- microkernel-devroom - lists.fosdem.org

[Microkernel-devroom] Looking for "panelists" for the "panel" discussion
by Jakub Jermar 12 Jan '12

12 Jan '12

Hi, I know we have not yet reached an agreement on the exact format of what I originally intended as a panel discussion in the devroom's schedule, but besides of this detail, it would be great to have 1-2 people from each participating project to volunteer as the panelist / speakers for the debate. This is mainly for the sake of putting some names on the official schedule to fill the role of speakers for the "panel" (mind the quotes). The target for the total number of speakers is ++7--, preferably 6 :-) If your project does not have a talk, this may be a good way to participate in the devroom. Remember that this is just an initial call for volunteers to participate in the "panel", whatever final form it will have. For the starters, I need to have some names from across the projects to figure on the schedule. Thanks, Jakub

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[Microkernel-devroom] Accepted talks and schedule of our devroom at FOSDEM 2012
by Jakub Jermar 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

Hi, here is a schedule for the Multiserver, microkernel-based operating systems devroom @ FOSDEM 2012: 9:00am – 9:25am Welcome! or Why do we meet here today (Jakub Jermář) 9:30am – 10:00am Introduction to the NOVA kernel API (Julian Stecklina) 10:10am – 10:55am Introduction of the Genode OS Framework (Norman Feske) 11:10am – 11:55am Introduction to HelenOS (Jakub Jermář) 11:55am – 12:55pm Lunch break 1:00pm – 2:00pm The microkernel overhead (Martin Děcký) 2:10pm – 2:55pm Reserve slot: First come, first assigned 3:05pm – 3:50pm Dive into HelenOS Device Drivers (Jiří Svoboda) 4:00pm – 5:00pm Panel discussion Finally, the schedule filled surprisingly quickly. For the sake of ballanced content, I decided to withdraw my own proposal, which would otherwise be a third talk dedicated to HelenOS. The reserve slot is basically meant for GNU Hurd or MINIX 3, whichever claims it first, or any other, not yet represented project. If the slot is not claimed, we can donate it to other types of content for which there is no time now. Note that the last item on the agenda is a panel discussion where we can discuss various topics among the projects. Note that the schedule may change to accommodate the current devroom needs. Any changes will be announced on this mailing list and on the FOSDEM web site, after the schedule is moved there. Jakub

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[Microkernel-devroom] Speakers can submit additional information
by Jakub Jermar 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

Hi, it turns out that our devroom's speakers can submit some additional information (quoting an email from devroom-managers): * what we need, for each speaker: * links to website, blog, tweetytweets, ... * a photo, not mandatory, but always nice * what we need, for each session: * relevant links to website, blog, git repo, ... Jakub

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[Microkernel-devroom] [TALK-PROPOSAL] The microkernel overhead
by Martin Decky 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

Hello folks, please see below my proposal for a talk at our devroom. It would be great to cooperate with anybody who is interested in this topic, because it is not HelenOS-specific. Just let me know. Regards M.D. [Title] The microkernel overhead [Full name] Martin Děcký [Short bio] Martin has been with the HelenOS team for more than 6 years now. A life-long operating systems enthusiast, he enjoys everything from bare metal programming and submitting Linux kernel patches to designing the most progressive microkernel and working on its formal verification as a researcher at Charles University in Prague. [Estimated duration] 60 - 90 min [Abstract] Since the famous Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate [1] the general public sticks to the golden rule of thumb: Microkernel systems, while nice and elegant, are just academic toys. Due to the infamous communication overhead and other self-imposed limitations, they are never going to be as useful for the general use (in terms of performance) as the good old monolithic systems. Since the 1990s many researchers (especially the people around L4) have struggled to lower the overhead using the most extraordinary tricks. Others have tried to apply the microkernel design to mission critical, safety critical and other niche targets, where the benefits of the microkernel design clearly outweights the drawbacks. And other folks spent years creating hybrid systems to get the best (and hopefully not the worst) of the both worlds. But are the drawbacks of the microkernels fundamental? The way computers are designed, the way programmers think and the way the IT economy works have changed profoundly over the last 20 years. We no longer try hard to save every single CPU cycle and every single byte of RAM in every single routine. We acknowledge that spending 20 % more on a faster CPU and more RAM to run inteligebly designed software is a better idea than spending 20 % more each year on maintaing software with tons of ugly performance hacks and quirks. Our machines are massively concurrent and we tend to (or are forced to) think more in terms of effective parallel algorithms than just plain sequential throughput. So perhaps it is time to reconsider the true impact of the microkernel overhead given the present conditions and requirements. Key topics: * Reasons for the microkernel overhead * Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the overhead * Ways to minimize it * Ways to live with it * Ways to embrace it [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum–Torvalds_debate

