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DriverProcesses

Driver processes are a concept to accelerate Cy/VOS on the x86 platform without loss of security. Specifically, all driver processes share page tables with the kernel, but operate at nonpriviledged rings (ring 3, or possibly ring 1). They are isolated also by segment protection, which tends to be faster to swap than flushing the entire page table and TLB.

There are disadvantages to this option. Namely, driver processes should not dynamically allocate a large amount of RAM, or the result can lead to considerable fragmentation of the kernel page table. This is not the sort of showstopper it is on some operating systems, though: thanks to the segmented memory model, the page table can be defragmented effectively, although this is not a quick operation.

Because this option allows driver processes to execute kernel vectors rapidly, and vice versa, it should drastically speed up the execution of the system.

Driver processes are also excluded from the normal rules of system partition boundaries. Executing outside of the partition boundary rules allow the drivers to be shared across the system, eliminating duplication across partitions.