MiSFIT: constructing safe extensible systems

Abstract

The authors demonstrate how their Minimal i386 Software Fault Isolation Tool (MiSFIT) protects applications from end user extensions written in otherwise unsafe languages. They also compare the performance of unprotected code with MiSFIT-protected versions. MiSFIT can be used to fault isolate dynamically linked extensions to Web browsers, operating system extensions, or client code linked to a database server. As performance results show, by providing safety at a reasonably small overhead, MiSFIT is part of an end-to-end solution to the problem of constructing extensible systems.