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[Microkernel-devroom] Talk proposal: Introduction to the NOVA kernel API
by Julian Stecklina 02 Jan '12

02 Jan '12

Hello, I know I missed the deadline, but I would like to propose a 30min talk about the NOVA kernel API. Title: Introduction to the NOVA kernel API Name: Julian Stecklina Abstract: The NOVA virtualization architecture is comprised of a microhypervisor and a capability-based multiserver userland with a specific focus on enabling secure and efficient virtualization using x86 hardware virtualization extensions (VT-x, VT-d, SR-IOV). It does so by moving almost all of the actual "virtualization" into a per-VM userspace component that is not in the Trusted Computing Base of other virtual machines. This talk will give an overview of NOVA's unique execution model and API with a strong focus on how this enables efficient execution of a VMM. Specifically, this talk will cover how tasks and threads are realized in NOVA, how communication between threads works, how VM exits are handled in NOVA and how this extends to SMP machines. Short bio: Julian Stecklina finished his Diplom (Master's thesis) in 2009 at the Operating Systems Group of TU Dresden, in which he implemented a Firewire-based remote kernel debugger for NOVA that can be quickly retargeted to other kernels. During this time he became acquainted with the two original NOVA authors (one was his thesis advisor) and afterwards started to work on improving network I/O virtualization in NOVA as a PhD student.

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[Microkernel-devroom] [TALK-PROPOSAL] Dive into HelenOS Device Drivers
by Jiri Svoboda 31 Dec '11

31 Dec '11

Hi folks, here is my proposal for a talk about the specifics of implementing device drivers (device driver framework) in a microkernel operating system, specifically in HelenOS. Cheers -Jiri [Title] Dive into HelenOS Device Drivers [Full name] Jiří Svoboda [Short bio] Jiří is a long-time HelenOS developer who designed or contributed to many areas of the system, including the debugging framework, device driver framework, block layer, networking, the OpenMoko port, as well as functionality related to interfacing with the user. [Estimated duration] 45 min [Abstract] Implementing support for device drivers (device driver frameworks) in a microkernel-based/multiserver operating system presents some unique challenges. In this talk we will go through all the important aspects of device drivers in HelenOS, at the hurdles and the ways they can be overcome. We will discuss topics such as: - Programmed I/O and DMA in user space - Level interrupt handling and interrupt clearing, tasklets - Cooperation of user-space drivers and kernel (debugging) drivers - DDF and Device Manager - automatic driver start, device enumeration and hot (un)plug - Exposing driver services, Location Service - drivers are not created more equal than others, a.k.a Death of the Pseudo Device

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[Microkernel-devroom] Reminder: deadline for talk submissions is tomorrow
by Jakub Jermar 30 Dec '11

30 Dec '11

Hello all, tomorrow is the last day before our devroom's deadline for talk proposal submissions. As of now, there are only four proposals from only two projects (HelenOS and Genode): Jakub Jermar: Welcome! or Why do we meet here today Norman Feske: Introduction of the Genode OS Framework Jiri Svoboda: Introduction to HelenOS Jakub Jermar: Fixing memory management in HelenOS It would be much better if we had talks from all participating projects and in a little bit greater quantity to make the devroom meet its intended purpose. Cheers, Jakub

