Theseus: an Experiment in Operating System Structure and State Management
Kevin Boos, Rice University; Namitha Liyanage, Yale University; Ramla Ijaz, Rice University; Lin Zhong, Yale University
https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi2 ... ation/boos
Abstract:
“This paper describes an operating system (OS) called The- seus. Theseus is the result of multi-year experimentation to redesign and improve OS modularity by reducing the states one component holds for another, and to leverage a safe pro- gramming language, namely Rust, to shift as many OS re- sponsibilities as possible to the compiler.
Theseus embodies two primary contributions. First, an OS structure in which many tiny components with clearly-defined, runtime-persistent bounds interact without holding states for each other. Second, an intralingual approach that realizes the OS itself using language-level mechanisms such that the compiler can enforce invariants about OS semantics.
Theseus’s structure, intralingual design, and state manage- ment realize live evolution and fault recovery for core OS components in ways beyond that of existing works.”
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/osdi20-boos.pdf