Re: ExAmour

[Alexander Vdolainen]

Hi,

On Monday, 22 June 2020 16:22:23 EEST Ro Ba wrote:
> I just wanted someone to notice this:
> 
> https://github.com/remysaissy/examour-exokernel
> 
> From what I understood It's an attempt to a GNU exokernel.
Exokernel is a good idea on the paper while you're on the coast. However, it 
has a quite specific use-cases (and those use-cases excludes desktop/server 
use).
Microkernel is a far more better fits for the generic desktop/server/'embedded 
(not PIC)' use cases.
> 
> I don't know how to experiment it being just an end-user, but someone could
> find it interesting and maybe continue the development.
What I'm actually seen is a barebone for the kernel (not completed by the way) 
and a few libs/drivers code.  From my point of view - there are far more 
better abadoned projects to start with. Anyway there is no value there.
> 
> I like the idea of direct-to-hardware performance and the security an
> exokernel is claimed to have regarding the kernel calls.
Direct to hardware access and security aren't a good friends anyway.
Going further - if you want to provide a direct generalized access to the 
hardware (i.e. an access to a storage media via memory mapping) then your 
exokernel will contain the *all* of specific hardware drivers. And this is 
actually implemented (not in this particular way, but is a too close - I guess 
you're able to map media storage space via memory mapping calls) in any of the 
monolithic kernels (indeed, you're getting a layers of abstractions 
additionally).
Falling back to the security - it's not so simple like it sounds, in most of 
the cases restrictions are going not to the particular hardware, but to the 
stuff this hardware provides i.e. TCP ports provided via tcp/ip stack works 
with networking hardware. This is also applicable for the media storage - 
usually restrictions are going  to the specific region of media (that's where 
filesystems coming into place).
> 
> Hope to see in the future a way to choose between micro/monolithic/exo
> kernel, talking about GNU and Linux distributions.
Those systems are quite different between each other to make this choice easy.
For example a libc will looks different. Sure, it's still possible to have  
nearly the same set of user applications, but the system libraries, daemons 
etc will be completely different.

Thanks,
have a nice day.

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