The

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

rump kernel is the first implementation of the "anykernel" concept where drivers either can be compiled into or run in the monolithic kernel or in user space on top of a light-weight kernel. The NetBSD drivers can be used on top of the rump kernel on a wide range of

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...

operating systems, such as the

Hurd GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, an ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

DragonFly BSD DragonFly BSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system forked from FreeBSD 4.8. Matthew Dillon, an Amiga developer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and FreeBSD developer between 1994 and 2003, began working on DragonFly BSD in Ju ...

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

kernels and even

Cygwin Cygwin ( ) is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed. The Cygwin in ...

, along with the file system utilities built with the rump libraries. The rump kernels can also run without POSIX directly on top of the Xen hypervisor, an

L4 microkernel L4 is a family of second-generation microkernels, used to implement a variety of types of operating systems (OS), though mostly for Unix-like, ''Portable Operating System Interface'' (POSIX) compliant types. L4, like its predecessor microkernel ...

using the Genode OS Framework or even on "OS-less"

bare metal In computer science, bare machine (or bare metal) refers to a computer executing instructions directly on logic hardware without an intervening operating system. Modern operating systems evolved through various stages, from elementary to the pre ...

Anykernel

An anykernel is different in concept from

microkernel In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...

exokernel Exokernel is an operating system kernel developed by the MIT Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems group, and also a class of similar operating systems. Operating systems generally present hardware resources to applications through high-lev ...

s, partitioned kernels or

hybrid kernel A hybrid kernel is an operating system Kernel (computer science), kernel architecture that attempts to combine aspects and benefits of microkernel and monolithic kernel architectures used in computer operating systems. Overview The traditional ker ...

s in that it tries to preserve the advantages of a

monolithic kernel A monolithic kernel is an operating system architecture where the entire operating system is working in kernel space. The monolithic model differs from other operating system architectures (such as the microkernel architecture) in that it alone ...

, while still enabling the faster driver development and added security in user space. The "anykernel" concept refers to an architecture-agnostic approach to drivers where drivers can either be compiled into the monolithic kernel or be run as a userspace process, microkernel-style, without code changes. With drivers, a wider concept is considered where not only

device driver In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ot ...

s are included but also

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

s and the networking stack.

File System Access Utilities

The File System Access Utilities (fs-utils) is a subproject built with the rump libraries. It aims to have a set of utilities to access and modify a file system image without having to mount it. The fs-utils does not require a superuser account to access the image or device. The advantage of fs-utils over similar projects such as

mtools Mtools is an open source collection of tools to allow a Unix operating system to manipulate files on an MS-DOS file system, typically a floppy disk or floppy disk image.https://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/ Homepage The mtools are part of the GNU ...

is supporting the usage of familiar

filesystem In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

Unix commands This is a list of Unix commands as specified by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, which is part of the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). These commands can be found on Unix operating systems and most Unix-like operating systems. List See also * List of ...

( ls, cp, mv, cd, etc.) for a large number of file systems which are supported by NetBSD.

References

External links

*
''Rump Kernels: No OS? No Problem!''
by Antti Kantee and Justin Cormack (PDF)
DDEKit

{{Operating system NetBSD Operating system kernels