Trustworthy Systems

sDDF design: design, implementation and evaluation of the seL4 device driver framework

Authors

Gernot Heiser, Peter Chubb, Alex Brown, Courtney Darville and Lucy Parker

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

Abstract

This is a work-in-progress report that documents the design of a high-performance device driver framework for seL4, including the structure and interfaces of compliant drivers, and presents some preliminary evaluation.

The document is intentionally explicit about the assumptions it makes on hardware (the device model) and the structure it prescribes on device drivers (the driver model). This is to facilitate exploring formal specification and, eventually, verification of device drivers.

Consequently, besides specifying how drivers and their interfaces are structured, the document also serves to define the context for the Pancake project that develops a programming language for verifiable device drivers. As such, the report serves as an informal interface document between the Pancake team and systems researchers (and thus explains many things systems people take for granted).

BibTeX Entry

  @online{Heiser_CBDP_24,
    author           = {Gernot Heiser and Peter Chubb and Alex Brown and Courtney Darville and Lucy Parker},
    institution      = {UNSW},
    paperurl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/papers/Heiser_CBDP_24.pdf},
    title            = {{sDDF} Design: Design, Implementation and Evaluation of the {seL4} Device Driver Framework},
    url              = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/papers/Heiser_CBDP_24.pdf},
    urldate          = {2024-06-14},
    version          = {0.4},
    year             = {2024}
  }

Download