Engineering and Information Technology Collected Works - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemDesign of a distributed UNIX kernel and its modelling in CSP(University of Melbourne, 1984)The thesis presented is firstly that the standard UNIX kernel may be partitioned and distributed over a very local network resulting in increased processing power without unacceptable delays due to associated message passing, and secondly that CSP may be used to model the distributed kernel. That the UNIX kernel was selected for study is largely due to the impact that the facilities supported by and supplied with the operating system have made on teaching institutions and, more recently, industry. However, the approach that is taken need not be limited to UNIX and may be applicable to other operating systems. For the partitioning of the kernel, we establish a suitable division of labour through the examination of a standard Version 7 UNIX system. The anticipated message passing throughput is considered in relation to commercially available hardware for a very local network providing very fast, reliable, variable length message transfers. An approach to implementation of the distributed kernel is presented which considers the residence of system tables and the use of existing source code. A more precise notion of the processes involved in the distribution is presented by a model in CSP. This model shows, at a functional level, the interactions of processes in the network. The distributed model relies on the semantics of CSP and in particular uses language extensions for managing priority and preemption. We define operational semantics for CSP including commands for exceptions and interruptions. The contribution that extended CSP makes to potentially real-time applications is examined and a scheme is given for the implementation of synchronized message passing in the presence of preemption.