Configuration of Isolated Extensions and Device Drivers

• US 20070094673A1
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Published: 04/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Steensgaard, Bjarne, Larus, James, Carbin, Michael, Hunt, Galen, Levi, Steven, Tarditi, David, Hodson, Orion, Spear, Michael, Fanndrich, Manuel
• Granted Patent: US 8,074,231 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/321
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers

Abstract

Described herein are one or more implementations for describing and/or addressing the configuration requirements of applications, extensions, device drivers, and other components of a software system.

Claims

1. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method comprising:

obtaining a device driver, wherein the device driver is a set of executable instructions;

determining a set of computing resources required for execution of the set of executable instructions of the device driver;

providing one or more local-access objects for use by the device driver for access to the required set of computing resources, each of the one or more local-access objects comprising executable instructions;

initiating execution of the set of executable instructions of the device driver and the executable instructions of the one or more local-access objects.

2. One or more media as recited in claim 1, wherein the determining act comprises obtaining a processor-readable manifest associated with the device driver, the device-driver manifest specifying the set of computing resources required for execution of the set of executable instructions of the device driver.

3. One or more media as recited in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises confirming that the device driver is authorized to access the required set of computing resources.

4. One or more media as recited in claim 1, wherein the providing act further comprises generating one or more local-access objects for use by the device driver for access to the required set of computing resources, the local-access object being provided by an operating system.

5. One or more media as recited in claim 1, wherein the providing act further comprises generating a local access object for use by the device driver for access to at least one computing resource of the required set of computing resources, wherein the generating of the local-access object for access to at least one particular computing resource comprises:

obtaining a set of executable instructions associated with the particular computing resource;

providing access for the device driver to the obtained set of executable instructions that is associated with the particular computing resource.

6. One or more media as recited in claim 5, wherein the set of executable instructions associated with the particular computing resource is provided by an operating system.

7. One or more media as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of resources is selected from a group consisting of a hardware resource, a memory, an input/output port, an interrupt request line, and an inter-process communication channel.

8. An operating system comprising one or more media as recited in claim 1.

9. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method comprising:

obtaining an untrusted program module comprising a set of executable instructions and the untrusted program module being configured to access one or more computing resources;

determining one or more target computing resources of the untrusted program module, wherein the one or more target computing resources are computing resources that the untrusted program module will seek to access when the set of executable instructions of the program module are executed;

providing one or more trusted local-access objects to the untrusted program module so that the unstrusted program module gains access to the one or more target computing resources via the provided one or more trusted local-access objects.

10. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises confirming that the program module is authorized to access the one or more target computing resources.

11. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein each of the trusted local-access objects are associated with one or more computing resources and each of the trusted local-access objects comprise a set of executable instructions.

12. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein each of the trusted local-access objects are associated with one or more computing resources, each of the trusted local-access objects comprise executable instructions, and the providing further comprises configuring the executable instructions of the one or more trusted local-access objects to provide the untrusted program module access to the one or more target computing resources via the configured executable instructions of the one or more trusted local-access objects.

13. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein the untrusted program module is a device driver.

14. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein each of the trusted local-access objects are associated with one or more computing resources and the method further comprises restricting access of a program module to the one or more target computing resources and such restricted access occurs only via the one or more trusted local-access objects associated with the associated one or more target computing resources.

15. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein the computing resources are selected from a group consisting of a hardware resource, memory, input/output port, interrupt request line, and inter-process communication channel.

16. One or more media as recited in claim 9, wherein each of the one or more trusted local-access objects comprise a set of executable instructions and the method further comprises initiating execution of the executable instructions of the one or more of the untrusted program module and the executable instructions of the one or more local-access object that are providing access to the one or more target computing resources.

17. An operating system comprising one or more media as recited in claim 9.

18. One or more processor-readable media having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method comprising:

obtaining an untrusted program module comprising a set of executable instructions and the untrusted program module being configured to access one or more computing resources;

determining one or more target computing resources of the untrusted program module, wherein the one or more target computing resources are computing resources that the untrusted program module will seek to access when the set of executable instructions of the program module are executed;

providing one or more trusted local-access objects to the untrusted program module so that the unstrusted program module gains access to the one or more target computing resources via the provided one or more trusted local-access objects, the one or more trusted local-access objects being associated with the one or more target computing resources;

permitting the program module to access the one or more target computing resources only via the one or more trusted local-access objects associated with those one or more target computing resources.

19. One or more media as recited in claim 18, wherein the method further comprises confirming that the program module is authorized to access the one or more target computing resources.

20. One or more media as recited in claim 18, wherein the untrusted program module is a device driver.