User:Mxberner

Max Berner

Marquette REU Summer 2022

Advisor: Dr. Brylow

Summer 2022 Project: https://reu.cs.mu.edu/index.php/Porting_Embedded_XINU_to_Virgil

Weekly Logs

Week 1 (05/31/22 - 06/05/22)

• Met the cohort, mentor, and research group.
• Reviewed potential subjects of research

 - Updating Exploring CS curriculum
 - Porting Embedded XINU to Virgil Programming Language
 - Porting Embedded XINU to RISC-V Architecture

• Researched RISC-V as a potential processor to port OS Xinu over to.

 - RISC-V is most applicable for small devices with it's energy conservation and great performance for strictly simple tasks.
 - RISC refers to Reduced Instruction Set Computer
 - Advantage: Open-Source license that does not require fees to use
 - Advantage: Creating a custom chip is easier
 - Advantage: Base module is extremely limited, allowing customization/optimization.
 - Advantage: Power efficient, magnitudes less energy than CISC models. 
 - Disadvantage: Not many purchasable, brand-name RISC-V processors available. 
 - Disadvantage: With only simple instructions available, complex tasks are slower.

• Conducted personal research into single-board computers, hardware architecture, and assembly language to contextualize my research of RISC-V.
• Completed online RCR training modules through CITI program
• Began research into Virgil

Week 2 (06/06/22 - 06/12/22)

• Completed in-person RCR training
• Created wiki page for Porting Embedded XINU to Virgil Programming Language.
• Began contextual research into porting and operating systems.
• Attended technical writing presentation
• Installed and set-up Debian, a Linux environment on my Windows computer through WSL. (Required since Virgil does not compile to Windows)
• Executed a "Hello World!" written in Virgil on Debian
• Established remote connection to @morbius.mscs.mu.edu.
• Cloned Embedded Xinu and Virgil repositories to morbius.

Week 3 (06/13/22 - 06/19/22)

• Disassembled Virgil code to study assembly code behind it.
• Determined all system calls Virgil uses.
• Researched all system calls that Embedded Xinu provides.
• Attended Dr. Praveen's research presentation.
• Read Tanenbaum Modern Operating Systems
• Read about Dr. Brylows Operating Systems course at Marquette.

Week 4 (06/20/22 - 06/26/22)

• Started plan to get Virgil to compile/execute to Embedded Xinu.
• Researched function behind Virgil's primary system calls.
• Background reading on compilers.
• Background reading on Embedded Xinu.
• Background reading on operating systems.
• Attended faculty research meeting.

Week 5 (06/27/22 - 07/03/22)

• Attended presentation on giving a quality technical presentation
• Conducted research on ELF-x86 executables.
• Created presentation for achievement halfway through the REU
• Presented the presentation.
• Continued research on cross-compilers and native executables.

Week 6 (07/04/22 - 07/10/22)

• Installed Qemu
• Researched ELF-loaders for multiple OS and architectures
• Researched the format for ELF binaries.
• Familiarized myself with Embedded Xinu

Week 7 (07/10/22 - 07/17/22)

• Started development of an elf-loader
• Created elfhdr struct for storing relevant information of ELF object file
• Began writing C program mimicking Linux readelf.

Week 8 (07/17/22 - 07/24/22)

• Formatted output for readelf program.
• Researched data types for storing raw byte information (uchar, uint, ushort, ulong, etc.)
• Finalized elfhdr for ELF loader for 64-bit programs.
• Attended meeting on creating effective posters.
• Began creating poster for project.

Week 9 (07/24/22 - 07/31/22)

• Attended talk on attended graduate school.
• Read bytes in from a ELF file to store relevant information in elfhdr object.
• Began locating program header and section header information.
• Began creating final paper for project.

Week 10 (07/31/22 - 08/05/22)

• Presented poster
• Created final presentation
• Finished research paper