Abstract
Eliminating OS bugs is essential to ensuring the reliability of
infrastructures ranging from embedded systems to servers. Several tools
based on static analysis have been proposed for finding bugs in OS code.
They have, however, emphasized scalability over usability, making it
difficult to focus the tools on specific kinds of bugs and to relate the
results to patterns in the source code.
We propose a declarative approach to bug finding in Linux OS
code using a control-flow based program search engine. Our approach is
WYSIWIB (What You See Is Where It Bugs), since the programmer expresses
specifications for bug finding using a syntax close to that of ordinary C
code. The key advantage of our approach is that search specifications can
be easily tailored, to eliminate false positives or catch more bugs. We
present three case studies that have allowed us to find hundreds of
potential bugs.
infrastructures ranging from embedded systems to servers. Several tools
based on static analysis have been proposed for finding bugs in OS code.
They have, however, emphasized scalability over usability, making it
difficult to focus the tools on specific kinds of bugs and to relate the
results to patterns in the source code.
We propose a declarative approach to bug finding in Linux OS
code using a control-flow based program search engine. Our approach is
WYSIWIB (What You See Is Where It Bugs), since the programmer expresses
specifications for bug finding using a syntax close to that of ordinary C
code. The key advantage of our approach is that search specifications can
be easily tailored, to eliminate false positives or catch more bugs. We
present three case studies that have allowed us to find hundreds of
potential bugs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Publication date | 2009 |
| Pages | 43-52 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-4244-4421-2 |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
| Event | 2009 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN´09) - Estoril, Portugal Duration: 29 Jun 2009 → 2 Jul 2009 Conference number: 39 |
Conference
| Conference | 2009 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN´09) |
|---|---|
| Number | 39 |
| Country/Territory | Portugal |
| City | Estoril |
| Period | 29/06/2009 → 02/07/2009 |