CSR: Small: System Support for Causality-Driven Automated Troubleshooting

该项目正在构建工具和开发方法，以确定软件配置问题的根本原因，并建议潜在的纠正措施。我们的工作是由于现代软件日益复杂，这使得计算机系统难以正确配置和管理。用户和管理员目前花费了大量的时间和精力来排除软件配置问题。例如，技术支持估计占台式计算机总拥有成本的17%，占信息系统总拥有成本的60-80%。我们正在演示对因果关系跟踪的系统支持如何能够大大减少对软件进行故障排除所需的时间和人力。我们关注的是配置问题，在这种情况下，应用程序代码是正确的，但是软件的安装、配置或更新不正确，因此它的行为不像预期的那样。我们正在开发自动化故障排除的方法和工具，从而减少了从错误中恢复的时间，并且需要更少的手工工作。我们的工具通过使用动态仪器以字节粒度监视信息流来跟踪软件二进制文件中的因果关系。它们在文件、进程和多台计算机之间传播这些信息，以排除复杂分布式系统的故障。多级因果关系跟踪有助于确定配置值的集合和其他最有可能影响错误配置软件程序的控制流的输入。我们期望在这个项目中开发的工具将使复杂的计算机系统更容易管理；这有可能大大降低我国计算机基础设施的行政支持成本。

This project is building tools and developing methods that identify the root cause of software configuration problems and suggest potential corrective actions. Our work is motivated by the increasing complexity of modern software, which makes computer systems difficult to configure and manage correctly. Users and administrators currently spend considerable time and effort troubleshooting software configuration problems. For instance, technical support is estimated to contribute 17% of the total cost of ownership for desktop computers and 60-80% for information systems.We are demonstrating how system support for causality tracking can substantially reduce the time and human effort needed to troubleshoot software. We are focusing on configuration problems, in which the application code is correct, but the software has been installed, configured, or updated incorrectly so that it does not behave as desired. We are developing methods and tools that automate troubleshooting, thereby reducing the time to recover from errors and requiring less manual effort. Our tools track causality within software binaries by using dynamic instrumentation to monitor information flow at byte granularity. They propagate this information among files, processes, and multiple computers to troubleshoot complex distributed systems. Multi-level causality tracking helps determine the set of configuration values and other inputs that are most likely to have influenced the control flow of misconfigured software programs. We expect that the tools developed during this project will make complex computer systems easier to manage; this has the potential to dramatically reduce administrative support costs for our nation's computer infrastructure.