Book•
INSIDE Windows NT
01 Jan 1993-
TL;DR: This tutorial and reference sets out to instruct users in organizing and managing multiple tasks, and multiple programs, in Windows by focusing on sharing and transferring data and graphics between Windows applications.
Abstract: This tutorial and reference sets out to instruct users in organizing and managing multiple tasks, and multiple programs, in Windows. It focuses on sharing and transferring data and graphics between Windows applications, either using a single computer, or by sharing across a network.
Citations
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TL;DR: Nooks, a reliability subsystem that seeks to greatly enhance operating system reliability by isolating the OS from driver failures, represents a substantial step beyond the specialized architectures and type-safe languages required by previous efforts directed at safe extensibility.
Abstract: Despite decades of research in extensible operating system technology, extensions such as device drivers remain a significant cause of system failures. In Windows XP, for example, drivers account for 85% of recently reported failures.This article describes Nooks, a reliability subsystem that seeks to greatly enhance operating system (OS) reliability by isolating the OS from driver failures. The Nooks approach is practical: rather than guaranteeing complete fault tolerance through a new (and incompatible) OS or driver architecture, our goal is to prevent the vast majority of driver-caused crashes with little or no change to the existing driver and system code. Nooks isolates drivers within lightweight protection domains inside the kernel address space, where hardware and software prevent them from corrupting the kernel. Nooks also tracks a driver's use of kernel resources to facilitate automatic cleanup during recovery.To prove the viability of our approach, we implemented Nooks in the Linux operating system and used it to fault-isolate several device drivers. Our results show that Nooks offers a substantial increase in the reliability of operating systems, catching and quickly recovering from many faults that would otherwise crash the system. Under a wide range and number of fault conditions, we show that Nooks recovers automatically from 99% of the faults that otherwise cause Linux to crash.While Nooks was designed for drivers, our techniques generalize to other kernel extensions. We demonstrate this by isolating a kernel-mode file system and an in-kernel Internet service. Overall, because Nooks supports existing C-language extensions, runs on a commodity operating system and hardware, and enables automated recovery, it represents a substantial step beyond the specialized architectures and type-safe languages required by previous efforts directed at safe extensibility.
625 citations
TL;DR: This article uses virtual machines to run multiple commodity operating systems on a scalable multiprocessor to reduce the memory overheads associated with running multiple operating systems, and uses the distributed-system support of modern operating systems to export a partial single system image to the users.
Abstract: In this article we examine the problem of extending modern operating systems to run efficiently on large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors without a large implementation effort. Our approach brings back an idea popular in the 1970s: virtual machine monitors. We use virtual machines to run multiple commodity operating systems on a scalable multiprocessor. This solution addresses many of the challenges facing the system software for these machines. We demonstrate our approach with a prototype called Disco that runs multiple copies of Silicon Graphics' IRIX operating system on a multiprocessor. Our experience shows that the overheads of the monitor are small and that the approach provides scalability as well as the ability to deal with the nonuniform memory access time of these systems. To reduce the memory overheads associated with running multiple operating systems, virtual machines transparently share major data structures such as the program code and the file system buffer cache. We use the distributed-system support of modern operating systems to export a partial single system image to the users. The overall solution achieves most of the benefits of operating systems customized for scalable multiprocessors, yet it can be achieved with a significantly smaller implementation effort.
603 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors collected annual snapshots of file-system metadata from over 60,000 Windows PC file systems in a large corporation and used these snapshots to study temporal changes in file size, file age, file-type frequency, directory size, namespace structure, file system population, storage capacity and consumption, and degree of file modification.
Abstract: For five years, we collected annual snapshots of file-system metadata from over 60,000 Windows PC file systems in a large corporation. In this article, we use these snapshots to study temporal changes in file size, file age, file-type frequency, directory size, namespace structure, file-system population, storage capacity and consumption, and degree of file modification. We present a generative model that explains the namespace structure and the distribution of directory sizes. We find significant temporal trends relating to the popularity of certain file types, the origin of file content, the way the namespace is used, and the degree of variation among file systems, as well as more pedestrian changes in size and capacities. We give examples of consequent lessons for designers of file systems and related software.
355 citations
01 May 1994
TL;DR: This thesis addresses the distributed security problem by proposing the addition of a small, physically secure hardware module, a secure coprocessor, to standard workstations and PCs and demonstrates how security properties may be bootstrapped using cryptographic techniques from this central nucleus of security within a combined hardware/software architecture.
