Userland
From Free net encyclopedia
- For information on the company called UserLand, see UserLand Software.
Userland refers to an application space, typically in Unix or Unix-like operating systems which are external from the kernel. Sometimes userland can mean an application which performs its own system calls or input and output (IO), but typically the userland part of an application will request system calls and other system activities from the kernel or system libraries. In addition to this, non-kernel system components such as a system command shell or utilities for manipulating filesystem objects, all which run with the CPU placed in lesser privileged user mode, are collectively referred to as "the userland".
In the filesystem hierarchical sense, userland means any storage space on the system disk which is not a part of the critical system storage, ie. it is meant for users' space storage such as their personal documents and other non critical data. In Unix systems this space can typically reside in the /home, /export/home, or /usr/home directories.
