Protection structures in multiprocessor systems

Protection against accidental or malicious destruction of information is an important feature in multiprocessor systeills. A related aspect of protection is the error confinement, without which most of the reliability goals are difficult to achieve. In this paper the problem of protecting information is analized in its general form, and the two most relevant implementation techniques are pointed out, i.e., the access control lists and the capability lists. The protection of memory segments is emphasized, and the implementation of a capability based addressing is particularly investigated. Two of the most relevant multiprocessor systems implementing a capability based addressing are briefly described.