NDLI: An approach to testing COTS software for robustness to operating system exceptions and errors

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Ghosh, A.K. Schmid, M.
Copyright Year	1999
Description	Author affiliation: Reliable Software Technol. Corp., Dulles, VA, USA (Ghosh, A.K.)
Abstract	One of the least tested but most critical portions of software systems is error and exception handling. Error/exception handling routines are the safety net for any system to handle unexpected circumstances such as when operating system (OS) or hardware failures occur. As more critical systems are developed from commercial off the shelf (COTS) software, the robustness of these applications to operating system failures, and in general, to failures from third party software, becomes increasingly critical. We present an approach and tool for assessing the robustness of COTS applications to failures from OS functions or other third-party COTS software. The approach consists of wrapping executable application software with an instrumentation layer that can capture, record, perturb, and question all interactions with the operating system. The wrapper is used to return error codes and exceptions from calls to operating system functions. The effect of the failure from the OS call is then assessed. If the application crashes under these anomalous conditions, the application is determined to be non-robust to a particular failing OS call. A failure simulation tool has been developed for testing the robustness of Win32 applications to these types of anomalous OS conditions.
Starting Page	166
Ending Page	174
File Size	228486
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0769504434
ISSN	10719458
DOI	10.1109/ISSRE.1999.809321
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	1999-11-01
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Software testing Robustness Operating systems Application software System testing Software systems Safety Hardware Software tools Wrapping
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
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4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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