Self-stabilizing Device Drivers

摘要

This work presents approaches for designing the input-output device management components of self-stabilizing operating systems. As an example, we demonstrate the non-stability of the ATA standard protocol for storage devices. We state the requirements that an operating system and I/O devices should satisfy in order to become self-stabilizing. Then we suggest two solutions to satisfy these requirements. The first uses leases in order to guarantee progress from the I/O device side. The second assumes stabilization of the I/O device, and uses snapshots to perform consistency checks. By supplying an infrastructure for practical self-stabilizing systems, robust and dependable systems can be achieved.