Andrew Tanenbaum
Vrije University
A
Reliable
and
Secure
Operating
System
Abstract: Operating
systems
are
getting
bigger
and
less
reliable
every
year
Studies
have
shown
the
number
of
bugs
per
line
of
code
to
be
around
6-16
bugs
per
1000
lines
of
code,
so
with
Linux
over
2.5
millions
lines
of
code,
the
kernel
probably
contains
at
least
15,000
bugs,
and
Windows
has
far
more.
Most
of
these
bugs
are
in
the
device
drivers.
As
long
as
we
maintain
the
current
structure
of
the
operating
system
as
a
huge
single
monolithic
program
running
in
kernel
mode,
the
situation
will
only
get
worse.
In an attempt to improve this situation, we have created a new multiserver operating system with only 4000 lines in kernel and the rest of the operating system split up into small rigidly controlled pieces, each running as a user-mode process. The talk will discuss the architecture of this system, called MINIX 3, and its reliability and security properties.
Biography: Andrew S. Tanenbaum was born in New York City and raised in White Plains, N.Y. He has an SB from the MIT and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Prof. Tanenbaum is the principal designer of three operating systems: TSS-11, Amoeba, and MINIX. TSS-11 was an early system for the PDP-11. Amoeba is a distributed operating systems for SUN, VAX, and similar workstation computers. MINIX is a small operating system designed for high reliability and embedded applications as well as for teaching.
In addition, Tanenbaum is the author or coauthor of five books:
- Distributed Systems (2002) (with Maarten van Steen)
- Modern Operating Systems 2/e (2001)
- Structured Computer Organization, 5/e (2006)
- Operating System: Design and Implementation, 3/e, (2006) (with Albert S. Woodhull)
- Computer Networks, 4/e (2003)
These books have been translated into 20 languages and are used all over the world. Tanenbaum has also published more than 100 refereed papers on a variety of subjects and has lectured in a dozen countries on many topics.
Tanenbaum is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 1994 he was the recipient of the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. In 1997 he won the ACM SIGCSE Awards for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science.