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[Microkernel-devroom] [TALK-PROPOSAL] Introduction to HelenOS
by Jiri Svoboda 21 Dec '11

21 Dec '11

Hi folks, here is my proposal for introductory talk about HelenOS. Cheers -Jiri [Title] Introduction to HelenOS [Full name] Jiří Svoboda [Short bio] Jiří is a long-time HelenOS developer who designed or contributed to many areas of the system, including the debugging framework, device driver framework, block layer, networking, the OpenMoko port, as well as functionality related to interfacing with the user. [Estimated duration] 30-45 min [Abstract] HelenOS is a general-purpose multiserver operating system written from scratch. It is based on a custom microkernel, SPARTAN, which currently runs on seven different CPU architectures (ARM, IA-32, x86-64, Itanium, MIPS, PowerPC and SPARC V9) . Most system services (e.g. device drivers, file systems, networking) are implemented in regular user-space processes which communicate via asynchronous messaging. First, the talk will briefly introduce the HelenOS project history and community structure. Second, we will briefly talk about the major technical areas and specifics of the system (boot and kernel, IPC mechanisms and naming services, devices and filesystems). This part will be supported by demos of the running system as well as by showing the structure of the source code. Last, we will look at what functionality is already there, what is currently being actively worked on and what are the future plans, which aim toward making the system self-hosting.

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[Microkernel-devroom] [TALK-PROPOSAL] Introduction of the Genode OS Framework
by Norman Feske 19 Dec '11

19 Dec '11

Dear devroom participants, Here is my talk proposal about the Genode project. [Title] Introduction of the Genode OS Framework [Full name] Norman Feske [Short bio] Norman is one of the founders and architects of the Genode project. In 2008, he co-founded Genode Labs - a company with the mission to transform this OS technology from an once obscure research project to a next-generation main-stream OS. [Estimated duration] 45 min [Abstract] Today's operating systems try to find a balance between seemingly conflicting goals. Ease of use is traded against security, resource utilization is traded against resource accountability, and system complexity is traded against scalability. For example, SELinux is ill famed as hard to use and consequently remains widely unused. As another example, isolation kernels minimize the complexity of critical system software but at the cost of limiting these solutions to static applications. The Genode OS architecture shows how these apparently inherent conflicts can be solved by operating-system design. By combining a recursive system structure with capability-based security, mandatory access control becomes easy to deploy. At the same time, the trusted computing base can be minimized for each application individually such that the attack surface for security-critical system functions gets reduced by orders of magnitude compared to existing approaches. Furthermore, a concept for trading physical resources among processes allows for dynamic workloads while maintaining quality of service. That is not just theory - the system is ready for demonstration and its developers are planning to use it as development environment by the end of 2012. After a brief introduction of where Genode comes from, the main part of the talk will be focused on the OS architecture and give a glimpse at the implementation via live demonstrations. Finally, the talk will briefly discuss the planned steps towards using Genode as general-purpose OS.

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[Microkernel-devroom] [TALK-PROPOSAL] Fixing memory management in HelenOS
by Jakub Jermar 18 Dec '11

18 Dec '11

Hi, As there is exactly only 13 days left (including holidays) for submitting talk proposals, I'd like to propose the following talk. At the same time, I don't want to be the only speaker in our devroom, so please, open the floodgates and start submitting proposals too :-) [Title] Fixing memory management in HelenOS [Full name] Jakub Jermar [Short bio] Jakub is a long-time developer of the HelenOS operating system and one of the project founders. Jakub helped to design and develop various parts of the system, including its kernel and the file system layer. [Estimated duration] 45m [Abstract] In this rather technical talk, I will go through the various corners of HelenOS memory management and will present the ongoing effort to fix some of the inherent shortcomings of the original design.

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