Trustworthy Systems

Virtualising Darwin on L4

Authors

Joshua Root

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

Abstract

Virtualisation involves abstracting the interface between computer hardware and the operating systems that run on it. One real machine can be used to run several operating systems simultaneously, presenting a complete ma- chine interface to each of them. Virtualisation is increasingly popular due to its usefulness for many tasks, such as server consolidation, debugging, improving security, and running legacy software.

I have added virtualisation features to the Darbat operating system, a version of Apple's Darwin OS that has been modified to run on the L4 microkernel. Multiple instances of the Darbat kernel can be executed si- multaneously on a single computer system. Each instance is isolated from the others by hardware-enforced memory protection. System resources, in- cluding memory, CPU time, and peripheral devices, are shared between the Darbat instances in a controlled manner.

BibTeX Entry

  @mastersthesis{Root:be,
    address          = {Sydney, Australia},
    author           = {Joshua Root},
    month            = feb,
    paperUrl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/theses_public/07/Root%3Abe.pdf},
    school           = {School of Computer Science and Engineering},
    title            = {Virtualising {Darwin} on {L4}},
    year             = {2007}
  }

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