Using unsafe.Pointer to explore Linux system calls
summary
Shows concrete patterns for using unsafe.Pointer with Linux syscalls: uses x/sys/unix and ioctl to fetch a uint32 vmsock context ID, demonstrates reinterpreting memory like convert uint16 to [2]byte via unsafe.Pointer and mapping a 328‑byte taskstats blob directly to a struct, warns that missing size checks to avoid reading arbitrary memory leaks secrets, and emphasizes the rule to convert the pointer to uintptr inside the syscall call to prevent GC-moving and crashes.
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chapters (23)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:50What is package unsafe
- 1:32What is a system call
- 2:37IOCTL system call example
- 3:18Prerequisites for unsafe system calls
- 3:38Go type safety explained
- 4:39Go types memory layout
- 5:40Slices and memory
- 6:21Endianness in Go
- 7:25Diving into package unsafe
- 8:07unsafe.Sizeof function
- 9:11unsafe.Pointer conversions
- 12:40Dangerous unsafe patterns
- 15:07Safe uses of unsafe
- 15:30System calls with syscall
- 16:55IOCTL in Go with syscall
- 17:58Garbage collector and pointers
- 18:40Native endianness detection
- 19:01Linux taskstats interface
- 20:03Performance with unsafe
- 20:45Other uses of unsafe
- 21:06Summary and responsibilities
- 21:52Q&A
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