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authorThomas Schwinge <thomas@schwinge.name>2011-07-15 22:47:52 +0200
committerThomas Schwinge <thomas@schwinge.name>2011-07-15 22:47:52 +0200
commit9f5e3555f8812ebe4447b7a5519988b4b61275bc (patch)
tree563bb8abdbd009c45e0e3daa066444515ceeb0d2 /user/jkoenig/java
parent204f282c59a5ecfd99312cc6a686944375889d21 (diff)
user/jkoenig/java/discussion: IRC discussion, 2011-07-13.
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@@ -8,6 +8,11 @@ Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]
+[[!toc]]
+
+
+# General
+
Some [[tschwinge]] comments regarding your proposal. Which is very good, if I
may say so again! :-)
@@ -70,3 +75,452 @@ either new ones or existing ones, as applicable.
* We should probaby open up a *languages for Hurd* section on the web
pages ([[!taglink open_issue_documentation]]).
+
+
+# IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-07-13
+
+[[!tag open_issue_documentation]]
+
+ <jkoenig> Yes, I guess so. Maybe start investigating mig because it may
+ have repercussions on what the best approach would be for some aspects of
+ the Mach bindings.
+ <tschwinge> I still think that making MIG emit Java code is not too
+ difficult, once you have the required Java infrastructure (like what
+ you're writing at the moment).
+ <tschwinge> On the other hand, if there's another approach that you'd like
+ to use, I'm not trying to force using MIG.
+ <braunr> i still have a problem understanding your approach
+ <braunr> at which level are your bindings located ?
+ <jkoenig> I expect mig it will be the easiest route, but of course possibly
+ it won't.
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: Yeah, be give some high-level to low-level overview?
+ <jkoenig> ok, so
+ <jkoenig> at the very core, low-level, we have a very thin amount of JNI
+ code to access (proper) system calls.
+ <jkoenig> by "proper" I mean things like mach_task_self, mach_msg and
+ mach_reply_port, which are actually system calls rather than RPCs to the
+ kernel.
+ <braunr> right
+ <jkoenig> at this level, we manipulate port names as integers, and the
+ message buffers for mach_msg are raw ByteBuffers (from the java.nio
+ package)
+ <jkoenig> actually, so-called /direct/ ByteBuffers, which are backed by
+ memory allocated outside of the Java heap, rather than as a byte[] array
+ <jkoenig> we can retreive the pointer from the JNI code and use the buffer
+ directly.
+ <jkoenig> (so, good for performance and it's also portable.)
+ <braunr> ok
+ <braunr> i'm more interested in the higher level bindings :)
+ <jkoenig> ok so, higher up.
+ <jkoenig> design goal from my proposal: "the memory safety of Java should
+ be maintained and extended to Mach primitives such as port names and
+ out-of-line memory regions"
+ <jkoenig> so integer port names are not "safe" in the sense that they can
+ be forged and misused in all kinds of way
+ <jkoenig> which is why I have a layer of Java code whose job is to wrap
+ this kind of low-level Mach stuff into safe abstractions
+ <jkoenig> and ideally the user should only use these safe abstractions.
+ <tschwinge> (Not to restrict the programmer, but to help him write correct
+ code.)
+ <jkoenig> right.
+ <braunr> so you can't use mach RPCs directly
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, also to actually restrict them, in a Joe-E /
+ object-capability context, but that's not the primary concern right now
+ ;-)
+ <braunr> or you force your wrappers to have these abstractions as input
+ <jkoenig> braunr, well, actually at this level you still have Mach RPC
+ <jkoenig> but for instance, port names are encapsulated into "MachPort"
+ objects which ensure they are handled correcly
+ <tschwinge> As I understand it, you use these abstractions to prepare a
+ usual mach_msg message, and then invoke mach_msg.
+ <braunr> ok
+ <jkoenig> and message buffers are wrapped into "MachMsg" objects which both
+ help you write the messages into the ByteBuffer and prevent you from
+ doing funky stuff
+ <jkoenig> and ensure the ports which you send/receive/pseudo-receive after
+ an error/... are deallocated as required, etc.
+ <braunr> what's the interface to use IPC ?
