Software Fault Isolation: a first step towards Microreboot in legacy C applications

Abstract

Microreboot is an attractive technique for recovering an application after a non-malicious failure or deliberate integrity breach even in cases where the precise cause of the failure or breach are not known. Unfortunately, Microreboot functionality has so far been demonstrated only with Java applications meeting a set of peculiar Crash-only architectural requirements. This report describes a method of using Software Fault Isolation techniques to meet some of these architectural requirements in C programs, thereby taking a first step towards making Microreboot available for retrofit in legacy C applications.