Benchmarking the Impact of Faulty Drivers: Application to the Linux Kernel

Abstract

Dependability concerns, encompassing robustness assessment, are essential questions to answer before a developer can make the decision whether to integrate off-the-shelf (OTS) components into a dependable system. Here, and in what follows, robustness is understood as the degree to which a system operates correctly in the presence of exceptional inputs or stressful environmental conditions, in compliance with the generic definition (dependability with respect to external faults) given in [Aviz ienis et al. 2004].From a cost-effectiveness viewpoint, operating systems and kernels are privileged OTS components as candidates for integration into a system. However, integrators are often reluctant to make such a move without obtaining a deeper knowledge and understanding about such a component beyond functional issues, in particular with respect to its failure modes and its behavior in the presence of faults. Due to the opacity that is often attached to the commercial offer and to the difficulty and significant cost associated with the availability of the source code, the Open Source option, for which access to the source code is granted, is progressively making its way as an attractive and promising alternative. Also, results of many studies have shown that Open Source solutions did not exhibit significantly more critical failure modes and in some cases they were even found to demonstrate behaviors superior to commercial options [Koopman and DeVale 1999, Marsden et al. 2002, Vieira & Madeira 2003; see also Chapter 5 for the latter. In this chapter, we will simply denote such components (either commercial or Open Source) as OTS components.In the past years, several experimental studies have addressed this important issue from different perspectives [Koopman and DeVale 1999 (see also Chapter 11), . This has also led to the proposal of tentative dependability benchmarking approaches, aimed at characterizing the robustness of computer systems Dependability Benchmarking for Computer Systems.

Functional Framework and Hardware Platform for Dependability Study in Short Range Wireless Embedded Systems

“…A.Albinet and all [11] propose a practical approach to benchmarking the robustness of embedded operating systems (Linux as open source COTS) with respect to faulty device drivers. In order to facilitate the conduct of fault injection experiments, they introduce the notion of the driver programming interface (DPI) that precisely identifies the interface between the drivers and the kernel, in the form of a specific programming level (set of low level software functions).…”

Investigating Dependability of Short-Range Wireless Embedded Systems through Hardware Platform Based Design

“…A task adaptation between the integrated COTS and the other parts of the architecture design (on-chip architecture) will be performed. COTS dependability is a research subject by it self [6], we are focusing on the dependability of the adaptation interface between it and the rest of the architecture.…”