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    Exokernel

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    saroj.xtrim8440
    The document presents the exokernel, an operating system architecture that provides application-level management of physical resources. The exokernel exports low-level interfaces to hardware and uses protection mechanisms like secure binding and revocation protocols. This allows applications to customize abstractions instead of relying on fixed kernel interfaces. Performance tests show the exokernel approach results in lower overhead and better performance than a traditional monolithic kernel for tasks like system calls, exceptions, IPC, and virtual memory.

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    Exokernel

    Uploaded by

    saroj.xtrim8440
    148 views15 pages
    The document presents the exokernel, an operating system architecture that provides application-level management of physical resources. The exokernel exports low-level interfaces to hardware and uses protection mechanisms like secure binding and revocation protocols. This allows applications to customize abstractions instead of relying on fixed kernel interfaces. Performance tests show the exokernel approach results in lower overhead and better performance than a traditional monolithic kernel for tasks like system calls, exceptions, IPC, and virtual memory.

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    The document presents the exokernel, an operating system architecture that provides application-level management of physical resources. The exokernel exports low-level interfaces to hardware and uses protection mechanisms like secure binding and revocation protocols. This allows applications to customize abstractions instead of relying on fixed kernel interfaces. Performance tests show the exokernel approach results in lower overhead and better performance than a traditional monolithic kernel for tasks like system calls, exceptions, IPC, and virtual memory.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    148 views15 pages

    Exokernel

    Uploaded by

    saroj.xtrim8440
    The document presents the exokernel, an operating system architecture that provides application-level management of physical resources. The exokernel exports low-level interfaces to hardware and uses protection mechanisms like secure binding and revocation protocols. This allows applications to customize abstractions instead of relying on fixed kernel interfaces. Performance tests show the exokernel approach results in lower overhead and better performance than a traditional monolithic kernel for tasks like system calls, exceptions, IPC, and virtual memory.

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    You are on page 1of 15

    Exokernel: An Operating System Architecture for

    Application-Level Resource Management

    Dawson R. Engler, M. Frans Kaashoek, and James O’Toole Jr.

    M.I.T. Laboratory for Computer Science

    Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A

    (1995)

    Presented – Arun Hariharan


    CS 574, Paper 15
    1
    Traditional Vs Exokernel Operating Systems

    • Traditional OS limit the • Exokernel provides


    performance of applications by application level management of
    fixing interfaces and abstraction. physical resources.

    • Traditional kernels are large and • Exokernel provides interfaces


    hide physical resources for to application to be as low as
    applications. They present the possible (ideally, hardware
    application with a virtual machine to interface). Thus reducing the
    run on using these abstractions. burden on the kernel and making it
    extremely small.
    2
    WHY GIVE APPLICATION MORE CONTROL?
    Fixed high-level abstractions hurt application performance

    • there is no single way to abstract physical resources best for all


    applications
    • trade-offs are made to support different applications and such tradeoff
    penalizes some class of applications

    Example - RDBMS performance suffers when a general purpose


    page replacement strategy such as LRU is imposed by the operating
    system. Spatial page-replacement strategies are better.

    It is best if the application chooses its implementation from the library OS or


    extend and specialize them or replace them completely.

    There exist research that suggest that – the lower the level of primitives, the
    more efficiently application implementors can use the hardware.

    3
    Approach
    The responsibility for managing hardware resources is transferred to untrusted
    software applications
    The Exokernel is only responsible for protection of hardware from competing
    applications
    The applications may use a library operating system for high-level abstraction
    on the Exokernel interfaces based on application requirements.

    } Distributed Shared
    Memory library

    4
    How can we implement this intuition?

    The goal is to separate PROTECTION from MANAGEMENT

    The kernel needs to securely export hardware resources to applications

    By PROTECTION and SECURELY EXPORT we mean that the resources


    must be protected from contending applications to maintain atomicity of
    processes.
    Made possible by

    • Secure Bindings

    • Visible Resource Revocation Protocol

    • Abort Protocol

    5
    Design Decisions
    To export resources the Exokernel
    • Expose Hardware – Lets the applications know what resources can be offered
    readily
    • Expose Allocations – Lets the application what resources are currently busy, but
    can be requested
    • Expose Names – Give out physical address and names by which resources are
    addressed
    • Exposes Revocation – Lets the application know what resource is it taking away
    from the application

    Resource management policy is left to application


    But Exokernel reserves rights to resources allocations

    6
    Secure Binding

    This is a protection mechanism that decouples


    authorization from the actual use of a resource.

    - Protection check at bind time only


    - Implementation is simple
    - Hardware
    - Software
    - Downloading Code into kernel

    7
    Visible Revocation

    If a resource is securely bound to a application


    and is requested by another application
    - Visible Revocation protocol is use
    The lets the application know, that a particular
    resource has to be returned within a certain time.

    8
    Abort Protocol

    After revocation order if the application does not


    follow the return resource policy

    - Abort Protocol is used.

    The resource is taken back by force


    Resource data and information backed up and
    repossession vector used.

    9
    Performance Test

    Exokernel – Monolithic Kernel –


    Aegis & ExOS Ultrix

    Vs

    10
    Base Cost for null procedure
    call and a simple System Call

    Reason : Demultiplexing system calls in Ultrix is expensive


    Care is taken not to disturb registers.

    Aegis does not bother about such intricate details

    11
    Exceptions
    Aegis dispatches all hardware exceptions to applications
    1. It saves three scratch registers in save area
    2. Loads exception PC, last virtual address and cause of exception
    3. Exception code is run with appropriate permissions set and
    execution resumes without involving kernel.

    Time to dispatch an exception


    in Aegis and Ultrix (in microseconds.)

    12
    ExOS: IPC Abstraction

    pipe: measures the latency of sending a word-sized message from one process to
    another using pipes by “ping-ponging” a counter between two processes.

    (pipe’) exploits the fact that this library exists to simply inlining the read and
    write calls.

    shm: measures the time for two processes to “ping-pong” using a shared
    counter.

    lrpc: this experiment measures the time to perform an LRPC into another
    address space
    13
    ExOS: Application-level Virtual Memory Test

    14
    Conclusion
    An Exokernel securely multiplexes available hardware resources among
    applications

    Library operating systems, work above the low-level Exokernel interface,


    implement higher-level abstractions that best meet the performance and
    functionality goals of applications

    To achieve low-level interface, the Exokernel separates management from


    protection

    To make this separation efficient it uses secure bindings, visible revocation and
    abort protocol

    The system performs very well on all benchmark test

    Based on the results of these experiments, we conclude that the Exokernel


    architecture is a viable structure for high-performance, extensible operating
    system

    15

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