Dynamic Operating-System Specialisation

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Timo Hönig; Professor Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat
• Subject Area: Security and Dependability, Operating-, Communication- and Distributed Systems
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539710462

An operating system is caught between two fronts: On the one hand, the machine programs of the applications with their sometimes very different functional and non-functional requirements and, on the other hand, the computer hardware whose features and equipment are to be made available to the applications in an unfiltered and noise-free manner. However, a general-purpose system cannot be as efficient in any of its functions as a system designed specifically for a particular purpose, and less demanding applications may demand that they not be forced to pay for the resources consumed by the functions they do not need. Thus, it is not uncommon that large systems, once in operation, are usually subject to frequent change. The ideal operating system offers exactly what is needed for the respective application, no more and no less - but always depending on (a) the characteristics of the hardware platform and (b) the events that can only really be determined dynamically in the system at runtime. Such an operating system would then not only have to be dynamically freed from unnecessary ballast with less demanding applications and be able to shrink, but also be put in a position to grow again with more demanding applications with necessary and additional functions. Specialisation of an operating system depending on the respective use case or event-related situations ultimately means functional slimming down and enrichment. The project considers concepts that (a) are considered a universal feature independent of a specific programming paradigm or hardware approach and (b) are based on just in time (JIT) compilation of the operating system itself in order to adapt operating-system programs to be loaded on demand or to be replaced in advance to the respective conditions on the two operating-system fronts while the system is already running. The focus is on dynamic operating-system specialisation on an LLVM basis, triggered on demand by events of an extrinsic and intrinsic nature with regard to the operating system (Linux). So far, only the initial loading or reloading of device drivers has been treated as an extrinsic moment for operating-system specialisation in preliminary work. This is to be extended to the loading of arbitrary programs, as well as to intrinsic moments in relation to the time behaviour in the operating system and the energy requirement defined via this in relation to processor-, main memory- and input/output-intensive actions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants