Hello,

I'd like to add that there is the nic_bridge if you need to make one NIC device available to multiple NIC sessions at the same time. The nic_bridge would be the only client of the usb_drv. Multiple networking clients can then be connected to the nic_bridge.

The rule of thumb is that a device driver supports only one client for a given physical device resource whereas a resource multiplexer multiplexes one session interface to multiple clients. The usb_drv is a device driver, nic_bridge is a matching resource multiplexer. By combining them, multiple clients can use a single NIC. The benefit of cleanly separating both concerns (device driver and resource multiplexer) into different components is that the device driver becomes uncritical for potential cross-talk between NIC sessions. So it does not need to be trusted for maintaining the isolation between NIC clients. In contrast, the multiplexer is in such a critical position. But because it does not need to drive any device nor does it need to support high-level interfaces (such as a socket interface), it can be implemented with very low complexity and thoroughly analyzed for security.

That said, there may be performance reasons that would justify merging both roles into a single component. But since that would weaken the security, it should be considered as a special case.

Sebastian's email referred to the possibility to have multiple NICs attached to USB. In this case, the usb_drv should make each NIC available as a dedicated NIC session. Right now, usb_drv hands out only the first NIC found on the USB.

Cheers Norman

On 01/11/2013 11:22 AM, Sebastian Sumpf wrote:

Hello Jaeyong,

On 01/11/2013 06:23 AM, jaeyong yoo wrote:

...

Is it possible to have multiple sessions from usb_drv?

If it is, how does usb_drv multiplex the receiving packets from NIC device to the corresponding session?

The usb_drv is almost ready to support multiple NICs. Currently a NIC device can be associated to a NIC session. What the driver is lacking, is configuration support in Genode's configuration file. There one would want to specify which client will receive which NIC session when connecting to the USB server, but that could be implemented pretty straight forward. Multiplexing is not necessary, since the NIC device is associated to the session. When a device interrupt occurs, the device will report it to the session and the session in turn to the client.

Regards,

Sebastian