Article

Design and implementation of a kernel resource protector for robustness of Linux module programming

Authors:

Jongmoo Choi,

Seungjae Baek,

Sung Y. ShinAuthors Info & Claims

SAC '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing

Pages 1477 - 1481

https://doi.org/10.1145/1141277.1141621

Published: 23 April 2006 Publication History

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Abstract

Loadable kernel modules supported by Linux provides lots of benefits such as a small-sized kernel, on-demand loading, and easy software upgrading. However, since modules are executed in a privileged mode, trivial misuses in a module may cause critical system halts or deadlock situations. This paper presents a kernel resource protector which prevents kernel from faults generated by modules. The protector models the system in two objects: module object and resource object. By observing the interrelations between the two objects, the protector can detect misuses of modules and take actions to resolve the erroneous situations. Implementation study has shown that the protector can find out memory leaks wasted by modules and can reclaim leaks without degrading system performance. The proposed protector makes Linux more robust, which is required indispensably in the system equipped with NVRAM (Non Volatile RAM) such as FRAM and PRAM.

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Daniel P. Bovet and Marco Cesati, "Understanding the Linux Kernel", 2nd Edition, O'Reilly, 2002.

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Reusch VAsmussen NRoitzsch M(2024)Robust and Immediate Resource Reclamation with M3Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Kernel Isolation, Safety and Verification10.1145/3698576.3698763(1-7)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3698576.3698763
Bai JWang YLiu HHu S(2015)Automated resource release in device driversProceedings of the 2015 IEEE 26th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE.2015.7381811(172-182)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ISSRE.2015.7381811
Zhang KTian HRuan LXiao LLi YLiu Y(2013)A Framework for Porting Linux OS to a cc-NUMA Server Based on Loongson ProcessorsEmerging Technologies for Information Systems, Computing, and Management10.1007/978-1-4614-7010-6_25(215-222)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7010-6_25

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Design and implementation of a kernel resource protector for robustness of Linux module programming

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Published In

SAC '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing

April 2006

1967 pages

ISBN:1595931082

DOI:10.1145/1141277

Conference Chair:
Hisham M. Haddad
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 23 April 2006

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April 23 - 27, 2006

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,650 of 6,669 submissions, 25%

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Reusch VAsmussen NRoitzsch M(2024)Robust and Immediate Resource Reclamation with M3Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Kernel Isolation, Safety and Verification10.1145/3698576.3698763(1-7)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3698576.3698763
Bai JWang YLiu HHu S(2015)Automated resource release in device driversProceedings of the 2015 IEEE 26th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE.2015.7381811(172-182)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ISSRE.2015.7381811
Zhang KTian HRuan LXiao LLi YLiu Y(2013)A Framework for Porting Linux OS to a cc-NUMA Server Based on Loongson ProcessorsEmerging Technologies for Information Systems, Computing, and Management10.1007/978-1-4614-7010-6_25(215-222)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7010-6_25

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Linux kernel vulnerabilities: state-of-the-art defenses and open problems

Hotswapping Linux kernel modules

Using kernel hypervisors to secure applications

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