research-article

A declarative language approach to device configuration

Authors:

Adrian Schüpbach,

Andrew Baumann,

Timothy Roscoe,

Simon PeterAuthors Info & Claims

ASPLOS XVI: Proceedings of the sixteenth international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems

Pages 119 - 132

https://doi.org/10.1145/1950365.1950382

Published: 05 March 2011 Publication History

Abstract

C remains the language of choice for hardware programming (device drivers, bus configuration, etc.): it is fast, allows low-level access, and is trusted by OS developers. However, the algorithms required to configure and reconfigure hardware devices and interconnects are becoming more complex and diverse, with the added burden of legacy support, quirks, and hardware bugs to work around. Even programming PCI bridges in a modern PC is a surprisingly complex problem, and is getting worse as new functionality such as hotplug appears. Existing approaches use relatively simple algorithms, hard-coded in C and closely coupled with low-level register access code, generally leading to suboptimal configurations.

We investigate the merits and drawbacks of a new approach: separating hardware configuration logic (algorithms to determine configuration parameter values) from mechanism (programming device registers). The latter we keep in C, and the former we encode in a declarative programming language with constraint-satisfaction extensions. As a test case, we have implemented full PCI configuration, resource allocation, and interrupt assignment in the Barrelfish research operating system, using a concise expression of efficient algorithms in constraint logic programming. We show that the approach is tractable, and can successfully configure a wide range of PCs with competitive runtime cost. Moreover, it requires about half the code of the C-based approach in Linux while offering considerably more functionality. Additionally it easily accommodates adaptations such as hotplug, fixed regions, and quirks.

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Cited By

Trivedi ABrunella MBaumann ACrooks NSchwarzkopf M(2023)CPU-free Computing: A Vision with a BlueprintProceedings of the 19th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems10.1145/3593856.3595906(1-14)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3593856.3595906
Achermann RCock DHaecki RHossle NHumbel LRoscoe TSchwyn D(2021)Generating correct initial page tables from formal hardware descriptionsProceedings of the 11th Workshop on Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/3477113.3487270(69-75)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2021
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Schult JSchwyn DGiardino MCock DAchermann RRoscoe T(2021)Declarative Power SequencingACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems10.1145/347703920:5s(1-21)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2021
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Index Terms

A declarative language approach to device configuration
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Knowledge representation and reasoning
      1. Logic programming and answer set programming
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Context specific languages
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language types
        Constraint and logic languages

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A Declarative Language Approach to Device Configuration
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C remains the language of choice for hardware programming (device drivers, bus configuration, etc.): it is fast, allows low-level access, and is trusted by OS developers. However, the algorithms required to configure and reconfigure hardware devices and ...
A declarative language approach to device configuration
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A declarative language approach to device configuration
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C remains the language of choice for hardware programming (device drivers, bus configuration, etc.): it is fast, allows low-level access, and is trusted by OS developers. However, the algorithms required to configure and reconfigure hardware devices and ...

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cover image ACM Conferences

ASPLOS XVI: Proceedings of the sixteenth international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems

March 2011

432 pages

ISBN:9781450302661

DOI:10.1145/1950365

General Chair:
Rajiv Gupta
University of California, Riverside
,
Program Chair:
Todd C. Mowry
Carnegie Mellon University

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 39, Issue 1
ASPLOS '11
March 2011
407 pages
ISSN:0163-5964
DOI:10.1145/1961295
Issue’s Table of Contents
ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 46, Issue 3
ASPLOS '11
March 2011
407 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1961296
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

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Published: 05 March 2011

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ASPLOS'11: Sixteenth International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems

March 5 - 11, 2011

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Cited By

Trivedi ABrunella MBaumann ACrooks NSchwarzkopf M(2023)CPU-free Computing: A Vision with a BlueprintProceedings of the 19th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems10.1145/3593856.3595906(1-14)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3593856.3595906
Achermann RCock DHaecki RHossle NHumbel LRoscoe TSchwyn D(2021)Generating correct initial page tables from formal hardware descriptionsProceedings of the 11th Workshop on Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/3477113.3487270(69-75)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3477113.3487270
Schult JSchwyn DGiardino MCock DAchermann RRoscoe T(2021)Declarative Power SequencingACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems10.1145/347703920:5s(1-21)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3477039
Hu YHuang GHuang PLu SHowell J(2020)Automated reasoning and detection of specious configuration in large systems with symbolic executionProceedings of the 14th USENIX Conference on Operating Systems Design and Implementation10.5555/3488766.3488807(719-734)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3488766.3488807
Achermann RHumbel LCock DRoscoe T(2017)Formalizing Memory Accesses and InterruptsElectronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science10.4204/EPTCS.244.4244(66-116)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2017
https://doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.244.4
Humbel LAchermann RCock DRoscoe TLawall J(2017)Towards Correct-by-Construction Interrupt Routing on Real HardwareProceedings of the 9th Workshop on Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/3144555.3144557(8-14)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2017
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Lepers BZwaenepoel WLozi JPalix NGouicem RSopena JLawall JMuller G(2017)Towards Proving Optimistic Multicore SchedulersProceedings of the 16th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems10.1145/3102980.3102984(18-23)Online publication date: 7-May-2017
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Dong YHe YLu YYe H(2017)A Model Driven Approach for Device Driver Development2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security Companion (QRS-C)10.1109/QRS-C.2017.27(122-129)Online publication date: Jul-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS-C.2017.27
Fragkoulis MSpinellis DLouridas PBilas ABultermann DBos HRowstron ADruschel P(2014)Relational access to Unix kernel data structuresProceedings of the Ninth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/2592798.2592802(1-14)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2014
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Xu TZhang JHuang PZheng JSheng TYuan DZhou YPasupathy SKaminsky MDahlin M(2013)Do not blame users for misconfigurationsProceedings of the Twenty-Fourth ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles10.1145/2517349.2522727(244-259)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2013
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