The Design and Implementation of the Anykernel and Rump Kernels

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Our implementation supports rump kernels for file systems [55], networking [54] and
device drivers [56]. Both synthetic benchmarks and real world data gathered from
a period between 2007 and 2011 are used for the evaluation. We focus our efforts at
drivers which do not depend on a physical backend being present. Out of hardware
device drivers, support for USB drivers has been implemented and verified. We
expect it is possible to support generic unmodified hardware device drivers in rump
kernels by using previously published methods [62].
1.4 Contributions
The original contributions of this dissertation are as follows:
1. The definition of an anykernel and a rump kernel.
2. Showing that it is possible to implement the above in production quality code
andmaintaintheminarealworldmonolithickernelOS.
3. Analysis indicating that the theory is generic and can be extended to other
operating systems.
1.5 Dissertation Outline
Chapter 2 defines the concept of an anykernel and explains rump kernels. Chapter 3
discusses the implementation and provides microbenchmarks as supporting evidence
for implementation decisions. Chapter 4 evaluates the solution. Chapter 5 looks at
related work. Chapter 6 provides concluding remarks.