+ <tschwinge> Is MIG doing that, too, I think? (And antrik once found some
+ error there, which is still to be reviewed...)
+ <jkoenig> braunr, so basically as a user you would be free to use either
+ one of these layers, or to use MIG-generated classes which would
+ construct and exchange messages for you using the second (safe) layer.
+ <braunr> ok, let's just finish with the low level layer before going
+ further please
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, MIG does some type checking on the received message
+ and saves you the trouble of constructing/parsing them yourself, but I'm
+ not sure about how mach_msg errors are handled
+ <braunr> what are the main methods of MachMsg for example ?
+ <jkoenig> braunr, you may want to have a look at
+ http://jk.fr.eu.org/hurd-java/doc/html/classorg_1_1gnu_1_1mach_1_1MachMsg.html
+ <braunr> right, sorry
+ <braunr> grabbed the code at work and forgot here
+ <jkoenig> and also
+ https://github.com/jeremie-koenig/hurd-java/blob/master/HelloMach.java
+ which uses it
+ <jkoenig> but roughly, you'd use setRemotePort, setLocalPort, setId to
+ write your message's header
+ <jkoenig> then use one of the putFoo() methods to add data items to the
+ message
+ <braunr> ok, the mapping with the low level C interface is very clear
+ <braunr> that's good for me
+ <jkoenig> the putFoo() methods would write the appropriate type
+ descriptors, then the actual data.
+ <braunr> we can go on with the MiG part if you want :)
+ <jkoenig> right,
+ <jkoenig> so here you may want to look at the UML class diagram from
+ http://www.bddebian.com/~hurd-web/user/jkoenig/java/proposal/
+ <jkoenig> so in the C case, mig generates 3 files
+ <jkoenig> a header file which has the prototypes of the mig-generated
+ stubs,
+ <jkoenig> a *User.c which has their actual implementation
+ <jkoenig> and a *Server.c which handles demultiplexing the incoming
+ messages and helps with implementing servers.
+ <jkoenig> so we would do something along these lines, more or less:
+ <jkoenig> mig would generate the code for a Java interface in lieu of the
+ *.h file.
+ <jkoenig> a generated FooUser class would implement this interface by doing
+ RPC
+ <jkoenig> (so basically you would pass a MachPort object to the
+ constructor, and then you could use the resulting object to do RPC with
+ whatever is on the other end)
+ <jkoenig> and the generated FooServer class would do the opposite,
+ <braunr> ok
+ <braunr> issues with threads ?
+ <jkoenig> you would pass an object implementing the Foo interface to the
+ constructor,
+ <braunr> i'm guessing the demux part may have to create threads, right ?
+ <jkoenig> and the resulting object would handle messages by using the
+ object you passed.
+ <jkoenig> braunr, right, so that would be more a libports kind of code,
+ <braunr> the libports-like library, i see
+ <jkoenig> to which you could pass Server objects (for instance the
+ FooServer above), and it would handle incoming messages.
+ <braunr> how is message content mapped to a java interface ?
+ <jkoenig> this would be determined from the .defs files and MIG would
+ generate the appropriate code, hopefully.
+ <braunr> so the demux part would handle rpc integer identifiers ?
+ <jkoenig> right.
+ <braunr> but hm
+ <jkoenig> also mapping .defs files to Java interfaces might prove to be
+ tricky. data types conversion and all
+ <antrik> tschwinge: my mamory is rather hazy. IIRC the issue was that the
+ MIG-generated stubs deallocate out-of-line port arrays after the
+ implementation returns, before returning to the dispatcher
+ <braunr> i'll just overlook this specific implementation detail
+ <jkoenig> but we could use some annotation-based system if we need to
+ provide more information to generate the java code.
+ <antrik> but the Hurd (or rather glibc) RPC handling also automatically
+ deallocates everything if an error occurs
+ <antrik> so I changed the MIG code to deallocate only when no error occurs
+ <braunr> jkoenig: ok, we'll talk about that when there is more progress and
+ you have a better view of the problem
+ <antrik> at that time I was pretty sure that this is a correctly working
+ solution, but it always seemed questionable conceptually... however, I
+ wasn't able to come up with a better one, and nobody else commented on it
+ <braunr> antrik: shouldn't the hurd be changed not to deallocate something
+ it didn't allocate in the first place ?