Abstract: : How do we build distributed systems that are secure? Cryptographic techniques can be used to secure the communications between physically separated systems, but this is not enough: we must be able to guarantee the privacy of the cryptographic keys and the integrity of the cryptographic functions, in addition to the integrity of the security kernel and access control databases we have on the machines. Physical security is a central assumption upon which secure distributed systems are built; without this foundation even the best cryptosystem or the most secure kernel will crumble. In this thesis, I address the distributed security problem by proposing the addition of a small, physically secure hardware module, a secure coprocessor, to standard workstations and PCs. My central axiom is that secure coprocessors are able to maintain the privacy of the data they process. This thesis attacks the distributed security problem from multiple sides. First, I analyze the security properties of existing system components, both at the hardware and software level. Second, I demonstrate how physical security requirements may be isolated to the secure coprocessor, and showed how security properties may be bootstrapped using cryptographic techniques from this central nucleus of security within a combined hardware/software architecture.
350 citations
01 Oct 1997
TL;DR: SMART, a Scheduler for Multimedia And Real-Time applications is created and implemented in the Solaris UNIX operating system and measured its performance against other schedulers, demonstrating SMART’s superior performance in supporting multimedia applications.
Abstract: Real-time applications such as multimedia audio and video are increasingly populating the workstation desktop. To support the execution of these applications in conjunction with traditional non-realtime applications, we have created SMART, a Scheduler for Multimedia And Real-Time applications. SMART supports applications with time constraints, and provides dynamic feedback to applications to allow them to adapt to the current load. In addition, the support for real-time applications is inte grated with the support for conventional computations. This allows the user to prioritize across real-time and conventional computations, and dictate how the processor is to be shared among applications of the same priority . As the system load changes, SMART adjusts the allocation of resources dynamically and seamlessly. SMAR T is unique in its ability to automatically shed real-time tasks and re gulate their execution rates when the system is overloaded, while providing better value in underloaded conditions than previously proposed schemes. We have implemented SMART in the Solaris UNIX operating system and measured its performance against other schedulers in e xecuting real-time, interacti ve, and batch applications. Our results demonstrate SMART’s superior performance in supporting multimedia applications.
293 citations
Cites background or methods from "INSIDE Windows NT"
...The policies are combined using either priorities [11, 23, 68] or proportional sharing [7, 24, 27] as the base level scheduling mechanism....
[...]
...Hierarchical Scheduling Because creating a single scheduler to service both real-time and conventional resource requirements has proven diff icult, a number of hybrid schemes [7, 11, 23, 24, 68] have been proposed....
[...]
...Not only is UNIX SVR4 the most common basis of UNIX operating systems, but a similar priority-based scheduling framework is used in many other operating systems, including Windows NT [11]....
[...]
References
More filters
TL;DR: Nooks, a reliability subsystem that seeks to greatly enhance operating system reliability by isolating the OS from driver failures, represents a substantial step beyond the specialized architectures and type-safe languages required by previous efforts directed at safe extensibility.
Abstract: Despite decades of research in extensible operating system technology, extensions such as device drivers remain a significant cause of system failures. In Windows XP, for example, drivers account for 85% of recently reported failures.This article describes Nooks, a reliability subsystem that seeks to greatly enhance operating system (OS) reliability by isolating the OS from driver failures. The Nooks approach is practical: rather than guaranteeing complete fault tolerance through a new (and incompatible) OS or driver architecture, our goal is to prevent the vast majority of driver-caused crashes with little or no change to the existing driver and system code. Nooks isolates drivers within lightweight protection domains inside the kernel address space, where hardware and software prevent them from corrupting the kernel. Nooks also tracks a driver's use of kernel resources to facilitate automatic cleanup during recovery.To prove the viability of our approach, we implemented Nooks in the Linux operating system and used it to fault-isolate several device drivers. Our results show that Nooks offers a substantial increase in the reliability of operating systems, catching and quickly recovering from many faults that would otherwise crash the system. Under a wide range and number of fault conditions, we show that Nooks recovers automatically from 99% of the faults that otherwise cause Linux to crash.While Nooks was designed for drivers, our techniques generalize to other kernel extensions. We demonstrate this by isolating a kernel-mode file system and an in-kernel Internet service. Overall, because Nooks supports existing C-language extensions, runs on a commodity operating system and hardware, and enables automated recovery, it represents a substantial step beyond the specialized architectures and type-safe languages required by previous efforts directed at safe extensibility.
625 citations
TL;DR: This article uses virtual machines to run multiple commodity operating systems on a scalable multiprocessor to reduce the memory overheads associated with running multiple operating systems, and uses the distributed-system support of modern operating systems to export a partial single system image to the users.
