Design and Implementation of Port-Mapped IO Management Subsystem and Kernel Interface for True Microkernels on IA-32 Processors

Abstract

Management of access to the Input/Output (IO) facilities of a computer system is one of the core functions of the operating system kernel. In this paper, we propose a new design of port-mapped IO management subsystem, suitable for use in the second generation or true microkernels. Specifically, the proposed design uses IA-32, the widespread CPU with the support of the concept of IO ports, as a target processor architecture. We also present and describe the protocol for access to IO means implemented in the kernel from the user-mode drivers, as well as the related optimizations implemented on the kernel side.