The Implementation And Optimization Of Inter-Process Communication In The Microkernel

Compared to the monolithic kernel based operating system, a micro-kernel consists of a number of modules, connected by the inter-process communication. This multi-module structure gains advantages, like flexibility, security, stability and reliability. It is considered as the trend of operating system development and is a hot topic in the research area.The micro-kernel is in the second generation. It is a strategy more than an implementation standard. Its development is slow due to its low performance. The low speed of inter-process communication leads to a frequent exchange of address space, which reduces the performance. In this thesis, the inter-process communication of the micro-kernel is investigated. Three aspects of the micro-kernel were optimized. A new micro-kernel, MyOS, was designed. The main contributions are:1. Three commonly used micro-kernels are investigated. Their structures are examined, especially the inter-process communication mechanism. The advantages and disadvantages are illustrated. The key aspects, which influence the performance, are concluded.2. Based on the research on the inter-process communication, three aspects of work were done on the inter-process communication: optimization of the scheduling algorithm, introduction of the fast mapping and introduction of smaller address spaces. The approaches for the optimization of the scheduling algorithm consist of lazy scheduling and direct context switching. As a result, the performance of inter-process communication improves a lot.3. In this thesis, a new way of designing the micro-kernel is introduced. A new micro-kernel,called MyOS, is developed under the IA-32 architecture.4. The performance of inter-process communication of MyOS was measured and compared to the performance of Minix 3 operating system. It was shown that MyOS improved the system performance greatly and kept a high stability and high reliability in the same time. The next step is to modify the kernel's function and server modules, and improve the performance of security, stability and reliability of MyOS.