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Jongmoo Choi
Division of Information and Computer Science
Dankook University
Seoul 140-714, Korea
The loadable kernel modules supported by Linux provide many benefits including a
small-sized kernel, on-demand loading, and simpler upgrading of software. However,
modules are executed in a privileged mode so that trivial errors in a module may cause a
critical system halt or deadlock situations. We introduce a kernel resource protector
which shields the kernel from faults generated by modules. It models the kernel as module
objects and resource objects. By observing the interrelations between the two types
of object, the protector can detect misuses of kernel resources by modules and take action
to resolve the resulting problems. An experimental implementation demonstrates
that the protector can detect memory wasted by modules and reclaim such leaks without
degrading system performance. The resulting increase in robustness is especially significant
for systems equipped with NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM), such as FRAM and
PRAM, which is not reset by rebooting.
Received November 15, 2006; accepted February 15, 2007.
Communicated by Sung Shin and Tei-Wei Kuo.
*This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation grant No. KRF-2005-214-D00148.