[cgl_discussion] Invitation for Participation on the Hardened Drivers Project

Adriano Galano adriano at satec.es
Fri Sep 13 00:22:31 PDT 2002


Hi Rob:

I submit one description of the project at Linux Kernel Foundry:
http://linuxkernel.foundries.sourceforge.net/article.pl?sid=02/09/13/0723227
I hope that it could help to enhance this project also.

Regards,

-Adriano (bryam)
--
Adriano M. Galano Diez
System & Network Engineer
http://www.satec.es
Phone: (+34) 917 089 000
Sourceforge.NET Linux Kernel Foundry Guide http://sf.net/foundry/linuxkernel




> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: cgl_discussion-admin at lists.osdl.org
> [mailto:cgl_discussion-admin at lists.osdl.org]En nombre de Rhoads, Rob
> Enviado el: viernes, 13 de septiembre de 2002 3:26
> Para: cgl_discussion at osdl.org
> CC: Rhoads, Rob
> Asunto: [cgl_discussion] Invitation for Participation on the Hardened
> Drivers Project
>
>
> Project Invitation:
> ------------------
> This is an invitation to all engineers involved with OSDL
> Carrier Grade Linux, that have an interest in device drivers
> and hardened drivers in particular, to participate in the Open
> Source Hardened Driver Project hosted on SourceForge.
>
> The immediate goal for CGL members is to formally review the current
> Harden Device Driver draft specification. I would like to do this in
> the open and invite you to participate via the Hardened Driver
> mailing list on SourceForge. I think it is critical for the success
> of this project to seek input from Linux kernel developer community
> and I plan on publicizing this project on the Linux Kernel mailing
> list in the immediate future. Your input and feedback would be
> greatly appreciated on this project.
>
> If you are interested please sign up on the Hardened Driver mailing
> list (see links below) and grab a copy of the Hardened Driver spec
> on the web page. I will be sending out, on that mailing list, more
> info and a proposed review schedule for the document.
>
> On the project page you will also find links to related projects and
> source code for the kernel header files, defined within the
> specification and a sample driver which use those APIs.
>
> On this bottom of this e-mail you will also find the Hardened Driver
> description/overview that appears in the CGL Arch Spec.
>
>
> Project Links:
> -------------
> o The Driver Hardening website:
>   http://hardeneddrivers.sourceforge.net
>
> o Hardened Drivers (Draft) Specification:
>   http://hardeneddrivers.sourceforge.net/downloads/DDH-Spec-0.5h.pdf
>
> o The SourceForge project related info:
>   http://sourceforge.net/projects/hardeneddrivers
>
> o Hardened Drivers Mailing List Info (subscribe here):
>
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/hardeneddrivers-discuss
>
>
> Hardened Driver Project Overview:
> --------------------------------
> Device drivers have traditionally been a significant source of
> software faults. For this reason, they are of key concern in
> improving the availability and stability of the operating system.
> Their higher rate of faults can be explained in part by the fact
> that drivers run in kernel space, but because they are only used
> with specific hardware, they can never receive the same level of
> field-testing as the kernel itself. A critical element in creating
> an OSDL CGL environment is to reduce the likelihood of faults
> in key drivers, a methodology called driver hardening.
>
> A device driver is typically implemented with emphasis on the
> proper operation of the hardware. Attention to how it will
> function in the event of hardware faults is often minimal.
> Hardened drivers, on the other hand, are designed with the
> assumption that the underlying hardware that they control will
> fail. They need to respond to such failures by handling faults
> gracefully, limiting the impact on the overall system.
> Hardened device drivers must continue to operate when the
> hardware has failed, or is not present, and must not allow
> the propagation of corrupt data from a failed device to other
> components of the system.
>
> Hardened device drivers must also be active participants in
> the recovery of detected faults, by locally recovering them
> or by reporting them to higher-level system management software
> that subsequently instructs the driver to take a specific action.
>
> The goal of a hardened driver in OSDL CGL is to provide an
> environment in which hardware and software failures are
> transparent to the applications using their services. The
> way to effectively achieve this goal is for the driver
> developer to analyze a driver's software design and implement
> appropriate changes to improve stability, reliability and
> availability, and to provide instrumentation for management
> middleware.
>
> Improving driver stability and reliability includes such measures
> as ensuring that all wait loops are limited with a timeout,
> validating input and output data and structuring the driver to
> anticipate hardware errors. Improving availability includes adding
> support for device hot swapping and validating the driver with fault
> injection. Instrumentation for management middleware includes
> functions such as reporting of statistical indicators and logging of
> pertinent events to enable postmortem analysis in the event of a
> failure.
>
> To minimize instability contributed by device drivers and to further
> enhance the availability of OSDL CGL based systems, OSDL CGL defines
> requirements for a device driver to be considered a hardened driver.
> OSDL CGL defines different device driver hardening traits and the
> required programming interfaces to support these hardening traits.
>
> A driver can support four hardening traits:
> ·	Hardening with code robustness
> ·	Hardening with event logging
> ·	Hardening with diagnostics
> ·	Hardening with resource monitoring and statistics
>
> Device drivers for network interface cards, physical storage, and
> logical storage should be hardened for use with OSDL CGL
>
> +=+=+
> Rob Rhoads                     mailto:rob.rhoads at intel.com
> Staff Software Engineer        office: 503-677-5498
> Intel Corporation
>
> This email message solely contains my own personal views, and not
> necessarily those of my employer.
>
>
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