linux-kernel - Re: Partially Privileged Applications

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Message-ID: <CAFLxGvx-G8VkBvbdLkYSJee4oAU+4PdHzwszhaTaTMwGJAHkRA@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:18:35 +0100
From:	Richard Weinberger <richard.weinberger@...il.com>
To:	Shahbaz Youssefi <shabbyx@...il.com>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Partially Privileged Applications

On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Shahbaz Youssefi <shabbyx@...il.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> First, please CC replies to myself. Second, this is an RFC.
>
> I've been tampering with an idea for some time now and I've done some
> research. Finally, I wrote it down here (a terrible place as it turned
> out):
>
> http://shahbaz-youssefi.blogspot.it/2013/11/partially-privileged-applications.html
>
> and would like to know what you think. This idea requires an
> improvement to the CPU architectures to allow unifying kernel and user
> spaces and perform privileged instructions based on the location of
> the instruction rather than a manually switched mode (or via traps).
>
> Please, do take a look at the link. I'm far from a kernel expert so
> the idea may not be as rainbows and unicorns as it seems to me right
> now. But it also may be. In that case, probably we need a push by
> well-known people (i.e., Linus) to get the manufacturers to implement
> the feature.
>
> At least from a developer's point of view, with this idea you could
> gdb or even valgrind check the drivers in the very least with much
> less chance of a kernel oops. How faster can you imagine debugging a
> kernel module?

So, we throw away 20 years of OS development and go back to hacky call
gates? ;-)

> Thanks,
> An unfortunate soul who has to deal with buggy kernel modules
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-- 
Thanks,
//richard
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