Re: Request for some informations

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 02:56:48PM +0200, J?r?me Blanc wrote:
> I am interested in the current state of the art of your project, especially
> about what you have done so far about the IPC security system. I have a
> dissertation subject about it, and I would like to help if I can.

That would be wonderful.
 
> Unfortunately, it is very hard if not impossible to get a hand on any paper
> your team has written, even though I know from the HurdFr team that most of
> the design of the IPC security has been done already.
> 
> Could anyone indicate me where I could find informations about it, or send me
> the documents ?

Well, I always say that most of it has been done, but I am still changing
things around and even radically consider alternative approaches.  I have
osme documentation, but the details still change faster than I can keep the
docs up to date.

I have just returned from a weekend meeting in Karlsruhe, where we also
discussed this topic, and I have some new information I want to think about
and incorporate in what I have so far.  It will take some time, but
hopefully I will have something reasonably soon.

But maybe I need to lower your expectations a bit:  We might have found a
strategy that will work, but it might turn out to not be the best approach,
and it might have some considerable performance drawbacks.  If this is the
case partly depends on other, unfinished parts of the design.  So there is a
lot of flux in it.

Anyway, I am happy to discuss things openly.  What exactly are you
interested in?  While L4 itself has IPC primitives that allow secure
communication, the challenge in the context of the Hurd is to do it for a
multi-server system with (only) untrusted components.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    address@hidden
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
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http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/