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The article you linked to is 21 years old. Microkernels is the fusion power of software, always 50 years in the future. They're great in theory, it's just that
by mseebach 8y ago
The article you linked to is 21 years old. Microkernels is the fusion power of software, always 50 years in the future. They're great in theory, it's just that nobody got them to work outside the lab.
As for security, yes, there are still vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel, and a microkernel might be helpful here, but it seems to me that the high-impact vulnerabilities we've seen in the past few years have been outside the kernel (spectre/meltdown and rowhammer in hardware and heartbleed in userspace). It's not obvious that microkernels will give a big enough security benefit for the investment to catch the technology up to the state of the art.
- pjmlp 8y agoFunny because apparently they run on my phone broadband radio chip, in many industrial automation control systems, medical devices, avionics and cars. It sounds pretty much outside the lab to me.
- indolering 8y agoYou (like Linus) are right in that microkernels don't provide much of a security benefit in-and-of themselves. But taking full advantage of other advances in information security research requires a new OS architecture. The financial consequences of poor security are becoming more severe and the cost of developing high-assurance code is dropping rapidly [1]. If we haven't crossed the cost/benefit ratio yet, we are very close. Microkernels are already the preferred architecture in niches that don't require legacy software. Monolithic kernels (and the Linux development process) can't catch up to the state-of-the-art. [1]: https://microkerneldude.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/verified-software-can-and-will-be-cheaper-than-buggy-stuff/ https://microkerneldude.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/verified-so...