Dependable Systems Lab Dependable Systems Lab

Dimmunix: Deadlock Immunity

Dimmunix enables general-purpose applications to defend themselves against deadlock bugs, i.e., avoid deadlocks that they previously encountered. Dimmunix is implemented for Java, POSIX Threads, and Android OS. POSIX Threads and Android Dimmunix currently provide immunity against deadlocks involving mutex locks. Android Dimmunix is implemented within the Dalvik VM, which runs all the Android applications; therefore, Android Dimmunix provides platform- wide deadlock immunity, to all applications running on an Android phone. We also optimized the Java Dimmunix for synchronization-intensive applications. We extended Java Dimmunix with immunity against non-mutex deadlocks, i.e., deadlocks involving read-write locks, semaphores, condition variables, or external synchronization. We ran Dimmunix with real applications, like JBoss, Limewire, Vuze, Eclipse, Apache ActiveMQ, MySQL server, and SQLite.

We also implemented a collaborative version of Dimmunix, called Communix. Communix enables machines connected to the Internet to immunize each other against deadlocks. Once a node encounters a deadlock, the other nodes get protected against the deadlock, without having to encounter the deadlock.

Dimmunix is available for both Java and C/C++ from http://code.google.com/p/dimmunix/.

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Dimmunix in the news (selected articles):