I would like to announce that Codezero Microkernel v0.2 is released.
On this release, the microkernel is now fully capability checked, and we introduced the notion of containers to provide isolated execution environments. Please see below for a brief description.
1.) Containers
In Codezero containers provide the architectural infrastructure for isolation of execution environments. Each container is allocated with a set of address spaces, threads, and any other resource that would otherwise be globally available on the platform, such as virtual and physical memory.
Using the simple notion of containers, it is possible to build any type of software design hierarchy. A hierarchical client/server design, or multi-threaded standalone applications are both possible scenarios.
2.) Capabilities
Capabilities protect all resources maintained by the kernel. Currently, all system calls are protected by capabilities, except a few trivial ones that have been left out. Physical and virtual memory, typed memory pools, and inter-process communication are among other resources that are protected by capability checking.
Capabilities build upon the foundation of containers, providing a fine-grained security architecture, inside and among container boundaries.
We also introduced a capability control system call, by which the capabilities may be shared, granted and modified in different ways, enabling a highly flexible and configurable security architecture.
3.) Configuration
We attempted to present the above two notions in an easily manageable kernel configuration system. Containers, their parameters and capabilities may be adjusted easily at configuration time, using our CML2-based kernel configuration system.
We are aiming to evolve the L4 API into the future by feedback, hence this email post. Codezero Project is open with a GPLv3 license.
If you are interested to learn more, download by:
git-clone git://git.l4dev.org/codezero.git
A useful jump-start guide:
http://www.l4dev.org/doku.php?id=getting_started_quick
API reference man pages:
man -M codezero/docs/man pagename
Thanks,