Project: A Simple Operating System

Overview

The aim of the assignment is to implement a simple operating system (SOS) server on top of the seL4 microkernel. The SOS server is expected to provide a specified system call interface to its clients (Specified in libs/libsos/include/sos.h).

The project will be completed by groups of 2 students. This is a challenging project. You have been warned! The project is to be completed using the facilities in the Sabre Lite Lab.

Assessment

About half the marks for the project are obtained for timely and complete submission and demonstration of intermediate milestones (M0–M8). These milestones will be demonstrated in the lab each week. When demonstrating your solution you should be able to

The remaining marks will be determined by our assessment of your overall project and documentation. The assessment involves:

Milestones

With the exception of M9, all milestones must be submitted via give and are due at 12:00 pm, Tuesday (i.e. midday) of the respective week! The demonstrations of what was submitted must be completed before Tuesday 12:00 pm of the following week. Details of how to submit can be found here

Advanced Components (aka Stuff for Masochists)

The following features, if submitted together with your Milestone 9, will give bonus marks. (2 marks each, -1 per week late.)

Note: the bonuses must also be demonstrated at a to-be-arranged time in week 12 or 13

Notes on Bonus Marks

No bonus marks will be awarded on a “sympathy” basis for a well-intended attempt — your code implementing a bonus feature must completely work (except for maybe some minor details) in order to qualify for a bonus.
The maximum number of bonus marks that can be accumulated is 10, no matter how they have been earned.
Bonus marks (for doing a bonus component of the project) can be used to make up for lost project marks, up to the maximum project mark possible (65). If your total project marks, including bonus, exceeds 65, the surplus can be used at half face value for marks lost in the exam.
Bonus marks cannot be used if the raw exam mark is less than 40%, a 40% raw exam mark is an absolute prerequisite for passing the course!

Warning!

Some students are tempted to write some tricky or obscure code for these projects. Other students run into problems by trying to do too much.

I can only reiterate that the debugging environment you have on the Sabre Lite is extremely spartan. You will not do yourself a favour by writing obscure or particularly tricky code. You'll most likely end up getting hoplessly tangled up in your own code. Don't do this.

Write your code as clearly, obviously and straightforward as possible. This is the best safeguard against obscure bugs. I believe that the project is challenging enough as it is, there is no need to make it harder.

Furthermore, when doing the final project marking I will obviously not look with much sympathy upon code I find difficult to understand.

The same applies for implementing features beyond the project specifications. You are welcome to do this, but, in your own interest, you are strongly advised to implement the required features first. First make it work, then go for the extras! Most of the (very few) students who have failed the course to date have ignored this rule — at their peril!

You are required to submit a patch file (a diff) of all your code for the current and preceding milestones via give.

Additionally, you are to show that your project passes the milestone requirements by demonstrating its operation to a demonstrator during one of the allocated times during the week the milestone is due!.

You can only demonstrate what you submitted via give!. You are not allowed to fix any bugs found after the deadline for that weeks demonstration.

For each milestone (except milestone 9), we require you submit a diff of your code from the initial state of the code. See our submission guidelines for details.

For milestone 9, we require you submit your documentation and your code diff to m9doc and m9code respectively.