INFERNO Operating System - Assignment Example

First Second INFERNO Operating System An Operating System is a System Software that acts as a liaison between the user of the system and the hardware. An Operating System intends to take the commands submitted by the user or another application, convert it into a code understandable by the underlying hardware, and present the execution results back to the user or the application. In the process an Operating System performs a range of activities such as code conversion, memory allocation, interprocess communication, security enforcement and display. This paper aims at describing one such Operating System: INFERNO OS. INFERNO is an Operating System designed for building distributed systems on a network of varied computer systems. Here, the term varied computing systems involves not just desktop computers but a range of devices such as palm tops, laptops, set-top boxes and other communication equipment. The challenge in writing applications for a distributed and hybrid environment is threefold: firstly, the development environments vary greatly, secondly, systems and the way these systems present resources vary greatly and finally a varied network has varying security and authorization policies that may not necessarily synchronize across the network (vitanuaova.com, nd). Inferno was developed as a successor of Plan 9 OS primarily with the help of Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson in the Bell Labs computing Sciences research centre in New Jersey, USA in 1995 (operating-system.org, 2008). The entire team of INFERNO includes Sean Dorward, Rob Pike, David Pressotto, Dennis Ritchie, Howard Trickey and Phil Winterbottom. The primary motivation behind INFERNO is generating the capability to include a range of everyday use hardware devices into a distributed network. INFERNO OS facilitates the creation and support of distributed services in the new and emerging world of network environments, such as those typified by CATV and direct satellite broadcasting systems, as well as the Internet (Dorward et al 2002). Inferno is designed to accommodate the diverse providers of content and services from equally diverse transport and presentation platforms. From the above discussion it is evident that the main strength of INFERNO lies in its portability across several dimensions. Primarily, it is portable across various processor architectures. Currently it works with Intel x86, Intel XScale IBM Power PC, ARM, SunSPARC and MIPS (vitanuova, nd). Secondly INFERNO is portable across platforms. It can run as either a stand-alone operating system or as an application under the regular operating systems such as Windows and Linux (Dorward, Pike, Pressotto, Ritchie, Trickey and Winterbottom, 2002). Inferno's underlying architecture, the STYX protocol is the reason behind Inferno's interoperability. The protocol has been designed such that all communication is essentially handled through the file system which is very similar to UNIX OS (electronicdesign, 2000). Almost all of the INFERNO's capabilities and functionalities are based on Limbo, which is the programming language of Inferno. The primary reason for choosing Limbo to support INFERNO is because of its ability to support distributed computing. Multi-tasking is supported directly by the Limbo language. It supports multi-tasking with the help of independently scheduled threads that can be spawned, and coordinated which enable communication between tasks. It supports modular programming, strong type checking, interprocess communication, automatic garbage collection and simple abstract data types (Ritchie, 2005). Another motivation behind Limbo is its similarity to commonly used languages such as C and PASCAL (Dorward et al, 1997). So, if one needs to port INFERNO from one hardware or a system to another all one has to do is to modify a few hardware dependent functions. This is how it turns out to be an excellent operating system for all types of hardware and distributed computing. The system can be used to build portable client and server applications that can share all types of resources on the network. Unlike most distributes network which do not generally share devices like palmtops, set-top boxes and telephones; INFERNO makes it straightforward to build lean applications that share all manner of resources over a network. Internal as well as external applications can be built using this operating system. INFERNO consists of several library modules controlled by a virtual machine that performs functions such as string manipulation, math functions, graphic analysis and display, audio and video decoding and communication among various objects. These can be used to develop interfaces to applications. Similarly External applications that communicate with other systems on the network can be built using the STYX protocol. The external communications are not one way. The user's terminal such as a network computer, TV set-top, PC or videophone is also an information source and its devices represent resources to applications; this architecture is very similar to its predecessor, Plan 9 (Pike et al, 1995). Styx is a very simple protocol. It has around 12 to 15 functions. Some of the functions are the familiar open, close, read, and write. Most applications see a fixed set of files organized as a directory tree which essentially contain 2 files (data and ctl) to perform control operations on the data. The kernel has a central driver that is responsible for identifying if operations are internal to the system or involves external communication and routes the files accordingly. On the other side of the connection, server un-wraps the Styx messages and implements them using resources local to it (Dorward et al, 2002). This way distributed computing over a network is achieved. Operating Systems have now become commodities and there are a large number of operating systems for small devices and a smaller number of distribution