The Mac Hacker's Handbook
Chapter One
Mac OS X Architecture
This chapter begins by addressing many of the basics of a Mac OS X system.
This includes the general architecture and the tools necessary to deal with the
architecture. It then addresses some of the security improvements that come
with version 10.5 "Leopard", the most recent version of Mac OS X. Many of these
security topics will be discussed in great detail throughout this book.
Basics
Before we dive into the tools, techniques, and security of Mac OS X, we need to
start by discussing how it is put together. To understand the details of Leopard,
you need first to understand how it is built, from the ground up. As depicted
in Figure 1-1, Mac OS X is built as a series of layers, including the XNU kernel
and the Darwin operating system at the bottom, and the Aqua interface and
graphical applications on the top. The important components will be discussed
in the following sections.
XNU
The heart of Mac OS X is the XNU kernel. XNU is basically composed of a
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