Software-implemented fault injection in operating system kernel mutex data structure

Embedded and Computer-based systems are subject to transient errors originated from several sources, including the impact of high energy particles on sensitive areas of integrated circuits. The evaluation of the sensitivity of the applications to transient faults is a major issue. The paper presents a new approach for testing the effects of transient faults on the Operating System kernel, specifically focusing on kernel mutex data structure, a key component of the kernel. A Software-implemented Fault Injection tool able to inject faults guaranteeing the non-intrusiveness and repeatability of the fault injection campaign is proposed. An analysis of the results has been performed on a large set of mutexes, in order to evaluate their criticality, in particular during input/output operations. Experimental results, executed on a set of benchmarks programs, show the relevance of the effects of the transient faults on this set of variables. Moreover, a significant percentage of faults can lead to a damage of the system also producing an application failure.