Testing system virtual machines

Virtual machines offer the ability to partition the resources of a physical system and to create isolated execution environments. The development of virtual machines is a very challenging task. This is particularly true for system virtual machines, since they run an operating system and must replicate in every detail the incredibly complex environment it requires. Nowadays, system virtual machines are the key component of many critical architectures. However, only little effort has been invested to test if the environment they provide is semantically equivalent to the environment found on real machines. In this paper we present a methodology specific for testing system virtual machines. This methodology is based on protocol-specific fuzzing and differential analysis, and consists in forcing a virtual machine and the corresponding physical machine to execute specially crafted snippets of user- and system-mode code and in comparing their behaviors. We have developed a prototype, co...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ISSTA
• Authors: Lorenzo Martignoni, Roberto Paleari, Giampaolo Fresi Roglia, Danilo Bruschi
• Keywords: Isolated Execution Environments, ISSTA 2010, Software Engineering, State-of-the-art Virtual Machines, Virtual Machines