Compound System Calls

Developing kernel code is very difficult, but code running in kernel-mode runs more efficiently since it has direct access to many resources; kernel code, however, must be careful not to violate safety concerns, exactly because it has direct access to hardware sources such as physical memory and devices. Developing code in the user level is easier and safer, but such code often runs less efficiently, due to context switching and data-copying overheads when applications must cross the user-kernel boundary. The ultimate goal of this five-year project is to combine the best of both worlds: develop code in user-mode, but run it in kernel-mode. We aim to produce a system that is capable of running source-unmodified user-level applications in kernel-mode --- more efficiently and as safely as running in user-level. This system will include a kernel-mode compiler (Cosy-Gcc) and a run-time Compound System Calls (Cosy) kernel and user environment (Cosy-Kernel and Cosy-Lib, respectively).

Conference and Workshop Papers:

# Title (click for html version) Formats Published In Date Comments
1 Efficient and Safe Execution of User-Level Code in the Kernel PS PDF BibTeX NSF Next Generation Software Workshop, in conjunction with IPDPS 2005 Apr 2005  
2 Cosy: Develop in User-Land, Run in Kernel-Mode PS PDF BibTeX 9th Workshop in Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS IX) May 2003  

Technical Reports:
# Title (click for html version) Formats Published In Date Comments
1 A System for Improving Application Performance Through System Call Composition PS PDF BibTeX Stony Brook U. CS TechReport FSL-03-03 Jun 2003 M.S. Thesis
2 Improving Application Performance Through System Call Composition PS PDF BibTeX Stony Brook U. CS TechReport FSL-02-01 Jun 2002  

Past Students:

# Name (click for home page) Program Period Current Location
1 Charles P. Wright PhD May 2003 - May 2006 Partner, Senior Software Architect, Illumon (New York, NY)
2 Amit Purohit MS Sep 2001 - May 2003 Ananda Center in India (India)
3 Joseph Spadavecchia temp-PhD May 2001 - Aug 2002 Principal Software Engineer, Cloud Security Group, Akamai (Edinburgh, UK)

Sponsors:

# Sponsor Amount Period Type Title (click for award abstract)
1 NSF CAREER (NGS) $400,000 2002-2007 Sole PI CAREER: An In-Kernel Runtime Execution Environment for User-Level Programs
2 HP/Intel $131,529 2002-2003 Sole PI Linux Application Performance and File System Security
3 HP/Intel $22,490 2001-2002 Sole PI Linux Network Scalability and File System Reliability