31. ANSI implementation of protection module

31.1. Introduction

.readership: Any MPS developer.

.intro: This is the design for the ANSI implementation of the protection module.

31.2. Requirements

.req.test: This module is required for testing. Particularly on platforms where no real implementation of the protection module exists.

.req.rapid-port: This module is required for rapid porting. It should enable a developer to port a minimally useful configuration of the MPS to new platforms very quickly.

31.3. Overview

.overview: Most of the functions in the module do nothing. The exception is ProtSync() which traverses over all segments in the arena and simulates an access to each segment that has any protection on it. This means that this module depends on certain fields in the segment structure.

.overview.noos: No operating system specific (or even ANSI hosted specific) code is in this module. It can therefore be used on any platform, particularly where no real implementation of the module exists. It satisfies .req.test and .req.rapid-port in this way.

31.4. Functions

.fun.protsetup: ProtSetup() does nothing as there is nothing to do (under UNIX we might expect the protection module to install one or more signal handlers at this pointer, but that is not appropriate for the ANSI implementation). Of course, we can’t have an empty function body, so there is a NOOP; here.

.fun.sync: ProtSync() is called to ensure that the actual protection of each segment (as determined by the OS) is in accordance with the segments’s pm field. In the ANSI implementation we have no way of changing the protection of a segment, so instead we generate faults on all protected segments in the assumption that that will remove the protection on segments.

.fun.sync.how: Continually loops over all the segments until it finds that all segments have no protection.

.fun.sync.seg: If it finds a segment that is protected then PoolAccess() is called on that segment’s pool and with that segment. The call to PoolAccess() is wrapped with a ShieldEnter() and ShieldLeave() thereby giving the pool the illusion that the fault was generated outside the MM. This depends on being able to determine the protection of a segment (using the pm field), on being able to call ShieldEnter() and ShieldLeave(), and on being able to call PoolAccess().