Trustworthy Systems

Secure OS extensibility needn't cost an arm and a leg

Authors

Antony Edwards and Gernot Heiser

    School of Computer Science and Engineering
    UNSW,
    Sydney 2052, Australia

Abstract

This position paper makes the claim that secure extensibility of operating systems is not only desirable but also achievable. We claim that OS extensibility should be done at user-level to avoid the security problems inherent in other approaches. We furthermore claim (backed up by some initial results) that user-level extensibility is possible at a performance that is similar to in-kernel extensions. Finally, user-level extensions allow the use of modern software engineering techniques.

BibTeX Entry

  @inproceedings{Edwards_Heiser_01a,
    address          = {Schloss Elmau, Germany},
    author           = {Antony Edwards and Gernot Heiser},
    booktitle        = {Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS)},
    month            = may,
    pages            = {168},
    paperurl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/papers/Edwards_Heiser_01a.pdf},
    title            = {Secure {OS} Extensibility Needn't Cost an Arm and a Leg},
    year             = {2001}
  }

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