Transcript p-cebit
Cutting Edge Open Source www.ertos.nicta.com.au Open Source in Embedded Systems Trustworthy and Reliable Embedded Systems Our Demo The demonstration runs on a single-board computer (the PLEB 2) designed and built by ERTOS researchers. The computer runs our L4/Iguana operating system, and shows the software performing typical soft real-time tasks. It also shows how we access the computer’s power-measurement hardware to provide an overview of the power used by various parts of the system. It is becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee trustworthiness of embedded systems. Embedded systems are converging to feature-rich universal computing devices. They are as complex as desktop systems were only a decade ago. Increasing complexity of embedded software increases the probability of software faults, including those affecting security and reliability. NICTA’s embedded, real-time and operating systems (ERTOS) group is applying its microkernel, modularisation, security and assurance technologies to embedded systems, providing the basis for trustworthy embedded systems. The ERTOS Solution Microkernels. Small operating systems designed to contain only the core functionality required to enable more complex systems to be built on top. This significantly eases the difficulty of providing a reliable and secure core of the system. Supporting Legacy systems. Legacy system support is necessary to leverage existing large application bases. Virtualisation techniques enable whole legacy operating systems (e.g. Linux) to run as a controlled component. Untrusted Strong security guarantees. The core microkernel enables strict control of interaction between components in the system, and resource consumption. Potentially malicious components can be safely confined in what they can do. Formal Verification. Collaboration with NICTA's Formal Methods, and Logic and Computation programs aims to prove mathematically the correctness of the implementation of the microkernel. Trusted Sensitive Sensitive Sensitive App. Sensitive App. App. App. Legacy Legacy Legacy App. Legacy App. App. App. Linux Server Device Driver Trusted Trusted Trusted Service Trusted Service Service Service Iguana OS L4 Microkernel Hardware Device Device Driver Driver The specific components on display include: • PLEB 2. A computer based on an Intel XScale PXA255 processor. It has 64MB of on-board RAM, and 8MB flash. It also supports many peripherals including network, disk and video. • Power monitoring. The PLEB 2 contains several power sensors to measure CPU, Memory and IO power. • L4. The computer is running L4 (our microkernel) as its base operating system. • Iguana. Above L4 we run Iguana, our operating system environment. • Networking. Communication between the computers is done using our TCP/IP networking infrastructure which runs in user space. Real World Impact The ERTOS suite of software (including L4 and Iguana) has been publicly released as open-source software (OSS) in November 2005, following earlier Beta releases. New public releases are made every three months, and the latest development versions can be obtained from the publicly accessible source repositories. Presently our software is making a significant impact in the area of wireless communication chipsets, such as those used in mobile phones. In November 2005 we announced the decision of leading CDMA chipmaker Qualcomm to use our software as the basis of the firmware for their mobile wireless 3G handset chipsets. We are working with a number of other large companies operating in this space and are negotiating with still more. We see an opportunity to establish the ERTOS OS suite as the industry standard OS for wireless mobile chipsets. This success is based on the unique combination of features of our software, most importantly an OS that provides the basis for safe and secure systems without compromising performance, which is of critical importance to battery-powered devices. ERTOS - NICTA’s Embedded, Real-Time and Operating Systems Program