Microkernel.md (514B)
1 # Microkernel 2 3 **Source:** CS 6200 4 5 **Chapter:** P1L2 6 7 **Definition:** A microkernel is a minimal kernel that only supplies primitives like an address space for processes, the context of the process (thread), and IPC. 8 9 Everything else runs at user level, even things like device drivers and filesystems. This forces lots of IPC. 10 11 ## Pros and Cons 12 13 - Smaller 14 - (Often more) verifiable 15 - Less portable 16 - Software complexity 17 - lots of IPC to manage 18 - Frequent user kernel crossing 19 - Adds performance overhead