A dynamic aspect-oriented system for OS kernels

ABSTRACT

We propose a dynamic aspect-oriented system for operating system (OS) kernels written in the C language. Unlike other similar systems, our system named KLASY allows the users to pointcut not only function calls but also member accesses to structures. This feature helps the developers who want to use aspects for profiling or debugging an OS kernel. To enable this, KLASY uses a modified C compiler for compiling an OS kernel. The modified compiler produces extended symbol information, which enables a dynamic weaver to find the memory addresses of join point shadows during runtime. Since a normal C compiler produces only limited symbol information, other dynamic aspect-oriented systems for C have been able to pointcut only function calls. We have implemented KLASY for Linux with the GNU C compiler. Our experiments revealed that KLASY achieves sufficient execution performance for practical use. Our case studies disclosed that KLASY is useful for real applications.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors

General Terms:
Languages

Keywords:
Linux, aspect-oriented programming, dynamic AOP, operating system, profiling and debugging