Loading and debugging tasks in SawMill
Authors
Luke Deller
School of Computer Science and Engineering
UNSW,
Sydney 2052, Australia
Abstract
Title: Loading and Debugging Tasks in SawMill
Author: Luke Deller
School of Computer Science and Engineering,
The University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia,
luked@cse.unsw.edu.au
Abstract:
Sawmill is a highly configurable multi-server operating system built on the
Lava nucleus, currently under development at IBM's T. J. Watson Research
Center. This thesis describes some contributions that I made to the project
during my stay at Watson.
Preparing a task for execution in a multi-server environment is not as
simple as in a monolithic kernel because a number of different components
need to co-operate to provide the necessary services to start the task. A
general design for loading tasks in Sawmill is presented and its rationale
explained. My implementation of a system for loading tasks from ELF files
is described and issues which arose have been discussed.
Debugging an experimental operating system and its processes is
traditionally quite tedious, often featuring serial port debugging output
and frequent reboots. Interactive loading of tasks removes much of the need
for rebooting, but complex debugging can still be difficult. I have ported
a popular symbolic debugger to the Sawmill system, which allows
multi-threaded Sawmill tasks to be debugged. Some implementation issues
encountered in debugging on the Lava nucleus are discussed.
The Sawmill system aims to provide Linux binary compatibility which involves
supporting the services which are usually provided by the Linux kernel. A
strategy for migrating virtual memory support from the Linux kernel to
Sawmill services is presented.
BibTeX Entry
@mastersthesis{Deller:BE,
address = {Sydney, Australia},
author = {Luke Deller},
month = nov,
note = {Available from publications page at \url{http://ts.data61.csiro.au/}},
paperUrl = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/theses_public/99/Deller%3ABE.ps.gz},
school = {School of Computer Science and Engineering},
title = {Loading and Debugging Tasks in {SawMill}},
year = {1999}
}
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