jbranso@dismail.de writes: > July 4, 2022 1:36 PM, "Akib Azmain Turja" wrote: > >> Ludovic Courtès writes: >> >>> Hi! >>> >>> Leo Famulari skribis: >> >> The effort to use the Rust programming language within the Linux kernel >> is progressing and may be realized in the next few months: >> >> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/899182/6c831b90eaee015e >> https://www.memorysafety.org/blog/memory-safety-in-linux-kernel >> >> Within Guix, we'll need to adapt our kernel build processes in order to >> support this. >> >> Although I help with updating and configuring the kernel builds, I won't >> be able to participate in the "Rust in the kernel" effort for Guix. >>> Understood… >> >> So, interested volunteers should begin organizing :) >>> Yup! >>> >>> Now, concretely, how long will it take before key parts of the kernel >>> are written in Rust? Hopefully a long time, no? Per the article above, >>> it’s starting small, with Rust usage in well-defined locations. >>> >>> This is not to say that we shouldn’t start organizing, but rather that >>> we still have a bit of time ahead. >>> >>> (During that time, interested readers can also take a stab at improving >>> support for the Hurd, which relies on that revolutionary technology >>> called “address spaces” to ensure Memory Safety™ among other things!) >>> >>> Ludo’. >> >> "Address spaces"! What's that? Sorry for asking without searching the >> internet first, but the Hurd designers are so creative that a few >> understand the concepts and join the community, so there is a little >> chance (if any) that I'll find any useful information on that. > > From the Hurd wiki: https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/advantages.html > > The Hurd is built in a very modular fashion. Other Unix-like kernels > (Linux, for example) are also modular in that they allow loading > (and unloading) some components as kernel modules, but the Hurd goes > one step further in that most of the components that constitute the > whole kernel are running as separate user-space processes and are thus > using different address spaces that are isolated from each other. > This is a multi-server design based on a microkernel. It is not > possible that a faulty memory dereference inside the TCP/IP stack > can bring down the whole kernel, and thus the whole system, which > is a real problem in a monolithic Unix kernel architecture. > > Some visual explantions: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel#/media/File:OS-structure.svg > > The Hurd is on the right in this image. Thanks, now I understand Ludo' was saying about virtual address space, achieved using paging. > > Essentially, if your fileserver somehow gets hacked, the attacker > cannot magically access your TCP/IP stack, because your TCP/IP is not > in the some "software zone" as your fileserver. So microkernels like > the Hurd are usually considered more secure and better designed > than monolithic kernels like Linux. However, monolithic kernels > will usually be faster than microkernels. I know microkernels are theorically slow due to the heavy use IPC. But is it really impossible for well written microkernel to beat a well written monolithic kernel? L4 is super-fast, is it still slower than Linux? > >> -- >> Akib Azmain Turja >> >> This message is signed by me with my GnuPG key. It's fingerprint is: >> >> 7001 8CE5 819F 17A3 BBA6 66AF E74F 0EFA 922A E7F5 -- Akib Azmain Turja This message is signed by me with my GnuPG key. It's fingerprint is: 7001 8CE5 819F 17A3 BBA6 66AF E74F 0EFA 922A E7F5