Design and Implementation of a Java Fault Injector for Exhaustif® SWIFI Tool

Abstract

Java is a successful programming environment and its use has grown from little embedded applications until enterprise network servers based on J2EE. This intensive use of Java demands the validation of their fault tolerance mechanisms to avoid unexpected behavior of the applications at runtime. This paper describes the design and implementation of a fault injector for the “Exhaustif®” SWIFI tool. A specific fault model for java applications that include class corruption/substitution at loading time, method call interception and unexpected exception thrown is proposed. The injector uses the JVMTI (Java Virtual Machine Tool Interface) to perform bytecode instrumentation at runtime to carry out the fault model previously defined. Finally a XML formalization of the specific Java fault model is proposed. This approach, JVMTI + XML fault model description, provides complete independency between the system under test and the fault injection tool, as well the interoperability with another SWIFI tools.