Related papers: A Time Series Analysis of Assertions in the Linux …
We present a general framework for hypothesis testing on distributions of sets of individual examples. Sets may represent many common data sources such as groups of observations in time series, collections of words in text or a batch of…
Support vector machines and kernel methods are increasingly popular in genomics and computational biology, due to their good performance in real-world applications and strong modularity that makes them suitable to a wide range of problems,…
Safe kernel extensions have gained significant traction, evolving from simple packet filters to large, complex programs that customize storage, networking, and scheduling. Existing kernel extension mechanisms like eBPF rely on in-kernel…
Linux kernel stable versions serve the needs of users who value stability of the kernel over new features. The quality of such stable versions depends on the initiative of kernel developers and maintainers to propagate bug fixing patches to…
Motivation: In a predictive modeling setting, if sufficient details of the system behavior are known, one can build and use a simulation for making predictions. When sufficient system details are not known, one typically turns to machine…
A container is a group of processes isolated from other groups via distinct kernel namespaces and resource allocation quota. Attacks against containers often leverage kernel exploits through system call interface. In this paper, we present…
Kernel traces are sequences of low-level events comprising a name and multiple arguments, including a timestamp, a process id, and a return value, depending on the event. Their analysis helps uncover intrusions, identify bugs, and find…
Attestation means providing evidence that a remote target system is worthy of trust for some sensitive interaction. Although attestation is already used in network access control, security management, and trusted execution environments, it…
Highly configurable systems are highly complex systems, with the Linux kernel arguably being one of the most well-known ones. Since 2007, it has been a frequent target of the research community, conducting empirical studies and building…
Operating systems rely on system calls to allow the controlled communication of isolated processes with the kernel and other processes. Every system call includes a processor mode switch from the unprivileged user mode to the privileged…
The open-source Linux operating system is available through a wide variety of distributions, each containing a collection of installable software packages. It can be important to keep these packages as fresh as possible to benefit from new…
In this work, we investigate the practice of patch construction in the Linux kernel development, focusing on the differences between three patching processes: (1) patches crafted entirely manually to fix bugs, (2) those that are derived…
Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) is a runtime that enables users to load programs into the operating system (OS) kernel, like Linux or Windows, and execute them safely and efficiently at designated kernel hooks. Each program passes…
Assertion-based Verification (ABV) is essential for ensuring that hardware designs conform to their intended specifications. However, existing automated assertion-generation approaches, such as LLM-based frameworks, often generate large…
The Linux kernel source code contains numerous constant values that critically influence system performance. Many of these constants, which we term perf-consts, are magic numbers that encode brittle assumptions about hardware and workloads.…
The SEMAT kernel is a thoroughly thought generic framework for Software Engineering system development in practice. But one should be able to test its characteristics by means of a no less generic theory matching the SEMAT kernel. This…
Despite being an open-source operating system pioneered in the early 90s, UNIX based platforms have not been able to garner an overwhelming reception from amateur end users. One of the rationales for under popularity of UNIX based systems…
In this paper we show that the initial philosophy used in designing and developing UNIX in early times has been forgotten due to "fast practices". We question the leitmotif that microkernels, though being by design adherent to the KISS…
Higher-order constructs extend the expressiveness of first-order (Constraint) Logic Programming ((C)LP) both syntactically and semantically. At the same time assertions have been in use for some time in (C)LP systems helping programmers…
Software engineering is not an empirically based discipline. Consequently, many of its practices are based on little more than a generally agreed feeling that something may be true. Part of the problem is that it is both relatively young…