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SEL4 would be a better choice because it is formally verified, there is a much smaller chance of vulnerabilities in SEL4 vs Xen because of this.
by _kbh_ 6y ago
SEL4 would be a better choice because it is formally verified, there is a much smaller chance of vulnerabilities in SEL4 vs Xen because of this.
- fsflover 6y agoFrom the above link: What about safe languages and formally verified microkernels? In short: these are non-realistic solutions today. We discuss this in further depth in our Architecture Specification document: https://www.qubes-os.org/attachment/wiki/QubesArchitecture/arch-spec-0.3.pdf https://www.qubes-os.org/attachment/wiki/QubesArchitecture/a....
- _kbh_ 6y agoInterestingly enough they only mention it being unreasonable for x86, it would be interesting to see SEL4 supported for ARM (of which SEL4 already has a verified kernel for).
- fsflover 6y agoSee also: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/4318 https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/4318.
- als0 6y agoThe paper discusses more fundamental issues than just x86 architecture: * Usermode drivers need to be formally verified to prevent malicious DMA. Adding IOMMU/SMMU to the microkernel will complicate the current proofs. * All user processes that manage resources, like filesystem, network and memory management, must also be formally verified. These are currently unproven.