Diverse partial memory replication

An important approach for software dependability is the use of diversity to detect and/or tolerate errors. We develop and evaluate an approach for automated program diversity called Diverse Partial Memory Replication (DPMR), aimed at detecting memory safety errors. DPMR is an automatic compiler transformation that replicates some subset of an executable's data memory and applies one or more diversity transformations to the replica. DPMR can detect any kind of memory safety error in any part of a program's data memory. Moreover, DPMR is novel because it uses partial replication within a single address space, replicating (and comparing) only a subset of a program's memory. We propose and evaluate two strategies for handling pointers stored in memory, a key challenge to DPMR. We also perform a detailed study of the diversity mechanisms and state comparison policies in DPMR (a first of its kind for such diversity approaches), which is valuable for exploiting the high flexibility of DPMR. Finally, we explore the use of Data Structure Analysis to eliminate nearly all restrictions on input programs that would otherwise be necessary.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Lefever, Ryan M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Sanders, William H.
• Adve, Vikram S.
• Nicol, David M.
• Patel, Sanjay J.

• replication
• diverse partial memory replication
• software memory errors
• memory safety
• software diversity
• partial replication
• fault injection
• experimental evaluation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Ryan M. Lefever

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24042

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24042