On the Implementation of Data-Breakpoints Based Race Detection for Linux Kernel Modules

Abstract

An important class of problems in software are race conditions. Errors of this class are becoming more common and more dangerous with the development of multi-processor and multi-core systems, especially in such a fundamentally parallel environment as an operating system kernel. The paper overviews some of existing approaches to detect race conditions including DataCollider system based on concurrent memory access tracking. RaceHound, a race condition detection system for Linux drivers based on similar principles as DataCollider is presented.