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>If you were starting a new project from scratch today, I'd seriously ask why not Rust, though of course there are other reasons why you might not choose it. Bu

>If you were starting a new project from scratch today, I'd seriously ask why not Rust, though of course there are other reasons why you might not choose it. But given the history, and how new Rust was at the time when this project was started, it makes a lot of sense. While I'm not saying that rust is bad, Rust as a kernel language won't help you here. The simple proof is that Redox-os (which is a microkernel built in Rust) was found with the same class of bugs your average OS had.

lambda 9y ago
> The simple proof is that Redox-os (which is a microkernel built in Rust) was found with the same class of bugs your average OS had. Source? I haven't heard about these vulnerabilities. In a kernel, there are several places where Rust won't help you. There are certain things you have to do that are going to need unsafe code, and need to be audited just as much as code written in any other language. The kernel is also a place ripe for logical vulnerabilities to creep in; it is the main arbiter of what is allowed and is not allowed from processes, so many possible vulnerabilities are logical, not memory safety issues. On the other hand, when a kernel gets complex enough, there are places where memory safety or thread safety issues can come up even in code which doesn't require particular unsafe features and which is not involved in a security role; just things like manipulating complex data structures in multiple threads. This kind of code is the kind of code in which Rust can help catch issues; and it definitely still happens even when very good programmers, with good code review, work on the kernel. Rust is not a panacea; it is not a cure-all. But it reduces the attack surface considerably, by containing the amount of code that is exposed to certain very common classes of bugs.
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lambda 9y ago

> The simple proof is that Redox-os (which is a microkernel built in Rust) was found with the same class of bugs your average OS had. Source? I haven't heard about these vulnerabilities. In a kernel, there are several places where Rust won't help you. There are certain things you have to do that are going to need unsafe code, and need to be audited just as much as code written in any other language. The kernel is also a place ripe for logical vulnerabilities to creep in; it is the main arbiter of what is allowed and is not allowed from processes, so many possible vulnerabilities are logical, not memory safety issues. On the other hand, when a kernel gets complex enough, there are places where memory safety or thread safety issues can come up even in code which doesn't require particular unsafe features and which is not involved in a security role; just things like manipulating complex data structures in multiple threads. This kind of code is the kind of code in which Rust can help catch issues; and it definitely still happens even when very good programmers, with good code review, work on the kernel. Rust is not a panacea; it is not a cure-all. But it reduces the attack surface considerably, by containing the amount of code that is exposed to certain very common classes of bugs.

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