Control-flow checking by software signatures

• Published in: IEEE transactions on reliability Vol. 51; no. 1; pp. 111 - 122
• Main Authors: Oh, N., Shirvani, P.P., McCluskey, E.J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2002; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Central Processing Unit; Computer programs; Error correction; Error correction & detection; Error detection; Fault detection; Faults; Hardware; Monitoring; Multitasking; Operating systems; Process control; Runtime; Satellites; Signatures; Software; Studies
• ISSN: 0018-9529; 1558-1721
• DOI: 10.1109/24.994926

This paper presents a new signature monitoring technique, CFCSS (control flow checking by software signatures); CFCSS is a pure software method that checks the control flow of a program using assigned signatures. An algorithm assigns a unique signature to each node in the program graph and adds instructions for error detection. Signatures are embedded in the program during compilation time using the constant field of the instructions and compared with run-time signatures when the program is executed. Another algorithm reduces the code size and execution time overhead caused by checking instructions in CFCSS. A "branching fault injection experiment" was performed with benchmark programs. Without CFCSS, an average of 33.7 % of the injected branching faults produced undetected incorrect outputs; however, with CFCSS, only 3.1 % of branching faults produced undetected incorrect outputs. Thus it is possible to increase error detection coverage for control flow errors by an order of magnitude using CFCSS. The distinctive advantage of CFCSS over previous signature monitoring techniques is that CFCSS is a pure software method, i.e., it needs no dedicated hardware such as a watchdog processor for control flow checking. A watchdog task in multitasking environment also needs no extra hardware, but the advantage of CFCSS over a watchdog task is that CFCSS can be used even when the operating system does not support multitasking.