Abstract: In this article we examine the problem of extending modern operating systems to run efficiently on large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors without a large implementation effort. Our approach brings back an idea popular in the 1970s: virtual machine monitors. We use virtual machines to run multiple commodity operating systems on a scalable multiprocessor. This solution addresses many of the challenges facing the system software for these machines. We demonstrate our approach with a prototype called Disco that runs multiple copies of Silicon Graphics' IRIX operating system on a multiprocessor. Our experience shows that the overheads of the monitor are small and that the approach provides scalability as well as the ability to deal with the nonuniform memory access time of these systems. To reduce the memory overheads associated with running multiple operating systems, virtual machines transparently share major data structures such as the program code and the file system buffer cache. We use the distributed-system support of modern operating systems to export a partial single system image to the users. The overall solution achieves most of the benefits of operating systems customized for scalable multiprocessors, yet it can be achieved with a significantly smaller implementation effort.
603 citations
01 May 1994
TL;DR: This thesis addresses the distributed security problem by proposing the addition of a small, physically secure hardware module, a secure coprocessor, to standard workstations and PCs and demonstrates how security properties may be bootstrapped using cryptographic techniques from this central nucleus of security within a combined hardware/software architecture.
Abstract: : How do we build distributed systems that are secure? Cryptographic techniques can be used to secure the communications between physically separated systems, but this is not enough: we must be able to guarantee the privacy of the cryptographic keys and the integrity of the cryptographic functions, in addition to the integrity of the security kernel and access control databases we have on the machines. Physical security is a central assumption upon which secure distributed systems are built; without this foundation even the best cryptosystem or the most secure kernel will crumble. In this thesis, I address the distributed security problem by proposing the addition of a small, physically secure hardware module, a secure coprocessor, to standard workstations and PCs. My central axiom is that secure coprocessors are able to maintain the privacy of the data they process. This thesis attacks the distributed security problem from multiple sides. First, I analyze the security properties of existing system components, both at the hardware and software level. Second, I demonstrate how physical security requirements may be isolated to the secure coprocessor, and showed how security properties may be bootstrapped using cryptographic techniques from this central nucleus of security within a combined hardware/software architecture.
350 citations
01 Oct 1997
TL;DR: SMART, a Scheduler for Multimedia And Real-Time applications is created and implemented in the Solaris UNIX operating system and measured its performance against other schedulers, demonstrating SMART’s superior performance in supporting multimedia applications.
Abstract: Real-time applications such as multimedia audio and video are increasingly populating the workstation desktop. To support the execution of these applications in conjunction with traditional non-realtime applications, we have created SMART, a Scheduler for Multimedia And Real-Time applications. SMART supports applications with time constraints, and provides dynamic feedback to applications to allow them to adapt to the current load. In addition, the support for real-time applications is inte grated with the support for conventional computations. This allows the user to prioritize across real-time and conventional computations, and dictate how the processor is to be shared among applications of the same priority . As the system load changes, SMART adjusts the allocation of resources dynamically and seamlessly. SMAR T is unique in its ability to automatically shed real-time tasks and re gulate their execution rates when the system is overloaded, while providing better value in underloaded conditions than previously proposed schemes. We have implemented SMART in the Solaris UNIX operating system and measured its performance against other schedulers in e xecuting real-time, interacti ve, and batch applications. Our results demonstrate SMART’s superior performance in supporting multimedia applications.
293 citations
07 Oct 2004
TL;DR: The real system experiments on Linux with applications including Apache Web Server show that the MRC-directed memory allocation can speed up the applications' execution/response time by up to a factor of 5.86 and reduce the number of page faults byUp to 63.1%.
Abstract: Memory can be efficiently utilized if the dynamic memory demands of applications can be determined and analyzed at run-time. The page miss ratio curve(MRC), i.e. page miss rate vs. memory size curve, is a good performance-directed metric to serve this purpose. However, dynamically tracking MRC at run time is challenging in systems with virtual memory because not every memory reference passes through the operating system (OS).This paper proposes two methods to dynamically track MRC of applications at run time. The first method is using a hardware MRC monitor that can track MRC at fine time granularity. Our simulation results show that this monitor has negligible performance and energy overheads. The second method is an OS-only implementation that can track MRC at coarse time granularity. Our implementation results on Linux show that it adds only 7--10% overhead.We have also used the dynamic MRC to guide both memory allocation for multiprogramming systems and memory energy management. Our real system experiments on Linux with applications including Apache Web Server show that the MRC-directed memory allocation can speed up the applications' execution/response time by up to a factor of 5.86 and reduce the number of page faults by up to 63.1%. Our execution-driven simulation results with SPEC2000 benchmarks show that the MRC-directed memory energy management can improve the Energy * Delay metric by 27--58% over previously proposed static and dynamic schemes.
254 citations