Abstract
A ubiquitous computing system derives its operations from the collective interactions of its constituent components. Consequently, a robust ubiquitous system entails that the discrete components must be robust to handle errors arising in themselves and over interactions with other system components. This paper conceptually outlines a profiling framework that assists in finding weaknesses in one of the fundamental building blocks of computer based systems, namely the Operating System (OS). The framework allows a system designer to ascertain possible error propagation paths, from drivers through the OS to applications. This significantly helps enhance the OS (or driver/application) with selective robustness hardening capabilities, i.e., robustness wrappers.
We appreciate the inspration & insights from Dr Martin Hiller and the funding support of Microsoft Research through the Innovation Excellence Program.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Arlat, J., et al.: Dependability of COTS Microkernel-based Systems. IEEE Trans. on Computers 51(2), 138–163 (2002)
Chou, A., et al.: An Empirical Study of Operating System Errors. In: Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, pp. 73–88 (2001)
DeVale, J., Koopman, P.: Performance Evaluation of Exception Handling in I/O Libraries. In: Proc. DSN, pp. 519–524 (2001)
DeVale, J., Koopman, P.: Robust Software - No More Excuses. In: Proc. DSN, pp. 145–154 (2002)
Fetzer, C., Xiao, Z.: An Automated Approach to Increasing the Robustness of C Libraries. In: Proc. DSN, pp. 155–164 (2002)
Gu, W., et al.: Characterization of Linux Kernel Behavior Under Errors. In: Proc. DSN, pp. 459–468 (2003)
Hiller, M., Jhumka, A., Suri, N.: PROPANE: An Environment for Examining the Propagation of Errors in Software. In: Proc. of ISSTA, pp. 81–85 (2002)
Hiller, M., Jhumka, A., Suri, N.: An Approach for Analysing the Propagation of Data Errors in Software. In: Proc. DSN, pp. 161–170 (2001)
Hiller, M., Jhumka, A., Suri, N.: EPIC: Profiling the Propagation and Effect of Data Errors in Software. IEEE Trans. on Computers, 512–530 (May 2004)
Michael, C., Jones, R.: On the Uniformity of Error Propagation in Software. In: Proc. of COMPASS, pp. 68–76 (1997)
Miller, B., et al.: An Empirical Study of the Reliability of Unix Utilities. CACM 33(12), 32–44 (1990)
Murphy, B., Levidow, B.: Windows 2000 Dependability. In: Proc. of the Workshop on Dependable Networks and OS, DSN, pp. D20–D28 (2000)
Schmid, M., et al.: Techniques for Evaluating the Robustness of Windows NT Software. In: Proc. of DARPA Information Survivability Conference & Exposition, vol. 2, pp. 1347–1360 (2000)
Swift, M., et al.: Nooks: An Architecture for Reliable Device Drivers. In: Proc of the Tenth ACM SIGOPS European Workshop, pp. 101–107 (2002)
Swift, M., et al.: Improving the Reliability of Commodity Operating Systems. In: Proc of SOSP, pp. 207–222 (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Johansson, A., Sârbu, A., Jhumka, A., Suri, N. (2005). On Enhancing the Robustness of Commercial Operating Systems. In: Malek, M., Reitenspieß, M., Kaiser, J. (eds) Service Availability. ISAS 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3335. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30225-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30225-4_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-24420-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30225-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)