepts is still a bit confusing to me.