NUL - The NOVA UserLand

Introduction

The NOVA OS Virtualization Architecture is a research project aimed at constructing a secure virtualization environment with a small trusted computing base. NOVA consists of a microhypervisor and an unprivileged multi-server user environment - NOVA User Land - running on top of it.

NUL is the multi-server user environment designed for NOVA. It is componentized into host-drivers, device models and virtual executors. From these components applications are build. The most prominent apps are the Partition Manager, called sigma0, and the x86 VMM (Virtual-Machine Monitor) called Vancouver.

The Partition Manager statically partitions the platform resources such as memory or CPU. Device drivers, for example for the disk and the graphics card, are linked to it. Moving them out to their own tasks is currently work in progress.

The VMM allows to run unmodified guest operating systems ontop of the microhypervisor. It contains the virtual device models to give an OS the illusion of running on bare hardware. Furthermore it emulates realmode and MMIO instructions and provides a virtual BIOS.

Nightly generated NUL material:

News

11 May 2012

NUL available via github
The latest development versions of the NOVA microhypervisor and the NOVA user land are available via github:

GitHub: NOVA user land
GitHub: NOVA microhypervisor

28 July 2011

NUL 0.4 prereleased.

Release message: NOVA microhypervisor and userland
Contains the VMM Vancouver, the Partition Manager sigma0 and demo applications.
Download the NUL sources v0.4 prerelease.

17 February 2011

NUL 0.3 prereleased.

Release message: NOVA microhypervisor and NOVA user land
Contains the VMM Vancouver, the Partition Manager sigma0 and demo applications.
Download the NUL sources v0.3 prerelease.
Test it using the new demo CD.

6 August 2010

NUL 0.2 prereleased.

Release message: NOVA microhypervisor and NOVA user land
Contains the VMM Vancouver, the Partition Manager sigma0 and demo applications.
Download the NUL sources v0.2 prerelease.
Test it using the demo CD.

27 April 2010

Clarified license plates.

Clarified the license plates in the source files.
Download the NUL sources v0.1a prerelease.

24 December 2009

NUL prereleased.

Release message: NOVA microhypervisor and NOVA user land
First prerelease of software running ontop of the NOVA microhypervisor.
Contains the VMM Vancouver, the Partition Manager sigma0 and two demo applications.

24 December 2009

NOVA Xmas Alpha Demo CD available.

Precompiled NOVA microhypervisor, sigma0 and VMM binaries.
Showcases Linux, Fiasco and Pistachio as guest operating systems in a VM.
Runs on bare hardware that has Intel VT-x or AMD-V support. It does not run on Qemu.
Download the NOVA Xmas-Alpha Demo CD.

23 December 2009

NOVA microhypervisor prereleased.

Runs on 32-bit x86 machines.
A platform with Intel VT-x or AMD-V NPT is required for running guest operating systems in VMs.
SMP is supported, but not required.
See the NOVA microhypervisor website.

Bernhard Kauer Julian Stecklina Alexander Boettcher Michal Sojka