Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 14th EuroSys Conference 2019 |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| ISBN (electronic) | 9781450362818 |
| Publication status | Published - 25 Mar 2019 |
| Event | 14th European Conference on Computer Systems, EuroSys 2019 - Dresden, Germany Duration: 25 Mar 2019 → 28 Mar 2019 |
Abstract
System software, such as the Linux kernel, typically provides a high degree of versatility by means of static and dynamic variability. While static variability can be completely resolved at compile time, dynamic variation points come at a cost arising from extra tests and branches in the control flow. Kernel developers use it (a) only sparingly and (b) try to mitigate its overhead by run-time binary code patching, for which several problem/architecture-specific mechanisms have become part of the kernel. We think that means for highly efficient dynamic variability should be provided by the language and compiler instead and present multiverse, an extension to the C programming language and the GNU C compiler for this purpose. Multiverse is easy to apply and targets program-global configuration switches in the form of (de-)activatable features, integer-valued configurations, and rarely-changing program modes. At run time, multiverse removes the overhead of evaluating them on every invocation. Microbenchmark results from applying multiverse to performance-critical features of the Linux kernel, cPython, the musl C-library and GNU grep show that multiverse can not only replace and unify the existing mechanisms for run-time code patching, but may in some cases even improve their performance by adding new dynamic variability options.
Keywords
- Binary patching, Compilers, Dynamic variability, Linux, Operating systems
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Computer Science(all)
- Hardware and Architecture
- Engineering(all)
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering
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Proceedings of the 14th EuroSys Conference 2019. New York, 2019. 37.
Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Research › peer review
}
TY - GEN
T1 - Multiverse
T2 - 14th European Conference on Computer Systems, EuroSys 2019
AU - Rommel, Florian
AU - Dietrich, Christian
AU - Rodin, Michael
AU - Lohmann, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information: We thank Valentin Rothberg for his early work on multiverse, as well as our anonymous reviewers and Tim Harris for their detailed and helpful feedback. This work has been supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the grants no. LO 1719/3-1 and LO 1719/4-1.
PY - 2019/3/25
Y1 - 2019/3/25
N2 - System software, such as the Linux kernel, typically provides a high degree of versatility by means of static and dynamic variability. While static variability can be completely resolved at compile time, dynamic variation points come at a cost arising from extra tests and branches in the control flow. Kernel developers use it (a) only sparingly and (b) try to mitigate its overhead by run-time binary code patching, for which several problem/architecture-specific mechanisms have become part of the kernel. We think that means for highly efficient dynamic variability should be provided by the language and compiler instead and present multiverse, an extension to the C programming language and the GNU C compiler for this purpose. Multiverse is easy to apply and targets program-global configuration switches in the form of (de-)activatable features, integer-valued configurations, and rarely-changing program modes. At run time, multiverse removes the overhead of evaluating them on every invocation. Microbenchmark results from applying multiverse to performance-critical features of the Linux kernel, cPython, the musl C-library and GNU grep show that multiverse can not only replace and unify the existing mechanisms for run-time code patching, but may in some cases even improve their performance by adding new dynamic variability options.
AB - System software, such as the Linux kernel, typically provides a high degree of versatility by means of static and dynamic variability. While static variability can be completely resolved at compile time, dynamic variation points come at a cost arising from extra tests and branches in the control flow. Kernel developers use it (a) only sparingly and (b) try to mitigate its overhead by run-time binary code patching, for which several problem/architecture-specific mechanisms have become part of the kernel. We think that means for highly efficient dynamic variability should be provided by the language and compiler instead and present multiverse, an extension to the C programming language and the GNU C compiler for this purpose. Multiverse is easy to apply and targets program-global configuration switches in the form of (de-)activatable features, integer-valued configurations, and rarely-changing program modes. At run time, multiverse removes the overhead of evaluating them on every invocation. Microbenchmark results from applying multiverse to performance-critical features of the Linux kernel, cPython, the musl C-library and GNU grep show that multiverse can not only replace and unify the existing mechanisms for run-time code patching, but may in some cases even improve their performance by adding new dynamic variability options.
KW - Binary patching
KW - Compilers
KW - Dynamic variability
KW - Linux
KW - Operating systems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063883910&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3302424.3303959
DO - 10.1145/3302424.3303959
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85063883910
BT - Proceedings of the 14th EuroSys Conference 2019
CY - New York
Y2 - 25 March 2019 through 28 March 2019
ER -