Towards a debuggable kernel design

TL;DR

This paper proposes a kernel design focused on enhancing debuggability, evaluating its effectiveness through comparison of debugging iterations and discussing associated trade-offs.

Contribution

It introduces specific design rules for creating a debuggable kernel and evaluates their impact on debugging efficiency.

Findings

Reduced debugging iterations for certain bug classes

Identified trade-offs in debuggable kernel design

Enhanced kernel debuggability with minimal performance impact

Abstract

This paper describes what it means for a kernel to be debuggable and proposes a kernel design with debuggability in mind. We evaluate the proposed kernel design by comparing the iterations required in cyclic debugging for different classes of bugs in a vanilla monolithic kernel to a variant enhanced with our design rules for debuggability. We discuss the trade offs involved in designing a debuggable kernel.