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Drawbridge

research.microsoft.com

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Re: Drawbridge

#21

Post by kyberias »

shaurz wrote: post #15
majke wrote: post #5

> it consists of a closed set of 45 downcalls with fixed semantics that provide a stateless interface. If the features 800+ syscalls can be put into 45 syscalls, why not make an operating system that has only 45 syscalls? Then make the kernel modular.... and we've made a full circle in the OS design :)

I would welcome a new Windows API to replace Win32. Not sure if they would ever expose it or continue with the old legacy crap.

WinRT is not really a replacement for Win32 per se but it's a step towards that direction, right?

Re: Drawbridge

#22

Post by bane »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #6

The "picoprocess" here seems very similar to Linux's "seccomp" mechanism for restricting the kernel API surface. Current sandboxing mechanisms on Linux (such as Chrome's various sandboxes) use seccomp to restrict almost all syscalls, and their APIs come from IPC to more privileged processes. Two notable differences: On the one hand, seccomp provides much more flexibility about the subset of kernel API offered to the…

This looks like they're actually bundling the kernel and all appropriate libraries into the package.

"Persistent Compatibility: allowing host and application to evolve separately. Changes in the host don't break applications."

"A library OS is an operating system refactored to run as a set of libraries within the context of an application.

While Drawbridge can run many possible library OSes..."

This implies to me at least that the app and the "OS" the application sees is a complete isolation from the host OS.

But I might be misinterpreting things here, the video seems to go into a better explanation

http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Drawbridge-An-Expe...

Strategically this could allow Microsoft to drop lots of backwards compatibility cruft in their mainstream host OS and vastly reduce development cost and complexity.

See my previous comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8245682

Re: Drawbridge

#24

Post by hds »

"a version of Windows enlightened to run efficiently" is just begging to be quoted out of context.

Re: Drawbridge

#25

Post by iNate2000 »

kyberias wrote: post #21
shaurz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would welcome a new Windows API to replace Win32. Not sure if they would ever expose it or continue with the old legacy crap.

WinRT is not really a replacement for Win32 per se but it's a step towards that direction, right?

Right - A conceptual replacement, not a technical one.

Re: Drawbridge

#26

Post by Someone1234 »

p4bl0 wrote: post #19

I'm wondering if the Library OS could be used in the Wine project or in a new Wine-like project to run Windows programs under other operating systems.

I suspect that would run into copyright problems as the Win32 replacement is still owned by Microsoft. You could re-make the 40 some odd kernel calls, but the real magic here is the Win32 full replacement with the 800+ calls.

At this point I doubt Wine would be interested, unless somehow Microsoft released most of it as OSS.

Re: Drawbridge

#27

Post by runesoerensen »

This is very exciting research. There's doesn't seem to be much new information on the page (it's been posted a few times before). In this recent presentation[1] (PDF) MSR's Galen Hunt gives a nice high-level overview of Drawbridge, possible applications and some more details about their current progress.

The Graphene Library OS[2] is a similar implementation for Linux and was released a few months ago. In particular the Graphene Host ABI[3] is adapted mostly from Drawbridge.

[1]http://vee2014.cs.technion.ac.il/docs/VEE14-present601.pdf

[2]https://github.com/oscarlab/graphene

[3]https://github.com/oscarlab/graphene/wiki/Graphene-Host-ABI

Re: Drawbridge

#30

Post by pjmlp »

kyberias wrote: post #21
shaurz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would welcome a new Windows API to replace Win32. Not sure if they would ever expose it or continue with the old legacy crap.

WinRT is not really a replacement for Win32 per se but it's a step towards that direction, right?

More a refreshment from the past.

WinRT is COM based, similar in concept to Ext-VOS, the percursor of .NET, before it got folded into .NET.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsyme/archive/2012/07/05/more-c-net-...

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