KernelFeatures

KernelFeatures describes the core capabilities of an operating system kernel that enable resource management, process isolation, and service delivery. It covers subsystems for scheduling, memory management, I/O, file systems, networking, and security, providing stable interfaces for higher-level components while enforcing protection between users and between components.

Process management and scheduling includes creation of threads and processes, context switching, and policies that balance throughput and latency. Real-time and fair scheduling classes are common in modern kernels.

Memory management provides virtual addressing, protection, and translation. It handles allocation, deallocation, paging, and swapping, aiming to keep active data readily accessible while using physical memory efficiently.

Inter-process communication and synchronization offers primitives such as signals, pipes, queues, shared memory, and synchronization objects like mutexes and futexes, enabling coordination among tasks.

Device I/O and drivers define the hardware abstraction layer, enabling block and character I/O, driver loading, hot-plug support, and hardware-specific optimizations.

File systems and storage expose a virtual file system interface, support multiple file formats, caching, journaling, and reliability features to maintain data integrity.

Networking stacks implement protocol processing and a socket API, enabling local and remote communication, virtualization, and container networking.

Security and isolation enforce least privilege through user/kernel boundaries, access controls, namespaces, capabilities, and security modules or policies.

Extensibility and portability are achieved through modular design, loadable kernel modules, and architecture-neutral abstractions that support a wide range of hardware platforms.