+ <antrik> braunr: no, the server has to deallocate stuff before returning to
+ the client. the request message is destroyed before returning the reply.
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig, braunr: That's what I had in mind where MIG might be a
+ bit awkward. Then we can indeed either add annotations to the .defs
+ files, or reproduce them in some other format. That's some work, but
+ it's mostly a one-time work.
+ <tschwinge> After all, the RPC interface is a binary one, and there may be
+ more than one API for creating these messages, etc.
+ <antrik> jkoenig: actually, at least in the Hurd, server-side and
+ client-side headers are separate -- so MIG actually creates four files
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, wrt to annotations I was more thinking about Java
+ ones, such as: @MIGDefsFile("mach/task.defs") @MIGCType("task_t") public
+ interface Task { }
+ <jkoenig> antrik, oh, ok, it makes sense.
+ <braunr> jkoenig: anything else ?
+ <jkoenig> braunr, nothing that I can think of
+ <braunr> ok
+ <antrik> tschwinge: I think it would be a *very* bad idea to introduce
+ redundancy regarding RPC definitions
+ <braunr> thanks for the tour :)
+ <antrik> (the _request.defs/_reply.defs mess is bad enough...)
+ <jkoenig> did I speak about the "Unsafe" pseudo-exception? that's
+ interesting :-)
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: Also, virtual memory abstractions?
+ <braunr> jkoenig: you didn't
+ <tschwinge> antrik: Well, then we could create some other super-format.
+ But that's just a detail IMO.
+ <jkoenig> ok, so wrt virtual memory, a page we received can be wrapped with
+ some JNI help into a (direct) ByteBuffer object.
+ <jkoenig> deallocating sent pages will be tricky, though.
+ <tschwinge> antrik: To put it this way: for me the .defs files are just one
+ way of expressing the RPC interfaces' contracts. (At the same time, they
+ happen to be the actual reference for these, too. But the specification
+ itself could just as well be a textual one.)
+ <jkoenig> on approach I've been thinking about would be to "wrap" the
+ ByteBuffer object into an object which has the sole reference to it, so
+ that when it's deallocated the reference can be replaced with "null", and
+ further attempts to access the buffer would throw exceptions.
+ <braunr> sounds reasonable
+ <jkoenig> but that's still in flux in my head, we may end up needing our
+ own implementation of ByteBuffer-like objects.
+ <tschwinge> The problem being that there is no mechanism to ``revoke'' an
+ object once a reference to it has been shared.
+ <jkoenig> right.
+ <tschwinge> A wrapper is one possibility indeed.
+ <antrik> tschwinge: they are called interface *definitions* for a reason
+ :-)
+ <tschwinge> This is a very similar problem as with capabilities when there
+ is no revoke operation for these, too.
+ <tschwinge> antrik: Yes, because they define MIG's input. :-P
+ <tschwinge> Isn't that what is called a membrane in the capability world?
+ <antrik> I do not say that we have to consider the format of the .defs to
+ be set in stone; but I do insist on using a canonical machine-parsable
+ source for all language bindings
+ <tschwinge> attenuation
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, you mean the revokable proxy contruct ? (It's the same
+ principle indeed)
+ <tschwinge> A common design pattern in object-capability systems: given
+ one reference of an object, create another reference for a proxy object
+ with certain security restrictions, such as only permitting read-only
+ access or allowing revocation. The proxy object performs security checks
+ on messages that it receives and passes on any that are allowed. Deep
+ attenuation refers to the case where the same attenuation is applied
+ transitively to any
+ <tschwinge> objects obtained via the original attenuated object,
+ typically by use of a "membrane".
+ <tschwinge> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-capability_model
+ <tschwinge> Yes.
+ <tschwinge> Good. I understood something. ;-)
+ <tschwinge> antrik: OKAY! :-P
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: And hopefully the JVM will optimize away all the
+ additional indirection... :-D
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: Is there anything more to say about the VM layer?
