System Calls amp; Libraries.ppt

System Calls Libraries System Calls Libraries Vivek Pai Lecture 4, COS318 Sep 25, 2001 Gedankundmathematics Recall the pointer verification case for fread( ) Can you speed up the checking process? What’s the best you could achieve? O(n)? O(logn)? O(1)? What happens if you have 32 bits? Aside: # atoms in universe = 1080, or 2256 Does this provide any other benefits? Mechanics Is the project workable? Has everyone started? Barring major problems, due Tuesday midnight Readings updated Protection Issues I/O protection Prevent users from performing illegal I/Os Memory protection Prevent users from modifying kernel code and data structures CPU protection Prevent a user from using the CPU for too long Protection Is Not Safety/Security Protection is a prerequisite Safety can be separation of concerns Security related to overall design Examples? Bad pointer access causing seg fault Sniffing cleartext passwords on the wire Support in Modern Processors:User ? Kernel Why a Privileged Mode? Special Instructions Mapping, TLB, etc Device registers I/O channels, etc. Mode Bits Processor features Device access x86 Protection Rings Other Design Approaches “Capabilities” Fine-grained access control Crypto-like tokens Microkernels OS services in user space Small core “hypervisor” Monolithic All kernel routines are together A system call interface Examples: Linux Most Unix OS NT Monolithic Pros and Cons Pros Relatively few crossings Shared kernel address space Performance Cons Flexibility Stability Experimentation Layered Structure Hiding information at each layer Develop a layer at a time Examples THE (6 layers) MS-DOS (4 layers) Layering Pros and Cons Pros Separation of concerns Simplicity / elegance Cons Boundary crossings Performance? Microkernel Micro-kernel is “micro” Services are implemented as regular process Micro-kernel get services on behalf of users by messaging with the service processes Examples: Taos, Mach, L4 Microkernel Pros and Cons Pros Easier to develop servic