Formalising a high-performance microkernel
Authors
NICTA, Sydney, Australia
UNSW, Australia
Abstract
This paper argues that a pragmatic approach is needed for integrating design and formalisation of complex systems. We report on our approach to designing the seL4 operating system microkernel API and its formalisation in Isabelle/HOL. The formalisation consists of the systematic translation of significant parts of the functional programming language Haskell into Isabelle/HOL, including monad-based code. We give an account of the experience, decisions and outcomes in this translation as well as the technical problems we encountered together with our solutions. The longer-term goal is to demonstrate that formalisation and verification of a large, complex, OS-level code base is feasible with current tools and methods and is in the order of magnitude of traditional development cost.
BibTeX Entry
@inproceedings{Elphinstone_KK_06,
author = {Kevin Elphinstone and Gerwin Klein and Rafal Kolanski},
editor = {Rustan Leino},
month = aug,
series = {Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2006-117},
year = {2006},
title = {Formalising a High-Performance Microkernel},
address = {Seattle, USA},
pages = {1-7},
booktitle = {Workshop on Verified Software: Theories, Tools, and Experiments (VSTTE 06)},
paperurl = {https://ts.data61.csiro.au/publications/papers/Elphinstone_KK_06.pdf}
}
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