Operating-system process construction

• US 20060123417A1
• Filed: 12/06/2004
• Published: 06/08/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jones, Michael B., Abadi, Martin, Hunt, Galen C., Wobber, Edward P., Chilimbi, Trishul, Larus, James R., DeTreville, John D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,020,141 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/562 Static detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/566 Dynamic detection, i.e. detection performed at run-time, e.g. emulation, suspicious activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/57 Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates or assessing vulnerabilities

Abstract

Described herein is an implementation of a technology for the construction, identity, and/or optimization of operating-system processes. At least one implementation, described herein, constructs an operating-system process having the contents as defined by a process manifest. Once constructed, the operating-system process is unalterable.

Claims

1. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform acts comprising:

creating one or more typed-code representations from one or more constituent components;

generating a processor-executable instruction stream from the one or more created typed-code representations; and

constructing an operating-system process comprising the generated processor-executable instruction stream, the generated processor-executable instruction stream being unalterable once the operating-system process is constructed.

2. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more constituent components comprises one or more load modules.

3. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the creating act employs multiple load modules for creating one or more typed-code representations.

4. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising executing the generated processor-executable instruction stream of the constructed operating-system process, the generated processor-executable instruction stream being unalterable while executing.

5. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations based upon the execution of one or more extending components, wherein the one or more extending components comprise load modules which are not part the one or more constituent components.

6. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations based upon the execution of one or more load modules of one or more extending components.

7. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations based upon the execution of one or more extending components, wherein the updating adds additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform run-time security checks to the one or more typed-code representations.

8. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations based upon the execution of one or more extending components, wherein the updating adds additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform run-time bookkeeping on the one or more typed-code representations.

9. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations.

10. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein the updating adds additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform run-time security checks to the one or more typed-code representations.

11. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein the updating adds additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform run-time bookkeeping on the one or more typed-code representations.

12. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations to add additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform a self-examining function, where the resulting operating-system process is configured to examine properties of itself.

13. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations by adding new types to the one or more created typed-code representations.

14. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations by adding new functions for existing types to the one or more created typed-code representations.

15. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, performing global optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations.

16. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, performing optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations.

17. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the generating act, performing optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein such optimization is based upon a record of previous executions of the operating-system process.

18. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the generating act further comprises conditionally inserting privileged processor-executable instructions into the processor-executable instruction stream.

19. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising receiving a request to construct a process, wherein the creating, generating, and constructing acts are performed in response to receiving of the request.

20. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the constructing act, analyzing results of one or more of the acts to determine if the results adhere to a specified set of desired properties and policies.

21. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising, before the constructing act, caching results of one or more of the acts for later use.

22. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising composing and persisting a process manifest defining contents that are ultimately necessary for construction of the process.

23. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising:

composing and persisting a process manifest defining contents that are ultimately necessary for construction of the process;

receiving a request to construct a process, wherein the creating, generating, and constructing acts are performed in response to receiving of the request;

wherein the composing and persisting acts are performed before the receiving act.

24. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein all components necessary for construction of the operating-system process are named in a process manifest.

25. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 1 further comprising:

performing the creating, generating, and constructing acts at least twice to construct a first and a second operating-system process;

loading the first operating-system process into a defined address space in a memory addressable by a processor;

loading the second operating-system process into the same defined address space in the memory addressable by the processor.

26. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform acts comprising:

creating one or more code representations from one or more constituent components;

generating a processor-executable instruction stream from the one or more created code representations; and

constructing an operating-system process comprising the generated processor-executable instruction stream, the generated processor-executable instruction stream being unalterable once the operating-system process is constructed.

27. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform acts comprising:

obtaining a process manifest that defines contents used in construction of an operating-system process;

creating one or more typed-code representations from one or more load modules, wherein the creating act is based, at least in part, upon the process manifest;

generating a processor-executable instruction stream from the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein the generating act is based, at least in part, upon the process manifest; and

constructing an operating-system process comprising the generated processor-executable instruction stream, wherein the generated processor-executable instruction stream of the operating-system process is unalterable.

28. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27, wherein the creating act employs multiple load modules for creating one or more typed-code representations.

29. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising executing the generated processor-executable instruction stream of the constructed operating-system process, the generated processor-executable instruction stream being unalterable while executing.

30. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27, wherein the process manifest defines one or more of the following types of operating-system process contents:

constituent components, which define a base set of one or more load modules of the operating-system process;

external interfaces, which define extra-process communication interfaces allowed for the operating-system process;

extending components, which define another set of one or more load modules containing additional processor-executable instructions which upon execution update the generated processor-executable instruction stream and/or containing modifications to the processor-executable instructions of the generated processor-executable instruction stream;

code generators, which produce a native instruction stream to be provided to one or more processors intended to execute the generated processor-executable instruction stream.

31. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27, wherein the operating-system process manifest defines process content types comprising:

constituent components, which define a base set of one or more load modules of the operating-system process;

external interfaces, which define extra-process communication interfaces allowed for the operating-system process;

extending components, which define another set of one or more load modules containing additional processor-executable instructions which upon execution update the generated processor-executable instruction stream and/or containing modifications to the processor-executable instructions of the generated processor-executable instruction stream;

code generators, which produce a native instruction stream to be provided to one or more processors intended to execute the generated processor-executable instruction stream.

32. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising composing a process manifest.

33. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations.

34. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations to add additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform run-time security checks to the one or more typed-code representations.

35. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations to add additional processor-executable instructions to the generated stream that perform a self-examining function, where the resulting operating-system process is configured to examine properties of itself.

36. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations by adding new types to the one or more created typed-code representations.

37. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations by adding new functions for existing types to the one or more created typed-code representations.

38. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, performing global optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations.

39. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the generating act, performing optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations.

40. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27, wherein the generating act further comprises conditionally inserting privileged processor-executable instruction into the processor-executable instruction stream.

41. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising receiving a request to construct a process, wherein the obtaining, creating, generating, and constructing acts are performed in response to receiving of the request.

42. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the constructing act, analyzing results of one or more of the acts to determine if the results adhere to a specified set of desired properties and policies.

43. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 27 further comprising, before the constructing act, caching results of one or more of the acts for later use.

44. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform acts comprising:

obtaining an explicit process manifest that defines contents used in construction of an operating-system process; and

constructing an operating-system process having the contents as defined by the process manifest, the operating-system process being unalterable once constructed.

45. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising executing the constructed operating-system process, the constructed operating-system process being unalterable while executing.

46. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44, wherein the process manifest defines one or more of the following types of operating-system process contents:

constituent components, which define a base set of one or more load modules of the operating-system process;

external interfaces, which define extra-process communication interfaces allowed for the operating-system process;

extending components, which define a set of one or more load modules that will be applied to the contents of the operating-system process;

code generators, which produce a native instruction stream to be provided to one or more processors intended to execute a processor-executable instruction stream of the operating-system process.

47. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising, before the constructing act:

creating one or more typed-code representations from one or more load modules specified by the process manifest;

generating a processor-executable instruction stream from the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein the generating act is based, at least in part, upon the process manifest;

wherein the constructed operating-system process comprises the generated processor-executable instruction stream.

48. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising, before the constructing act:

creating one or more typed-code representations from one or more load modules specified by the process manifest;

applying one or more extending components to the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein the applying act is based, at least in part, upon the process manifest;

generating a processor-executable instruction stream from the one or more created typed-code representations, wherein the generating act is based, at least in part, upon the process manifest;

wherein the constructed operating-system process comprises the generated processor-executable instruction stream.

49. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising, before the generating act, updating the one or more created typed-code representations.

50. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising, before the generating act, performing global optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations.

51. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising, before the generating act, performing optimization on the one or more created typed-code representations.

52. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising:

deriving an identity of the constructed operating-system process, wherein the identity is derived from inherent properties of the constructed operating-system process itself;

assigning the derived identity to the constructed operating-system process.

53. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising:

receiving identity-influencing inputs;

deriving an identity of the constructed operating-system process, wherein the identity is based upon the derived from inherent properties of the constructed operating-system process itself and the received identity-influencing inputs;

assigning the derived identity to the constructed operating-system process.

54. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising:

receiving identity-influencing inputs;

deriving an identity of the constructed operating-system process, wherein the identity is based upon the derived from inherent properties of the constructed operating-system process itself and the received identity-influencing inputs;

wherein the derived identity includes a partial identity that incorporates useful information for further inspection while leaving out other less useful information.

55. One or more processor-readable media as recited in claim 44 further comprising receiving a request to construct a process, wherein the obtaining and constructing acts are performed in response to receiving of the request.