CNS Core: Medium: Operating System Modularity for Safety and Performance on Existing Commodity Hardware

控制大多数现代计算机的操作系统是围绕着一个单一的内核构建的--一个由数十万或数百万行代码组成的单一程序，通常是用C语言编写的。代码中任何地方的错误或安全漏洞都会危及整个系统的完整性。该项目正在开发可用于逐步模块化内核的机制，使各个部分与其余部分安全有效地隔离，以增强安全性，减少错误的影响，并允许开发人员更容易、更安全、更频繁地安装更新。具体地说，该项目做出了两个关键的技术贡献。首先，它使用商用处理器上新可用的硬件功能(内存保护密钥)来实现受保护的库。这允许用户应用程序在不实际进入内核的情况下安全地执行操作系统功能，并与其他应用程序中的库实例安全地共享状态。其次，该项目使用硬件、语言和编译器技术来实现内核本身的模块之间的保护边界，允许以类型安全语言增量地重写这些模块。作为该项目的一部分进行的研究承诺显著提高商用和专用操作系统的安全性和模块化--使它们更可靠，更易于修改、升级和定制--同时保持或增强政府、工业、科学、艺术和娱乐中的广泛应用程序的性能。研究和培训活动将针对不同的本科生和研究生群体。将通过与多个商业合作伙伴的接触促进技术转让。实验结果、原始数据和源代码将免费和公开提供，后者通过开放源码许可证提供。技术报告和数据集将存放在罗切斯特大学的档案库(http://urresearch.rochester.edu/).代码将托管在GitHub或类似网站上。指向所有资源的指针将保留在http://www.cs.rochester.edu/research/os/modularity/This奖上，这反映了国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The operating systems that control most modern computers are built around a monolithic kernel -- a single program comprising hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code, typically written in the C programming language. A bug or security breach anywhere in that code jeopardizes the integrity of the entire system. This project is developing mechanisms that can be used to modularize the kernel incrementally, allowing pieces to be safely and efficiently isolated from the rest in order to enhance security, reduce the impact of bugs, and allow developers to install updates more easily, safely, and frequently.Specifically, the project makes two key technical contributions. First, it uses newly available hardware features (memory protection keys) on commodity processors to implement protected libraries. These allow a user application to execute operating system functions safely without actually entering the kernel, and to share state safely with library instances in other applications. Second, the project uses hardware, language, and compiler technology to implement protection boundaries between modules of the kernel itself, allowing those modules to be incrementally rewritten in a type-safe language.Research performed as part of the project promises to significantly increase the safety and modularity of both commodity and specialty operating systems -- making them more dependable and easier to modify, upgrade, and customize -- while preserving or enhancing performance for a wide range of applications, in government, industry, science, the arts, and entertainment. Research and training activities will target a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students. Technology transfer will be facilitated through contacts with multiple commercial partners.Experimental results, raw data, and source code will be freely and publicly available, the latter via open-source license. Technical reports and data sets will be hosted in the University of Rochester's archival repository (http://urresearch.rochester.edu/). Code will be hosted at GitHub or similar sites. Pointers to all resources will be maintained at http://www.cs.rochester.edu/research/os/modularity/This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.