Re: Rust in the kernel

[jbranso]

July 5, 2022 11:36 AM, "Akib Azmain Turja" <akib@disroot.org> wrote:

> jbranso@dismail.de writes:
> 
>> July 5, 2022 12:48 AM, "Akib Azmain Turja" <akib@disroot.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> jbranso@dismail.de writes:
>> 
>> July 4, 2022 1:36 PM, "Akib Azmain Turja" <akib@disroot.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>> 
>> Hi!
>> 
>> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> 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?
>> 
>> Probably a little, but I am not an expert in that area.
>> 
>> GNU Mach, which is what the Hurd runs on. Is slower that Linux.
>> There was an attempt to port the Hurd to L4 before. It is
>> deemed not possible by the current hurd developers.
> 
> Yes, I know that Mach is one of the slowest kernels. BTW, what's the
> status of Viengoos?

I believe that Viengoos is essentially dead.  I do not believe
that anyone is actively working on it.  

More info is available here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/history/port_to_another_microkernel.html

> 
>>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Akib Azmain Turja
>> 
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>>> Akib Azmain Turja
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> Akib Azmain Turja
> 
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