ARINC 653 Hypervisor for Linux

This repository contains two crates which both depend on the a653rs-linux-core crate:

• a653rs-linux-hypervisor is an ARINC 653-compliant type 2 hypervisor that supports paravirtualization on a process level. It is based on the Linux OS and provides an APEX-like API, as defined in the a653rs-linux-core crate, to the partitions.
• a653rs-linux is a a653rs shim library used in partition development. It uses the hypervisor's APEX-like API to provide an actual APEX API.

The goal of this project is to provide a familiar environment for the functional development of ARINC 653 partitions.

The user provides a partitioning scheme and a normal Linux binary for each partition, which will then in turn be scheduled and managed by the a653rs-linux-hypervisor binary. Each partition is a regular Unix process running in its own CGroup and namespace, to not interfere with the host operating system.

Example

In this example, the partitions with the binaries fuel_tank_simulation and fuel_tank_controller exchange data using two ARINC 653 sampling channels. The location of the binaries is discovered using the PATH environment variable.

# examples/fuel_tank.yaml
major_frame: 20ms
partitions:
  - id: 0
    name: fuel_tank_simulation
    duration: 10ms
    offset: 0ms
    period: 20ms
    image: fuel_tank_simulation
  - id: 1
    name: fuel_tank_controller
    offset: 10ms
    duration: 10ms
    image: fuel_tank_controller
    period: 20ms
channel:
  - !Sampling
    msg_size: 10KB
    source:
      partition: fuel_tank_simulation
      port: fuel_sensors
    destination:
      - partition: fuel_tank_controller
        port: fuel_sensors
  - !Sampling
    msg_size: 10KB
    source:
      partition: fuel_tank_controller
      port: fuel_actuators
    destination:
      - partition: fuel_tank_simulation
        port: fuel_actuators

cargo build --release --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl -p fuel_tank_simulation -p fuel_tank_controller
PATH="target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release:$PATH"
RUST_LOG=trace cargo run --package a653rs-linux-hypervisor --release -- examples/fuel_tank.yaml

Compatibility

The hypervisor runs as a regular POSIX process requiring only user-level privileges on most modern Linux distributions. For this, the hypervisor requires a somewhat modern version of both the Linux kernel and the Rust toolchain, as it makes heavy use of the cgroups(7) and namespaces(7) APIs for its internal operations. Support for precise temporal isolation of partitions is currently not implemented and provided on a best-effort basis only.

Support of ARINC 653 is still incomplete and expanded continuously. The following traits of a653rs are currently implemented:

• ApexProcessP4
• ApexPartitionP4
• ApexSamplingPortP4
• ApexTimeP4
• ApexErrorP4

Stability

As of now (February 2024), the project is relatively new and untested, meaning that certain things may be subject to change.

Related Work

There has been a small but steady stream of work towards ARINC 653 execution environments. This is a (non-exhaustive!) list of projects with a similar, ARINC 653 related, scope:

• Airbus a653lib
  • Runs on Linux
  • Based on POSIX process API
  • Licensed as LGPL-2.1-or-later
• pok
  • GitHub repo
  • Runs bare-metal on x86, PowerPC, Leon
  • POSIX & ARINC 653 compatible
  • Licensed as BSD-2-Clause
• JetOS
  • Fork of pok
  • GitHub repo #1
  • GitHub repo #2
  • Runs bare-metal on x86, PowerPC, Leon
  • POSIX & ARINC 653 compatible
  • Licensed as mix of BSD-2-Clause, GPL-3.0-only
• ARISS
  • Runs on Linux
• arinc653emulator
  • Runs on Linux
• ARINC653_ARMV7A_Z7000
  • Runs bare-metal on Xilinx Zynq 7000
  • Licensed as BSD-2-Clause