Techniques for reducing CPU privilege boundary crossings

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon program code executable by an operating system (OS) kernel of a computer system, the program code embodying a method comprising:

• receiving an invocation of a system call by a user program running on the computer system;
• fetching a plurality of subsequent instructions that will be executed by the user program after the invocation of the system call;
• decoding the plurality of subsequent instructions into a plurality of decoded instructions;
• and
• analyzing whether:
• the plurality of decoded instructions includes an additional system call invocation;
• and
• all other decoded instructions that appear in the plurality of decoded instructions between the invocation of the system call and the additional system call invocation are viable for emulation by the OS kernel.

A computer system comprising:

• a central processing unit (CPU);
• an operating system (OS) kernel;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon program code that causes the OS kernel to:
• receive an invocation of a system call by a user program running on the computer system;
• fetch a plurality of subsequent instructions that will be executed by the user program after the invocation of the system call;
• decode the plurality of subsequent instructions into a plurality of decoded instructions;
• and
• analyze whether:
• the plurality of decoded instructions includes an additional system call invocation;
• and
• all other decoded instructions that appear in the plurality of decoded instructions between the invocation of the system call and the additional system call invocation are viable for emulation by the OS kernel.