The Reflective Virtual Machine

Karsten Verelst^1* - kaverels@vub.ac.be
Werner Van Belle¹ - werner@yellowcouch.org, werner.van.belle@gmail.com
Theo D'Hondt¹ - tjdhondt@vub.ac.be

1- Programming Technology Lab (PROG) Department of Computer Science (DINF) Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB); Pleinlaan 2; 1050 Brussel; Belgium
* Corresponding author

Abstract :  We claim that current day reflective architectures do not offer sufficient functionality, and that new developments in computer science push us towards a stronger reflective model: reflective virtual machines. We have witnessed these shortcomings in the application domain of mobility. Strong mobility is very difficult to implement in today's programming languages, mainly because of the inability to capture the program's computational state. Therefore we propose a new reflective architecture, the reflective virtual machine, that offers sufficient support for applications in mobility. In this paper we will first describe the basic functionality a mobile agentplatform should offer. This shall be done using a solution to the malicious host problem as a case. After identifying these needs we will introduce an interpreter, the Reflective Virtual Machine, that offers sufficient reflection, so that mobile applications can be straightforwardly implemented.

Keywords:  reflection, mobility, security, malicous host problem, virtual machines
Reference:  Karsten Verelst, Werner Van Belle, Theo D'Hondt; The Reflective Virtual Machine; June 2001
Files: Reflective[Reflection2001].pdf, Reflective[Reflection2001].ps.gz