CSR---PDOS: Support for Atomic Sequences of File System Operations

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Data stored on computers is the most precious, irreplaceable component.File systems and databases are the two most common ways to provide regulated access to the data. Databases provide transactions, which allow arbitrary sequences of operations to be applied atomically; but databases use a wide variety of incompatible APIs. File systems, however, provide a standard POSIX API to data, but are less reliable because they do not provide facilities to apply a sequence of operations atomically.This project integrates full database (ACID) properties into commodityoperating systems, while offering user-level applications a POSIX-compliant API with transactions support. We are porting the Berkeley Database (BDB) to commodity kernels---a highly portable, efficient, and versatile embeddable database. Aside from integrated kernel support, we are also developing two file systems with ACID semantics.We are developing several highly practical applications: a Provenance-Aware Storage System (PASS) that tracks the origin and history of file ownership; a transaction-aware wrapper shared library that provides transaction capabilities to unmodified legacy applications; and a mail-delivery server that atomically updates mailboxes, access control lists, and more.The end goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a new operatingsystem architecture that offers transactions all the way to userapplications, even unmodified applications; the resulting increase inapplication reliability and security will help society's ever-growing use of software. This will allow developers to write safer software more rapidly. The long term impact will be that society as a whole will benefit from more reliable, secure, and robust software.