kerneladdressbased

Kerneladdressbased is a term used in operating system kernel design to describe an addressing paradigm in which kernel resources are identified and accessed primarily by their memory addresses within the kernel address space, rather than by abstract handles, IDs, or capabilities. This approach treats pointers to kernel objects as the primary means of reference, with access controlled by the kernel’s memory protection mechanisms.

In a kerneladdressbased model, subsystems and drivers may interact directly with objects located at fixed or dynamically assigned addresses. Implementations often rely on carefully managed object pools, fixed mappings, or memory-mapped regions. While this can reduce indirection and improve performance, it also places greater responsibility on the kernel to ensure integrity, uniqueness, and lifetime guarantees for the addressed objects.

The main advantages of kerneladdressbased design include lower overhead for resource lookup, faster access paths, and simpler internal APIs for some core subsystems. However, it increases the burden of ensuring safety, as dereferencing invalid or deallocated addresses can lead to crashes, memory corruption, or security vulnerabilities. Robust memory management, rigorous validation, and strict separation between user and kernel space remain essential concerns in any implementation.

Kerneladdressbased approaches are typically contrasted with handle-based or capability-based systems, which rely on abstract references that can decay or be revoked without direct memory access. In practice, many modern kernels blend techniques, using address-based references internally while exposing higher-level handles to user space to maintain safety and modularity.

See also: memory management, kernel API design, device driver model, capability-based security.