protocols and an even smaller number of concurrent programming languages. This is where INFERNO stands out. It provides all the three things needed to act as a stable operating system to run client server applications in a distributed environment inclusive of all types of media big and small. Some of the advantages of INFERNO which gives it an edge over other operating systems for distributed computing are: Security: It is designed for safe execution even on small machines without hardware memory protection. High level security is an important part of the Inferno system. Security for internal and external applications can be provided at a system level. The encryption algorithms provided by Inferno include the SHA, MD4, and MD5 secure hashes; Elgamal public key signatures and signature verification; RC4 encryption; DES encryption; and public key exchange based on the Diffie-Hellman scheme (Dorward et al, 2002). Portability: When porting Inferno from one hardware to another all one has to do is to modify the few hardware dependent functions, and then immediately the entire system will work on the new system. Ease: The file system method of handling communication internally and externally is very similar to that of the UNIX operating system. What this means is that it takes very little time to master this interface. Economic: Also, STYX comes with a very small memory footprint; it can be used on very compact system-on-silicon solutions where cost is critical. Robust Language: Limbo, the programming language of INFERNO offers advantages in terms of compactness and functionality. Also it is very similar to C and PASCAL which makes it very easy to learn and implement. INFERNO was primarily designed to be used for commercial products. It was marketed as a perfect operating system for screen phones. However, this concept was not accepted very well by screen phone manufacturers at that time. After much research and development, several features were added to INFERNO which made it superior. INFERNO operating system is now gaining popularity in real time world. Because of its prominent features, particularly, low memory footprint and portability, it is now being used as a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) for embedded systems (Li et al, 1997). Due to its small size and power it is ideal for use in embedded devices. Not only does it run on most popular processor architectures, it also comes complete with all you need for quickly developing advanced applications in devices. Apart from running in its native mode, INFERNO can also run as an emulator. In this mode it runs as an application on all operating systems (Stanley, nd). Thus it is now being used by individual developers as an application within their native operating systems to develop distributed applications. It is being used develop robust interfaces for applications on regular operating systems. Some of the commercially available applications that use INFERNO are Lucent Firewalls, Lucent Access Servers and Phillips Screen Phones (Stanley, nd). Limbo, the programming language of INFERNO has also been independently used to create applications such as network discovery and analysis and network packet decoders. INFERNO has now also entered academia, and is part of advanced graduate study in computer science. Installations are now available in several universities and research centers are partnering with the main research team to provide add-ons and enhancements (Ballesteros, 2001). As a conclusion, it can be stated from the above findings and discussions that INFERNO operating system is not only an operating system, it is also a complete development environment, providing all the tools necessary for creating, testing and debugging the applications that run within it. INFERNO is definitely facing competition from similar operating systems such as JINI, Linux RTOS and CORBA; but INFERNO but all of these other operating systems fall short in one feature or another. The primary features needed for an Operating System to be successful are Portability, Security, Low Memory Requirements, Learnability and Robustness. Although many of these features seem mutually exclusive, INFERNO has done a great job so far in providing the right mix of all these features. It is on its way of becoming the most popular operating system for real time usage for distributed computing and embedded computing. Works Cited Page Operating-system.org. "Operating System Documentation Project: INFERNO". Operating-system.org. 20 SEPT 2004. 26 OCT 2008. < http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/_english/bs-inferno.htm> Dorward, Pike, Pressotto, Ritchie, Trickey and Winterbottom. "The INFERNO Operating System", Bell Labs Technical Journal. 14 AUG 2002. Vitanuova. "Embedded Solutions: INFORNO OS". Vitanuova.com. < http://www.vitanuova.com/solutions/embedded/index.html> Electronicdesign.com. "Inferno Operating System Burns its Way into Embedded Systems". electronicdesign.com. 7 AUG 2000. < http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfmAD=1&ArticleID=4575 > Ritchie. "The LIMBO Programming Language", VitaNuova. 2005. < http://inferno-os.googlecode.com/svn-history/r300/trunk/doc/limbo/limbo.pdf > R. Pike, D. Presotto, S. Dorward, B. Flandrena, K. Thompson, H. Trickey, and P. Winterbottom. Plan 9 from Bell Labs''. J. Computing Systems 8:3. Summer 1995, pp. 221-254. S. Dorward, R. Pike, and P. Winterbottom. Programming in Limbo''. IEEE Compcon 97 Proceedings. 1997 Yanbing Li, Miodrag Potkonjak and Wayne Wolf. "Real Time Opreating Systems for Embedded Computing". Proceedings of the 1997 International Conference on Computer Design. 1997. IEEE Stanley, Phillip. " Building Distributed Applications with INFERNO and Limbo". Intel Research Pittsburgh Seminar. nd.< http://www.gemusehaken.org/ipwl/irp-inferno.pdf> Ballesteros, Francisco. "Using INFERNO for advanced Operating Systems course", Vitanuova. 12 JAN 2001. http://www.vitanuova.com/news/inferno_aos.pdf Read More