OS design...

[Kragen]

On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Ray Dillinger wrote:
> I like the "modular" approach and I think it could be extended
> very effectively to runtime as well as buildtime, and cover
> *EVERY* subsystem of the kernel except managing processes, 
> memory, and sockets.  
> 
> I'm picturing each and every hardware driver and operating
> system service as a standalone process -- not a library to link
> against.  User processes would communicate with them using
> sockets.  Higher-level services, such as window management,
> could be standalone processes that communicate with lower-level
> services such as screen management over sockets, etc.

I think this is generally called a "microkernel".  The exokernel is
just an extension of this idea to its logical extreme.

It is a good idea.  Sockets may not be the best communications
mechanism, of course.  Look up information on KeyKOS and PUMA (which
have interesting, innovative, and simple ways for processes on a
microkernel to communicate) and Mach, QNX, and AmigaOS (which are the
most popular microkernel OSes).

(I'm not an OS researcher!  Don't take my recommendations with too much
weight.)

> 1) *VERY* efficient socket implementation -- as shared memory 
>    space, with copying cut as far as possible.  Forwarding a 
>    socket's input to another socket's output should be just a
>    matter of copying two pointers and notifying the kernel that 
>    the buffer has been allocated to a different process. Note, 
>    different methods would be needed for inter-machine
>    communications.

PUMA had an interesting solution for this that worked well
inter-machine as well as intramachine.

The socket API has some limitations that make what you have described
hard to do in the general case.

Kragen

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
A well designed system must take people into account.  . . .  It's hard to
build a system that provides strong authentication on top of systems that
can be penetrated by knowing someone's mother's maiden name.  -- Schneier