Re: User mode drivers: part 1, interrupt handling (patch for 2.6.11)

Jon Smirl
2005-03-15T03:50:29Z

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:47:42 +1100, Peter Chubb
<peterc@gelato.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
> What I really want to do is deprivilege the driver code as much as
> possible. Whatever a driver does, the rest of the system should keep
> going. That way malicious or buggy drivers can only affect the
> processes that are trying to use the device they manage. Moreover, it
> should be possible to kill -9 a driver, then restart it, without the
> rest of the system noticing more than a hiccup. To do this,
> step one is to run the driver in user space, so that it's subject to
> the same resource management control as any other process. Step two,
> which is a lot harder, is to connect the driver back into the kernel
> so that it can be shared. Tun/Tap can be used for network devices,
> but it's really too slow -- you need zero-copy and shared notification.

Have you considered running the drivers in a domain under Xen?

>
> --
> Dr Peter Chubb http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au peterc AT gelato.unsw.edu.au
> The technical we do immediately, the political takes *forever*
>

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com