What is the main difference between drivers and user applications?

Question

I know that user applications can run only in user mode, which is for system security. On the contrary most drivers run in kernel mode, to access I/O devices. Nevertheless some driver run in user mode, but are allowed to access I/O devices. So I have the following question. What is the main difference between drivers and user applications? Can't user application be allowed to access I/O devices like some drivers do?

Thanks.

Answer 1

First of all, some preview from this link :-

Applications run in user mode, and core operating system components run in kernel mode. Many drivers run in kernel mode, but some drivers run in user mode.

When you start a user-mode application, Windows(/any OS) creates a process for the application. The process provides the application with a private virtual address space and a private handle table. Because an application's virtual address space is private, one application cannot alter data that belongs to another application.

In addition to being private, the virtual address space of a user-mode application is limited. A processor running in user mode cannot access virtual addresses that are reserved for the operating system. Limiting the virtual address space of a user-mode application prevents the application from altering, and possibly damaging, critical operating system data.

All code that runs in kernel mode shares a single virtual address space. This means that a kernel-mode driver is not isolated from other drivers and the operating system itself. If a kernel-mode driver accidentally writes to the wrong virtual address, data that belongs to the operating system or another driver could be compromised.

Also, from this link

Software drivers

Some drivers are not associated with any hardware device at all. For example, suppose you need to write a tool that has access to core operating system data structures, which can be accessed only by code running in kernel mode. You can do that by splitting the tool into two components. The first component runs in user mode and presents the user interface. The second component runs in kernel mode and has access to the core operating system data. The component that runs in user mode is called an application, and the component that runs in kernel mode is called a software driver. A software driver is not associated with a hardware device.

Also, software drivers() always run in kernel mode. The main reason for writing a software driver is to gain access to protected data that is available only in kernel mode. But device drivers do not always need access to kernel-mode data and resources. So some device drivers run in user mode.

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What is the main difference between drivers and user applications?

The difference is same as that between a sub-marine and a ship. Drivers are hardware-dependent and operating-system-specific. They usually provide the interrupt handling required for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interface. Hence, almost all of them run in kernel mode. Whereas, as specified in the second paragraph, to prevent applications damaging critical OS data, the user applications are bound to run in user space.

Also, not all drivers communicate directly with a device. For a given I/O request (like reading data from a device), there are often several drivers, layered in a stack, that participate in the request. The one driver in the stack that communicates directly with the device is called the function driver; the drivers that perform auxiliary processing are called filter drivers.

Can't user application be allowed to access I/O devices like some drivers do?

The application calls a function implemented by the operating system, and the operating system calls a function implemented by the driver. The driver knows how to communicate with the device hardware to get the data. After the driver gets the data from the device, it returns the data to the operating system, which returns it to the application.

Applications connect to IO devices through APIs/interfaces presented by device drivers(rather the OS). The OS handles most hardware/software interaction. Hardware vendors write "plugins/modules/drivers" which allows the OS to control their specific hardware. So using the interfaces provided by the OS, you can write your Application to access IO devices.

So, you can't have a user application directly access the hardware without the help of drivers because it's all drivers below the hierarchy to access the device as device drivers are written in low-level languages which can communicate with hardware, whereas user-applications are written in high-level languages.

Also, check this answer to get more idea about drivers address space in various OS'.