Re: write news article about virtual kernel

["ghozzy _" <ghozzy@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/29/07, Dmitri Nikulin <dnikulin@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/28/07, Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com> wrote:
> >     No.  Frankly I do not think it is a good idea to allow any
> >     production virtualization mechanism to ever have direct access
> >     to hardware.  It destroys the layering that gives virtualization
> >     stability and security... no matter how good the implement is.
> >
> >     As a debugging tool it might be useful, but that is about as
> >     far as I would ever consider taking it.
>
> That's what I was saying: It's a debugging tool to develop a driver,
> and once it's "done", it can just be loaded into the host kernel
> instead of the virtual kernel. If that virtual kernel is there for the
> express purpose of hosting drivers and not untrusted processes and
> users, then security isn't any worse than keeping it in the host
> kernel. Maybe it's even more secure if a buggy driver which could have
> taken over the kernel will instead only take over the virtual kernel,
> or (more likely) fail entirely and get a segfault. It has practical
> uses if the use-case of sandboxing processes is kept well separate
> from sandboxing drivers, but yes, it does have to be implemented well
> to be useful at all even for debugging.

I second that. I see process of developing hardware drivers on virtual
kernel is extremely useful as much as developing non-hardware kernel
parts.

--
ghozzy