Linux Plumbers Conf 2013

One Line Summary

Abstract

Validation of concurrent software that runs on a billion devices is challenging. In this case, “one in a million” bugs will occur a thousand times. Some projects have worked hard to meet this challenge. The Linux kernel has added -next testing for pre-merge-window patches, automated randconfig build/boot/test of maintainer-tree commits, and the Trinity syscall-malice tool. In addition, validation tools such as Coccinelle, lockdep, sparse, and valgrind have also helped squash a great many nasty bugs. However, improvements reliability are inevitably consumed by increasingly aggressive usage, which of course exposes more problems, requiring fixes and more validation. This talk will look at some ways that this validation might be carried out, ranging from even more aggressive testing to bleeding-edge verification techniques.

Speaker

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  Paul McKenney

  IBM Linux Technology Center
  • Website: http://www.rdrop.com/users/paulmck
  • Blog: http://paulmck.livejournal.com/

  Biography

  Paul E. McKenney has been coding for almost four decades, more than half of that on parallel hardware, where his work has earned him a reputation among some as a flaming heretic. Over the past decade, Paul has been an IBM Distinguished Engineer at the IBM Linux Technology Center. Paul maintains the RCU implementation within the Linux kernel, where the variety of workloads present highly entertaining performance, scalability, real-time response, and energy-efficiency challenges. Prior to that, he worked on the DYNIX/ptx kernel at Sequent, and prior to that on packet-radio and Internet protocols (but long before it was polite to mention Internet at cocktail parties), system administration, business applications, and real-time systems. His hobbies include what passes for running at his age along with the usual house-wife-and-kids habit.