redox-os/kernel
Kernel
This operating system microkernel is written in Rust, focusing on safety, modularity, and POSIX compatibility for modern hardware. It implements a microkernel architecture that separates hardware drivers and system services into isolated userspace processes for fault tolerance, while providing standard Unix-like system calls and process primitives on a memory-safe codebase.
The system handles low-level hardware abstraction through a virtual memory management layer that maps virtual addresses to physical pages uniformly across disparate architectures, alongside hardware memory management operations to interact with physical RAM. Development and testing are supported by software memory emulation routines that test allocation logic without relying on physical hardware.
Monitoring and extensibility features include network-based kernel debugging, allowing developers to connect standard external debuggers such as GDB or LLDB to a running virtual machine session to inspect state, set breakpoints, and step through execution. Build consistency is maintained through a deterministic compile-time toolchain setup that fixes specific language release dates and component packages.
Features
- Microkernel Architectures - Implements an operating system design that splits kernel capabilities into independent, communicating monitors for resource isolation.
- Hardware Memory Abstractions - Unifies physical memory management operations to interact with RAM uniformly across disparate system targets.
- POSIX Interfaces - Provides standard Unix-like system calls and process primitives via standardized POSIX-compliant interfaces.
- Operating System Kernels - Builds and tests low-level core system software that manages hardware and provides essential operating system services.
- Rust-Based Microkernels - Implements a modular microkernel operating system in Rust focusing on safety, modularity, and hardware compatibility.
- Virtual Memory Management - Manages system virtual memory translation layers mapping virtual addresses to physical pages uniformly across architectures.
- Kernel Debugging with GDB and QEMU - Connects standard external debuggers to a running virtual machine session to inspect state and step through execution.
- Virtual Machine Introspection Debugging - Connects external debuggers to running virtual machine instances to inspect system state using hypervisor-level access.
- Cross-Mode Execution Debugging - Monitors and debugs kernel-mode execution across virtual machine boundaries.
- Remote Kernel Debugging - Enables remote debugging interfaces that allow a host to inspect the memory and state of a live kernel session.
