Using kernel level simulation techniques to improve application program robustness

• US 20050197815A1
• Filed: 02/12/2004
• Published: 09/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Grebenev, Dmitry
• Granted Patent: US 7,130,786 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3696 Methods or tools to render software testable
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105

Abstract

A method and system for simulating system conditions at a kernel-level is provided. In one aspect, process identifiers of processes for which simulation is to be performed are transmitted along with simulation pattern or rules from a user-space to a kernel space. Emulator in the kernel space intercepts system calls invoked by processes running in the user space. If the system calls originated from the one or more processes for which emulation was to be performed, return results according to the simulation pattern are generated and returned to the calling process.

Claims

1. A method of simulating system conditions at a kernel-level, comprising:

intercepting an operating system call from an application at a kernel-level;

determining whether the operating system call was called from a process that was identified for failure emulation;

if the operating system call was called from a process that was identified for failure emulation, consulting user loaded rules and returning results to the operating system call according to the user loaded rules; and

if the operating system call was not called from a process that was identified for failure emulation, calling a native operating system service routine associated with the operating system call.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining includes at least determining whether an identifier of the process was communicated previously as being a process for failure emulation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user loaded rules include type of failure to emulate, frequency of failure, or error codes to return, or combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the intercepting is transparent to the process for failure emulation.

5. A method of simulating system conditions at a kernel-level, comprising:

identifying one or more processes to a kernel-level module for which to emulate failures;

transmitting one or more failure rules to the kernel-level module, the one or more failure rules associated with the one or more processes;

activating the kernel-level module; and

running the one or more processes.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the identifying includes at least transmitting one or more process identifiers to the kernel-level module, the one or more process identifiers associated with respective one or more processes for which failure emulation is to be performed.

7. The method of claim 5, further including deactivating the kernel-level module.

8. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method of simulating system conditions at a kernel-level, comprising:

intercepting an operating system call from an application at a kernel-level;

determining whether the operating system call was called from a process that was identified for failure emulation;

if the operating system call was called from a process that was identified for failure emulation, consulting user loaded rules and returning results to the operating system call according to the user loaded rules; and

if the operating system call was not called from a process that was identified for failure emulation, calling a native operating system service routine associated with the operating system call.

9. The program storage device of claim 8, wherein the determining includes at least determining whether an identifier of the process was communicated previously as being a process for failure emulation.

10. The program storage device of claim 8, wherein the user loaded rules include type of failure to emulate, frequency of failure, or error codes to return, or combination thereof.

11. The program storage device of claim 8, wherein the intercepting is transparent to the process for failure emulation.

12. A system for simulating system conditions at a kernel-level, comprising:

a user-space module operable to transmit one or more process identifiers and one or more rules associated with the process identifiers for emulating failure conditions at a kernel-level; and

a kernel-level module operable to intercept system call, and further operable to determine whether the system call was invoked from one or more processes identified by the one or more process identifiers and if the system call was invoked from the one or more processes identified by the one or more process identifiers, the kernel-level module further operable to generate a return result according to the one or more rules, and if the system call was not invoked from the one or more processes identified by the one or more process identifiers, the kernel-level module further operable to call native operating system service routine associated with the system call.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the user-space module further includes an application programming interface that communicates with the kernel-level module.