Int J Performability Eng ›› 2020, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (2): 185-194.doi: 10.23940/ijpe.20.02.p3.185194

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Fast Interprocess Communication Algorithm in Microkernel

Xinghai Penga, Kun Xiaoa*(), Yun Lib, Lirong Chena, and Wen Zhanga   

  1. a School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, China
    b Guangdong Weichen Information Technology Co., Ltd, Guangdong, 523786, China
  • Submitted on ;
  • Contact: Kun Xiao E-mail:xiaokun@uestc.edu.cn
  • About author:

    Xinghai Peng is a postgraduate student at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research interests include system engineering and operating systems.

    Kun Xiao is an expert experimenter and senior engineer at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research interests include system engineering and operating systems.

    Yun Li received his Ph.D. in computer science and technology from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2002. He is the chairman of Guangdong Weichen Information Technology Co., Ltd. His interests include cybersecurity and security of car networking.

    Lirong Chen is currently an associate professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. Her research interests include embedded system software and cybersecurity.

    Wen Zhang is a postgraduate student at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research interests include embedded systems and cybersecurity.

  • Supported by:
    This work is supported by the Introducing Program of Dongguan for Leading Talents in Innovation and Entrepreneur (Dongren Han [2018], No. 738) and the Major Science and Technology Special Project of Sichuan Province (No. 2018GZDZX0009). The corresponding author of this paper is Kun Xiao.

Abstract:

Since most of the system services of the microkernel run in user space, the user process needs to request these services through the kernel's communication mechanism. Therefore, the frequency and amount of IPC (inter-process communication) in the microkernel is much higher than those in the monolithic kernel, causing the performance of the microkernel to be poor. In this paper, two exchange-based IPC algorithms are proposed to optimize the communication algorithm based on the replication mode, which is commonly used in the microkernel. One is based on the exchange of physical pages of MMU (memory management unit), and the other is based on the exchange of segment base addresses of MMU. These two exchange algorithms can achieve efficient transmission while keeping the independent address space to ensure the correctness and security of the transmitted data, greatly improving the efficiency of communication in the microkernel.

Key words: microkernel, inter-process communication, page exchange, segment address exchange, address space