Configuring a Multi-Course Lab for System-Level Projects

摘要

Having students modify an actual operating system kernel or network protocol stack opens their eyes to what is going on "beneath the hood" of a computer. However student modifications to a system may result in an unstable computer. Because of this, giving students such experience has in the past required a lab and/or computers dedicated to the students in the system-level course, and computer science departments without such dedicated facilities have been unable to provide their students with system-level experience. In this paper, we present two ways of giving students system-level experience in a non-dedicated lab; one using commercial software (VMWare), and another using open-source freeware (User Mode Linux Kernel).