The operating system must fulfill many objectives but one of most important is:
- Provide an execution environment to the applications that run on the computer system (the so-called user programs).
Linux system call or syscall is the transition between the User Space and the Kernel Space. Whenever a process makes a system call (i.e., a request to the kernel), the hardware changes the privilege mode from User Mode to Kernel Mode, and the process starts the execution of a kernel procedure with a strictly limited purpose. Whenever the request is fully satisfied, the kernel procedure forces the hardware to return to User Mode and the process continues its execution from the instruction following the system call. It’s crucially important from the security side to restrict User Space applications from functionality allowed only for the Kernel. Therefore, Linux Kernel developers created such API or syscalls mechanism.
