Enhancing server availability and security through failure-oblivious computing
Martin Rinard, Cristian Cadar, Daniel Dumitran, Daniel M. Roy, Tudor Leu, William S. Beebee · 2004
Abstract We present a new technique, failure-oblivious comput-ing, that enables servers to execute through memory errors without memory corruption. Our safe compiler forC inserts checks that dynamically detect invalid memory accesses. Instead of terminating or throwing an excep-tion, the generated code simply discards invalid writes and manufactures values to return for invalid reads, en-abling the server to continue its normal execution path. We have applied failure-oblivious computing to aset of widely-used servers from the Linux-based opensource computing environment. Our results show thatour techniques 1) make these servers invulnerable to known security attacks that exploit memory errors, and2) enable the servers to continue to operate successfully to service legitimate requests and satisfy the needs oftheir users even after attacks trigger their memory errors.