[cap-talk] Gnu Hurd status? (was: Re: Object-Capability Patterns: An Historical Overview)

[Jed Donnelley]

At 06:46 AM 3/20/2008, Pierre THIERRY wrote:
>...does the cancellation forwarding protocol[1] devised during
>discussions about the Hurd seem a useful use?
>
>   1. http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/hurd/ng/cancellationforwarding/

Has anybody followed the Hurd development enough to give the rest of 
us a high level status report?

 From this:
_________
The Hurd is GNU's replacement for the various UNIX and Linux kernels.

The Hurd is firstly a collection of protocols formalizing how 
different components may interact. The protocols are designed to 
reduce the mutual trust requirements of the actors thereby permitting 
a more extensible system. These include interface definitions to 
manipulate files and directories and to resolve path names. This 
allows any process to implement a file system. The only requirement 
is that it have access to its backing store and that the principal 
that started it own the file system node to which it connects.

The Hurd is also a set of servers that implement these protocols. 
They include file systems, network protocols and authentication. The 
servers run on top of the Mach microkernel and use Mach's IPC 
mechanism to transfer information.

The Hurd development effort is a somewhat separate project from the 
Debian GNU/Hurd port. The Hurd is a component of the GNU operating system.
_________

It sounds like the Hurd is mostly a set of protocols and servers 
running over a Mach kernel that can supply the existing Unix/Posix 
API services - presumably with better reliability?  Since the 
underlying "capabilities" (do they use that term?) are 
non-persistent, I assume that means that the Hurd continues to 
support the existing standard Unix authentication and authorization mechanisms?

Can anybody share what the current driving force is behind the Hurd 
and what may be holding it back?  To me it seems that our POLA 
efforts, in so far as they may be satisfied by non persistent 
capabilities, share a lot in common with the Hurd work - no?  Is 
there anything people want done with non persistent capabilities that 
can't be done in the context of the Hurd?

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed-signature.html