TPM, Haskell and RPC mapped through NOVA

[Thomas Strobel]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the genode mailing list, so before I start asking questions,
I would want to introduce myself. I'm a software developer and
entrepreneur and I'm looking for the right tools to build a new product.
It will be a cloud platform which focuses on security and privacy. Now,
I'm interested in whether Genode could help me with that, and so I would
be very thankful if you could help me with the questions I have so far.

My first question is whether there is a resource multiplexer for a TPM
in Genode? Is there something equivalent to the Virtual Trusted Platform
Module in Xen? [1]

My second question is how Genode can communicate with a system that is
running inside a NOVA hypervisor. Let's say I want to run an unmodified
Linux kernel on top of NOVA. Is there some kind of kernel module for
Linux that acts as a client/server to some server/client running
somewhere else in Genode? In other words, how can RPC be passed into and
out of the Linux user space?

My next question is how difficult it is to write Genode applications in
Haskell. Is there an environment which can run Haskell applications,
something similar to the Haskell Lightweight Virtual Machine for Xen? [2]

My last question is about the GPL licensing of the Genode OS framework.
What licensing requirements are there for the Genode applications? Do
they have to be released under a GPL compatible license as well, or can
that be closed source components?

To put these question into relation, a few words about the software
architecture that I have in mind. I want to run Genode at the lowest
layer, and then run isolated, normal Linux systems on top of the NOVA
hypervisor. The Linux systems should be controlled and managed by a
Haskell application that is running directly on Genode and communicates
with Linux user space programs through RPC. The PRC for the Linux user
space applications should be somehow fed through NOVA and the Linux
kernel. The Haskell application might not be available as open source,
so that is where the last question is coming from.

I would very much appreciate to hear about your thoughts.


Many thanks in advance,
Thomas



[1] http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Virtual_Trusted_Platform_Module_(vTPM)
[2] https://github.com/GaloisInc/HaLVM