A Decision Procedure Approach to Linux Modules Dependency

Technical Report from the year 2015 in the subject Computer Science - Software, grade: 12, , course: Operating systems, language: English, abstract: This report focuses on the dependency resolution mechanism between modules for the Linux kernel. The reasoning concerns how to express dependency relation in propositional logic, based on different Linux kernel modules. It is around this topic that further development will be held. The reasoning will concern how to express this dependency relation in propositional logic.

To establish a development, an analysis of the kbuild system is performed. The goal is to identify how and what are the elements that take part in the dependency tracking mechanism.

The kbuild is a framework providing tools to construct the kernel. It can be declined into two main component : the kconfig files and makefiles. These are the elements that are responsible for handling dependency.

Logic is used to express a proof i.e., the correctness of a reasoning. To do so, a proof assistant viz., Coq is used. A decision procedure is a mechanism that resolves a problem by answering it using yes or no.