article

AutoBash: improving configuration management with operating system causality analysis

Authors:

Mona Attariyan,

Jason FlinnAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Volume 41, Issue 6

Pages 237 - 250

https://doi.org/10.1145/1323293.1294284

Published: 14 October 2007 Publication History

Abstract

AutoBash is a set of interactive tools that helps users and system administrators manage configurations. AutoBash leverages causal tracking support implemented within our modified Linux kernel to understand the inputs (causal dependencies) and outputs (causal effects) of configuration actions. It uses OS-level speculative execution to try possible actions, examine their effects, and roll them back when necessary. AutoBash automates many of the tedious parts of trying to fix a misconfiguration, including searching through possible solutions, testing whether a particular solution fixes a problem, and undoing changes to persistent and transient state when a solution fails. Our results show that AutoBash correctly identifies the solution to several CVS, gcc cross-compiler, and Apache configuration errors. We also show that causal analysis reduces AutoBash's search time by an average of 35% and solution verification time by an average of 70%.

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Index Terms

AutoBash: improving configuration management with operating system causality analysis
1. Software and its engineering

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review Volume 41, Issue 6

SOSP '07

December 2007

363 pages

ISSN:0163-5980

DOI:10.1145/1323293

Issue’s Table of Contents

SOSP '07: Proceedings of twenty-first ACM SIGOPS symposium on Operating systems principles
October 2007
378 pages
ISBN:9781595935915
DOI:10.1145/1294261
General Chair:
Thomas C. Bressoud
Denison University, USA
,
Program Chair:
M. Frans Kaashoek
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Copyright © 2007 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 14 October 2007

Published in SIGOPS Volume 41, Issue 6

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3620237.3620261
Liargkovas GKallas KGreenberg MVasilakis NBaumann ACrooks NSchwarzkopf M(2023)Executing Shell Scripts in the Wrong Order, CorrectlyProceedings of the 19th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems10.1145/3593856.3595891(103-109)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3593856.3595891
Zhang LHao SMing M(2022)A Real-Time Detection Method of Software Configuration Errors Based on Fine-Grained Configuration Item TypesScientific Programming10.1155/2022/44153662022Online publication date: 1-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1155/2022/4415366
Santolucito MZhang JZhai ECito JPiskac R(2022)Learning CI Configuration Correctness for Early Build Feedback2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00118(1006-1017)Online publication date: Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00118
Zhang YGe YYu PZhang JZhang YBaker T(2021)A Novel Method to Prevent Misconfigurations of Industrial Automation and Control SystemsIEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics10.1109/TII.2020.301775417:6(4210-4218)Online publication date: Jun-2021
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Stöckle PGrobauer BPretschner AGrundy JLe Goues CLo D(2020)Automated implementation of windows-related security-configuration guidesProceedings of the 35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3324884.3416540(598-610)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2020
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SAYAGH MKerzazi NAdams BPetrillo F(2020)Software Configuration Engineering in Practice Interviews, Survey, and Systematic Literature ReviewIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2018.286784746:6(646-673)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
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