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macOS (and iOS, tvOS, watchOS, etcOS) are built on a microkernel too (Mach). It's not an automatic security win.
by __d 9y ago
macOS (and iOS, tvOS, watchOS, etcOS) are built on a microkernel too (Mach).
It's not an automatic security win.
- larkost 9y agoYou are mixing things up a little bit. Darwin (the underlying kernel layer of MacOS X and the rest) is actually a hybrid between a microkernel and a regular kernel. There is a microkernel there, but much of the services layered on top of it are done as a single kernel. All of that operating within one memory space. So some of the benifits from a pure microkenel are lost, but a whole lot of speed is gained. So from a security standpoint MacOS X is mostly in the kenel camp, not the microkernel one.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoAccording to Wikipedia - the XNU kernel for Darwin, the basis of macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS is not a microkernel. The project at Carnegie Mellon ran from 1985 to 1994, ending with Mach 3.0, which is a true microkernel. Mach was developed as a replacement for the kernel in the BSD version of Unix, so no new operating system would have to be designed around it. Experimental research on Mach appears to have ended, although Mach and its derivatives exist within a number of commercial operating systems. These include all using the XNU operating system kernel which incorporates an earlier, non-microkernel, Mach as a major component. The Mach virtual memory management system was also adopted in 4.4BSD by the BSD developers at CSRG,[2] and appears in modern BSD-derived Unix systems, such as FreeBSD.