1976 Protection in Operating Systems.pdfVIP

I. Introduction Operating R.S. Gaines Systems Editor Protection in Operating Systems Michael A. Harrison and Walter L. Ruzzo University of California, Berkeley Jeffrey D. Ullman Princeton University A model of protection mechanisms in computing systems is presented and its appropriateness is argued. The safety problem for protection systems under this model is to determine in a given situation whether a subject can acquire a particular right to an object. In restricted cases, it can be shown that this problem is decidable, i.e. there is an algorithm to determine whether a system in a particular configuration is safe. In general, and under surprisingly weak assumptions, it cannot be decided if a situation is safe. Various implications of this fact are discussed. Key Words and Phrases: protection, protection system, operating system, decidability, Turing machine CR Categories: 4.30, 4.31, 5.24 Copyright Q 1976, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. General permission to republish, but not for profit, all or part of this material is granted provided that ACMs copyright notice is given and that reference is made to the publication, to its date of issue, and to the fact that reprinting privileges were granted by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. Research was sponsored by NSF Grants GJ-474 and GJ-43332. Work was performed while the third author was on leave at the University of California at Berkeley. Authors addresses: M.A. Harrison and W. L. Ruzzo, Depart- ment of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; J.D. Ullman, Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. One of the key aspects of modern computing sys- tems is the ability to allow many users to share the same facilities. These facilities may be memory, proces- sors, databases, or software such as compilers or sub- routines. When diverse users share common items,