The Coyotos Secure Operating System
Coyotos is a secure, microkernel-based operating system that builds on the ideas and experiences of the EROS project. Much of the code developed for EROS will migrate directly to Coyotos.
Objectives
The Coyotos project has several objectives:
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Correct some of the shortcomings of the earlier EROS design.
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Demonstrate that an atomic kernel design scales up as well as down. We are planning to bring up versions of Coyotos on large-scale multiprocessors.
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Provide an efficient linux compatibility environment for use as a transitional runtime system, so that we can explore adapting applications to a more secure API foundation.
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(Eventually) Construct the kernel and key utilities in a new systems programming language (BitC) with a well-defined, mechanically-specified semantics. This will allow us to formally verify security and correctness properties of the system and its key utilities.
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Develop the proving technology necessary to do useful verification about a project of this sort.
Target Platforms
Coyotos is being developed on AMD-64 and Pentium platforms. A port is also underway to recent Coldfire processors. Once we have a baseline kernel working, we would welcome help getting it running on PowerPC and ARM processors as well.
It is far too early to speculate about release dates.
Mailing Lists
At present, the main mailing list for the coyotos project is coyotos-dev. This list is intended primarily for developers and architects. When a release exists, we will add a user-oriented list as well.