Executing a kernel device driver as a user space process

A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising:
• computer readable program code configured to receive, by a user space driver framework (UDF) library executing from a user space of a memory over an operating system kernel operated by a device driver executing from the user space, a kernel application programming interface (API) call from a device driver executing from the user space;
• and
• computer readable program code configured to determine that the operation comprises a privileged operation, wherein if the operation is privileged, the API call is conveyed, via a file descriptor, to a UDF kernel module executing from a kernel space of the memory over the operating system kernel, and the privileged operation is performed, by a kernel space emulation module, the privileged operation from the kernel space while conveying completion information back to the UDF library.