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, "hopefully", yes :-)
+ <tschwinge> Like, the data that I'm sharing -- is it untyped, isn't it?
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, you mean that within the received/sent pages ?
+ <tschwinge> Yes.
+ <tschwinge> But that'S how it is, indeed.
+ <jkoenig> well actually the type descriptor should indicate what they
+ contain.
+ <tschwinge> I cannot trust anything I receive from externally.
+ <jkoenig> it's most often used for MACH_MSG_TYPE_CHAR items I guess, and it
+ will be type checked when retreive
+ <tschwinge> Yeah, and that then just *is* arbitrary data, like a block read
+ from a disk file.
+ <jkoenig> you would have something like: ByteBuffer
+ MachMsg.getBuffer(MachMsg.Type expected), and MachMsg would check the
+ type descriptor against that which you specified
+ <tschwinge> Or a packet transmitted over the network.
+ <tschwinge> OK, yes.
+ <antrik> jkoenig: in theory ints should be used quite often too. the whole
+ purpose of the type descriptors is to allow byte order swapping when
+ messages are passed between hosts with different architecture...
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, right, except for out-of-line port arrays, which need
+ to be handled differently obviously.
+ <antrik> (which is totally irrelevat for our purposes -- especially since
+ the actual network IPC code doesn't exist anymore ;-) )
+ <jkoenig> antrik, oh, interesting
+ <tschwinge> Yes, that was one original idea.
+ <jkoenig> actually my litmus test for what the bindings should be, is you
+ should be able to implement such a proxy in Java :-)
+ <tschwinge> antrik: And hey, you now have processors that can switch
+ between different modes during runtime... :-)
+ <jkoenig> (although arguably that's a little bit ambitious)
+ <braunr> tschwinge: there should be bits in page tables to indicate the
+ endianness to use on a page .. :)
+ <tschwinge> Hehe!
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: Don't worry -- you're already known for ambitious
+ projects. One more can't hurt.
+ <jkoenig> Also, actually the word size is not something that I've been able
+ to abstract so far, so I'll be hardcoding little-endian 32 bits for now.
+ <braunr> why is that ?
+ <antrik> some of the Hurd RPC break the idea anyways BTW
+ <jkoenig> the org.vmmagic package (from Jikes RVM and JNode) could help
+ with that, but GCJ does not support it unfortunately (not sure about
+ OpenJDK)
+ <jkoenig> braunr, Java does not allow us to define new unboxed types
+ <braunr> jkoenig: does it have its own definition of the word size ?
+ <jkoenig> braunr, nope.
+ <jkoenig> (although, maybe, and also we could use JNI to query it)
+ <braunr> even if virtual, i'd expect a machine to have such a defnition
+ <jkoenig> braunr, maybe it has, but basically in Java nothing depends on
+ the word size
+ <jkoenig> 'int' is 32 bits, 'long' is 64 and that's it.
+ <braunr> oh right, i remember most types are fixed size, right ?
+ <jkoenig> right.
+ <braunr> if not all
+ <jkoenig> now Jikes RVM's "org.vmmagic" provides an interface to defined
+ new unboxed types which can depend on the actual word size, but Jikes RVM
+ is its own JVM so obviously they can use and provide whatever extensions
+ they need :-)
+ <jkoenig> (but maybe they've implemented them in OpenJDK for bootstrap
+ purposes, I'm not sure)
+ <tschwinge> I'm missing this detail: where does the word size come into
+ play here?
+ <jkoenig> anyway, I _could_ indiscriminately use 'long' for port names, and
+ sparkle the code with word size tests but that would be very clumsy
+ <braunr> jkoenig: port names are actually ints :/
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, the actual format of the message header and type
+ descriptors, for instance.
+ <braunr> jkoenig: ok, got your point
+ <jkoenig> braunr, by 'long' I mean 64-bits integers (which they are on
+ 64-bits machines I think?)
+ <braunr> :)
+ <braunr> jkoenig: port names are as large as the word size
+ <braunr> but in C at least, they're int, not long
+ <braunr> it doesn't change many things, but you get lots of warnings if you
+ try with a long :)
+ <tschwinge> What is the reason that port names are an
+ architecture-dependent word size's width, and not simply 32 bit?
