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[[!tag open_issue_gnumach open_issue_hurd]]

This is a collection of resources concerning *user-space device drivers*.

Also see [[device drivers and IO systems]].
[[community/gsoc/project ideas/driver glue code]].

[[!toc levels=2]]


# Issues

## IRQs

  * Can be modeled using [[RPC]]s.

  * Security considerations: IRQ sharing.

  * *Omega0* paper defines an interface.

  * As is can be read in the *Mach 3 Kernel Principles*, there is an *event
    object* facility in Mach that can be used for having user-space tasks react
    to IRQs.  However, at least in GNU Mach, that code (`kern/eventcount.c`)
    doesn't seem functional at all and isn't integrated properly in the kernel.

## DMA

  * Security considerations.

      * I/O MMU.

## I/O Ports

  * Security considerations.

## PCI and other buses

  * Security considerations: sharing.

## Latency of doing RPCs

  * [[GNU Mach|microkernel/mach/gnumach]] is said to have a high overhead when
    doing RPC calls.


# Plan

  * Examine what other systems are doing.

      * L4

          * Hurd on L4: deva, fabrica

          * [[DDE]]

      * Minix 3

  * Start with a simple driver and implement the needed infrastructure (see
    *Issues* above) as needed.

      * <http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/user-drivers/>

        Some (unfinished?) code written by Robert Millan in 2003: PC keyboard
        and parallel port drivers, using `libtrivfs`.


# Documentation

  * [An Architecture for Device Drivers Executing as User-Level
    Tasks](http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=665603), 1993, David B. Golub,
    Guy G. Sotomayor, Freeman L. Rawson, III

  * [Performance Measurements of the Multimedia Testbed on Mach 3.0: Experience
    Writing Real-Time Device Drivers, Servers, and
    Applications](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.40.8685),
    1993, Roger B. Dannenberg, David B. Anderson, Tom Neuendorffer, Dean
    Rubine, Jim Zelenka

  * [User Level IPC and Device Management in the Raven
    Kernel](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.57.3733),
    1993, D. Stuart Ritchie, Gerald W. Neufeld

  * [Creating User-Mode Device Drivers with a
    Proxy](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.26.3055),
    1997, Galen C. Hunt

  * [The APIC Approach to High Performance Network Interface Design: Protected
    DMA and Other
    Techniques](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.56.1198),
    1997, Zubin D. Dittia, Guru M. Parulkar, Jerome R. Cox, Jr.

  * [The Fluke Device Driver
    Framework](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.4.7927),
    1999, Kevin Thomas Van Maren

  * [Omega0: A portable interface to interrupt hardware for L4
    system](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.21.5958),
    2000, Jork Löser, Michael Hohmuth

  * [Userdev: A Framework For User Level Device Drivers In
    Linux](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.3.4461),
    2000, Hari Krishna Vemuri

  * [User Mode Drivers](http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5442), 2002, Bryce
    Nakatani

  * [Towards Untrusted Device
    Drivers](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.13.1725),
    2003, Ben Leslie, Gernot Heiser

  * [Encapsulated User-Level Device Drivers in the Mungi Operating
    System](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.6.1531),
    2004, Ben Leslie Nicholas, Nicholas FitzRoy-Dale, Gernot Heiser

  * [Linux Kernel Infrastructure for User-Level Device
    Drivers](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.10.1408),
    2004, Peter Chubb

      * [Get More Device Drivers out of the
        Kernel!](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.59.6333),
        2004, Peter Chubb

      * <http://gelato.unsw.edu.au/IA64wiki/UserLevelDrivers>

  * [Initial Evaluation of a User-Level Device
    Driver](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.59.4531),
    2004, Kevin Elphinstone, Stefan Götz

  * [User-level Device Drivers: Achieved
    Performance](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.59.6766),
    2005, Ben Leslie, Peter Chubb, Nicholas FitzRoy-Dale, Stefan Götz, Charles
    Gray, Luke Macpherson, Daniel Potts, Yueting Shen, Kevin Elphinstone,
    Gernot Heiser

  * [Virtualising
    PCI](http://www.ice.gelato.org/about/oct06_presentations.php#pres14), 2006,
    Myrto Zehnder, Peter Chubb

  * [Microdrivers: A New Architecture for Device
    Drivers](http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~vinodg/papers/hotos2007/), 2007, Vinod
    Ganapathy, Arini Balakrishnan, Michael M. Swift, Somesh Jha

      * <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.109.2623>
        [[!tag open_issue_documentation]]

      * <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.146.2170>
        [[!tag open_issue_documentation]]


# External Projects

  * [[DDE]]

  * <http://ertos.nicta.com.au/research/drivers/uldd/>

  * <http://gelato.unsw.edu.au/IA64wiki/UserLevelDrivers>