Essay On Operating System Architecture

Operating System Architecture

By gaining control of computers, computer viruses, worms, trojans, software bugs, and bad people can create extraordinary damage by shutting down infrastructure, using online banking to steal money, or using robots to attack people. Our civilization is increasingly depended on computers for survival. Therefore, a fully secure operating system is essential for the society. Below is the architecture by which maximum security against viruses and other threats can be achieved.

Operating system and the rest of the software should be modular. Each small module performs a function and may take parameters. For example, a web browser uses an HTML renderer to display a webpage. In turn, the HTML renderer uses a jpg-renderer

To do so it sends a message (permission request and reason) to an appropriate log-in manager. A log-in manager is a program that has the right to change certain rights of processes. The log-in manager decides whether to grant permission and may prompt the user with the request and the text of the reason for the request. If the user agrees (and both the user and the manager have the permission), the request is granted. For security, messaging device manager limits access to log-in managers. The log-in manager can later terminate the special rights it had granted. A log-in manager may request authentification (username/password, digital signature, and/or satisfactory results from a special authentification program). For greatest compatibility with legacy programs, a process's rights may specify for automatic transfer of a denied attempt to access a resource to a log-in manager for a possible authorization of access. To prevent security breaches, in an ordinary configuration, only one log-in manager has broad power, and that manager may only give that power to a user who communicates only through approved channels (is at the computer).

For example, an editor does not need read-write access to all files: It simply relies on the user to grant a permission to save a file. A harmful macro in Microsoft Office will not be able to damage files except the few files for which the user explicitly gave the access. (Since the damage is quickly detected, Microsoft Office can be terminated and possibly reinstalled before the macro damages too many files.) Of course, Microsoft Office should have internal process and document rights management system to prevent a malicious document from making