+ <jkoenig> "4 billions of port names should be enough for everyone" :-)
+ <braunr> tschwinge: an optimization is to use them as pointers in the
+ kernel
+ <antrik> tschwinge: the machine's native word size is what it can process
+ most efficiently, and what should be used for most normal
+ operations... it makes sense to define stuff as int, except for network
+ communication
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: Well, yeah, but if you want to communicate with a
+ peer, you have to agree on the maximum number anyway (not for port names,
+ though, which are local).
+ <braunr> antrik: int isn't the word size everywhere
+ <braunr> antrik: the most common type matching the word size is long, at
+ least on ILP32/LP64 data models
+ <antrik> braunr: that's just because some idiots assumed int would always
+ be 32 bits, and consequently when 64 architectures came up the compiler
+ guys chickened out ;-)
+ <braunr> without int, you wouldn't have a 32 bits type
+ <antrik> that's not true for all architectures and/or operating systems
+ though AFAIK
+ <braunr> or a 16 bits one
+ <braunr> antrik: windows guys got even more scared, so windows 64 is LLP64
+ <antrik> BTW, I haven't checked, but it's quite possible that 32 bit
+ numbers are actually preferable even on AMD64...
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: So, back on track. :-)
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: You didn't find anything yet in Mach's VM interfaces
+ as well a MemoryObject, etc., that can't be used/implemented in the Java
+ world?
+ <braunr> antrik: they consume less memory, but don't have much effect on
+ performance
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, once we have the basic system calls and the
+ corresponding abstractions in place, I don't think anything else
+ fundamentally problematic could possibly show up
+ <antrik> braunr: if you really *need* a type of a certain bit size, you
+ should use stdint types. so not having a 16 or 32 bit type in the
+ short/int/long canon is *not* an excuse
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: That speaks for the Mach designers!
+ <braunr> antrik: right
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, on trick is that for instance, mach_task_self would
+ still be unsafe even if it returned a nicely wrapped Task object, because
+ you could still wreck your own address space and threads with it. So we
+ would need the "attenuation" pattern mentionned above to provide a safe
+ one.
+ <jkoenig> (which would disallow thinks such as the port/thread/vm calls)
+ <braunr> jkoenig: you mentioned the unsafe pseudo exception earlier
+ <jkoenig> braunr, right, so the issue is with distinguishing safe from
+ unsafe methods
+ <antrik> braunr: BTW, the Windows guys actually broke a lot of stuff by
+ fixing long at 32 bits -- this way long doesn't match size_t and pointer
+ types anymore, which was an assumption that was true for pretty much any
+ system so far...
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: Yes. (And again hope for the JVM to optim...)
+ <braunr> antrik: that's right :)
+ <braunr> antrik: that's LLP64
+ <braunr> antrik: long long and pointers
+ <jkoenig> braunr, so basically the idea is that unsafe methods are declared
+ as "throws Unsafe"
+ <jkoenig> the effect is that if you use such a method you must either
+ "throw Unsafe" yourself,
+ <jkoenig> or if you're building a safe abstraction on top of Unsafe
+ methods, you'll "catch" the "exception" in question to tell the compiler
+ that it's okay.
+ <jkoenig> it's more or less inspired from the "semantic regimes" idea from
+ the org.vmmagic paper which is referenced in my original proposal,
+ <jkoenig> only implementing by hijacking the exception checking machinery,
+ which has a behaviour similar to what we want.
+ <braunr> ok
+ <braunr> but hmm this seems pretty normal, what's the tricky part ? :)
+ <tschwinge> braunr: The idea is that the programmer explicitly has to
+ acknowledge if he'S using an unsafe interface.
+ <braunr> tschwinge: sounds pretty normal too
+ <jkoenig> braunr, the trick is that you would not usually declare
+ exceptions which are never actually thrown (and actually since the
+ compiler does not know it's never thrown, I need to work around it in a
+ few places)
+ <braunr> oh, ok
+ <braunr> jkoenig: that's interesting indeed
+ <jkoenig> braunr, the org.vmmagic paper provides an example which uses some
+ annotations called @UncheckedMemoryAccess and @AssertSafe to the same
+ effect (which is kind of cleaner), but it would be a headache to
+ implement without help from the compiler I think (as far as I can tell
+ the annotation processor would have to inspect the bytecode)
+ <braunr> but hm
+ <braunr> what's the true problem about this ?
