CAREER:Exploiting Gray-Box Techniques in Systems

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

Modern operating systems are large and complex code bases in which hundreds of programmer-years have been invested. As a result, modifying an operating system is a difficult, costly, and often impractical endeavor. However, viewing the OS as an immutable object is at odds with most OS research. This research proposes techniques that enable the deployment of OS ideas without changing OS source code. The thesis is that an OS-like service can acquire information about the internal state of the OS and control its behavior, even when no explicit interfaces to do so are provided. With this approach, the OS is treated as a gray box, in which the general characteristics of its algorithms are known; this knowledge is then combined with run-time observations of how the OS reacts to probes in order to infer its state and exert control. Initial experience with gray-box systems points to additional areas of research: automated discovery of algorithms, on-line benchmarking to configure parameters, dynamic insertion of probes, and aggressive inference of OS internal state. Thus, the goal of this proposal is two-fold: to understand the theoretical foundations of gray-box systems and to implement a toolbox of software for the rapid development of gray-box systems.