DDT: The Device Driver Tester
DDT is a system for testing closed-source binary device drivers against undesired behaviors, like race conditions, memory errors, resource leaks, etc. One can metaphorically think of it as a pesticide against device driver bugs. DDT combines virtualization with a specialized form of symbolic execution to thoroughly exercise tested drivers; a set of modular dynamic checkers identify bug conditions and produce detailed, executable traces for every path that leads to a failure. These traces can be used to easily reproduce and understand the bugs, thus both proving their existence and helping debug them.
We applied DDT to several closed-source Microsoft-certified Windows device drivers and discovered 14 serious new bugs.
DDT is easy to use, as it requires no access to source code and no assistance from users. We therefore envision DDT being useful not only to developers and testers, but also to consumers who want to avoid running buggy drivers in their OS kernels.
Papers
- Testing Closed-Source Binary Device Drivers with DDT. Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Vitaly Chipounov, George Candea. USENIX Annual Technical Conference, Boston, MA, June 2010.