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02.
06.
2006
MINIX 3: A Highly Reliable, Self-Repairing Operating System
Jorrit N. Herder
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Most modern computer users want their system to work all the time and never
crash, ever. Yet operating system reliability is still poor. Since faults in
software are a fact of life, our approach to reliability is to anticipate
failures and design a self-repairing operating system.
By splitting the operating system into many small, tightly restricted
user-mode server and driver processes, each with limited functionality,
running on top of a tiny microkernel, we have built a system, MINIX 3, in
which bug-induced damage cannot propagate and affect the entire system, and
faulty components can often be replaced on the fly, during system operation,
thus greatly improving reliability.
In this talk we will present the multiserver architecture of MINIX 3, its
self-repairing property, the most important reliability features, some
performance characteristics, and the user view of MINIX 3. We will also
briefly survey related work and show how MINIX 3 differs from other
approaches.
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