Trustworthy Systems

What if you could actually Trust your kernel?

Authors

Gernot Heiser, Leonid Ryzhyk, Michael von Tessin and Aleksander Budzynowski

NICTA

UNSW

Abstract

The advent of formally verified OS kernels means that for the first time we have a truly trustworthy foundation for systems. In this paper we explore the design space this opens up. The obvious applications are in security, although not all of them are quite as obvious, for example as they relate to TPMs. We further find that the kernel’s dependability guarantees can be used to improve performance, for example in database systems. We think that this just scratches the surface, and that trustworthy kernels will stimulate further research.

BibTeX Entry

  @inproceedings{Heiser_RTB_11,
    address          = {Napa, CA, USA},
    author           = {Heiser, Gernot and Ryzhyk, Leonid and von Tessin, Michael and Budzynowski, Aleksander},
    booktitle        = {Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS)},
    keywords         = {sel4, virtualisation, security, database, verification},
    month            = may,
    pages            = {1--5},
    paperurl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/nicta_full_text/4632.pdf},
    slides           = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/nicta_slides/4632.pdf},
    title            = {What If You Could Actually {Trust} Your Kernel?},
    year             = {2011}
  }

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