+ <jkoenig> (the paper advocates "high-level low-level programming" and is a
+ very interesting read I think,
+ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.151.5253&rep=rep1&type=pdf,
+ for what it's worth)
+ <braunr> what's wrong if you just declare your methods unsafe and don't
+ alter anything else ?
+ <tschwinge> Yes, I read it and it is interesting. Unfortunately, it seems
+ I forgot most of it again...
+ <jkoenig> braunr, declare? alter?
+ <jkoenig> you mean just tag them with an annotation?
+ <braunr> just stating a method "throws Unsafe"
+ <jkoenig> braunr, well some compiler will output a warning because they can
+ tell there's no way the method is going to throw such an exception.
+ <jkoenig> and then some other compiler will complain that my
+ @SuppressWarnings("unused") does not serve any purpose to them :-)
+ <jkoenig> also, when initializing final fields, I need to work around the
+ fact that the compiler thinks "Unsafe" might be thrown.
+ <jkoenig> see for instance MachPort.DEAD
+ <braunr> jkoenig: ok
+ <jkoenig> braunr, but I'm more than willing to accept this in exchange for
+ a clear, compiler-enforced materialization of the border between safe an
+ unsafe code.
+ <jkoenig> actually another question I have is the amount of static typing I
+ should add to the safe version, for instance should I subclass MachPort
+ into MachSendRight, MachReceiveRight and so on. I don't want to depart
+ from the C inteface too much but it could be useful.
+ <braunr> jkoenig: can't answer that :)
+ <braunr> jkoenig: keep them in mind for later i think
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: What's the safety concern w.r.t. having MachPort (not)
+ final?
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, actually I'm partly wrong in that we only need name()
+ and a couple other methods to be final
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: That's what I was thinking. :-)
+ <tschwinge> I though I'm missing something here.
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, the idea is that the user (ie., the adversary :-)
+ could extend MachPort and inject their own fake port name into messages
+ <jkoenig> by overriding name() or clear()
+ <tschwinge> Yeah, but if these are final, that's not possible.
+ <jkoenig> right.
+ <tschwinge> And that *should* be enough, I think.
+ <tschwinge> Unless I'm missing something.
+ <jkoenig> I don't think so. Also I hope it is, because as mentionned above
+ there might be some value in subclassing MachPort.
+ <tschwinge> Yep.
+ <jkoenig> incidentally, declaring the class or the method final will allow
+ the JVM to inline them I think.
+ <tschwinge> It will help the JVM, yes. It can also figure that out without
+ final, though. (And may have to de-optimize the code again in case there
+ are additional classes loaded during run-time.)
+ <tschwinge> jkoenig: The reference counting in MachPort. I think I'm
+ beginning to understand this.
+ <jkoenig> oh ok
+ <jkoenig> tschwinge, yes the javadoc is maybe a bit obscure so far.
+ <jkoenig> but basically you don't want the port name you acquire to become
+ invalid before you're done using it.
+ <tschwinge> But how is this different from the C world?
+ <jkoenig> here my goal is to provide some guarantees if you use only safe
+ methods
+ <jkoenig> like, you can't forge a port name and things like that
+ <jkoenig> so basically it should never be possible to include an invalid
+ port name in a message if you use only safe methods.
+ <tschwinge> Ah, I see!
+ <tschwinge> Now that does make sense.
+ <jkoenig> but the mechanism in itself is similar to the Hurd port cells and
+ user_link structures
+ <tschwinge> It's again ``only'' helping the programmer.
+ <jkoenig> right, no object-capability ulterior motives :-)
+ <jkoenig> another assumption which the javadoc does not state yet it that
+ basically there should be exactly one MachPort object for each mach-level
+ port name reference (in the sense of mach_port_mod_refs)
+ <tschwinge> Yes, I figured out that bit.