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Shadow kernels: A general mechanism for kernel specialization in existing operating systems


Type

Conference Object

Change log

Authors

Chick, ORA 
Carata, L 
Snee, J 
Balakrishnan, N 
Sohan, R 

Abstract

Existing operating systems share a common kernel text section amongst all processes. It is not possible to perform kernel specialization or tuning such that different applications execute text optimized for their kernel use despite the benefits of kernel specialization for performance guided optimization, exokernels, kernel fastpaths, and cheaper hardware access. Current specialization primitives involve system wide changes to kernel text, which can have adverse effects on other processes sharing the kernel due to the global side-effects. We present shadow kernels: a primitive that allows multiple kernel text sections to coexist in a contemporary operating system. By remapping kernel virtual memory on a context-switch, or for individual system calls, we specialize the kernel on a fine-grained basis. Our implementation of shadow kernels uses the Xen hypervisor so can be applied to any operating system that runs on Xen.

Description

Keywords

4606 Distributed Computing and Systems Software, 46 Information and Computing Sciences

Journal Title

Operating Systems Review (ACM)

Conference Name

APSys '15: Asia-Pacific Workshop on Systems

Journal ISSN

0163-5980
1943-586X

Volume Title

Publisher

ACM
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K503009/1)
This work was principally supported by internal funds from the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge; and also by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/K503009/1].