Article

Automatic feature selection in large-scale system-software product lines

Authors:

Andreas Ruprecht,

Bernhard Heinloth,

Daniel LohmannAuthors Info & Claims

GPCE 2014: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences

Pages 39 - 48

https://doi.org/10.1145/2658761.2658767

Published: 15 September 2014 Publication History

Abstract

System software can typically be configured at compile time via a comfortable feature-based interface to tailor its functionality towards a specific use case. However, with the growing number of features, this tailoring process becomes increasingly difficult: As a prominent example, the Linux kernel in v3.14 provides nearly 14 000 configuration options to choose from. Even developers of embedded systems refrain from trying to build a minimized distinctive kernel configuration for their device – and thereby waste memory and money for unneeded functionality. In this paper, we present an approach for the automatic use-case specific tailoring of system software for special-purpose embedded systems. We evaluate the effectiveness of our approach on the example of Linux by generating tailored kernels for well-known applications of the Rasperry Pi and a Google Nexus 4 smartphone. Compared to the original configurations, our approach leads to memory savings of 15–70 percent and requires only very little manual intervention.

References

[1]

T. Berger, S. She, R. Lotufo, A. Wasowski, and K. Czarnecki. “A Study of Variability Models and Languages in the Systems Software Domain”. In: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 39.12 (2013), pages 1611–1640. ISSN : 0098-5589. DOI : 10. 1109 / TSE. 2013.34.

Digital Library

[2]

Ramon Bertran, Marisa Gil, Javier Cabezas, Victor Jimenez, Lluis Vilanova, Enric Morancho, and Nacho Navarro. “Building a Global System View for Optimization Purposes”. In: Proceedings of Workshop on the Interaction between Operating Systems and Computer Architecture (SCA-WIOSCA ’06). 2006.

[3]

Anton Borisov. “Coreboot at your service!” In: Linux Journal 1 (186 2009).

Digital Library

[4]

Manfred Broy. “Challenges in Automotive Software Engineering”. In: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE ’06). (Shanghai, China). 2006, pages 33–42. ISBN : 1-59593-375-1. DOI : 10.1145/1134285.1134292.

Digital Library

[5]

BusyBox Project Homepage. URL : http : / / www. busybox. net/ (visited on 05/11/2012).

[6]

Dominique Chanet, Bjorn De Sutter, Bruno De Bus, Ludo Van Put, and Koen De Bosschere. “System-wide Compaction and Specialization of the Linux Kernel”. In: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers and Tools for Embedded Systems (LCTES ’05). 2005, pages 95–104. ISBN : 1- 59593-018-3. DOI : 10.1145/1065910.1065925.

Digital Library

[7]

Christian Dietrich, Reinhard Tartler, Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat, and Daniel Lohmann. “A Robust Approach for Variability Extraction from the Linux Build System”. In: Proceedings of the 16th Software Product Line Conference (SPLC ’12). (Salvador, Brazil, Sept. 2– 7, 2012). 2012, pages 21–30. ISBN : 978-1-4503-1094-9. DOI : 10. 1145/2362536.2362544.

Digital Library

[8]

Embedded Linux – Lineo Solutions. 2014. URL : http : / / www. lineo. co. jp / modules / products / ulinux. html (visited on 05/30/2014).

[9]

Fiasco Project Homepage. URL : http://os.inf.tudresden. de/fiasco/ (visited on 05/11/2012).

[10]

Jianmei Guo, Jules White, Guangxin Wang, Jian Li, and Yinglin Wang. “A genetic algorithm for optimized feature selection with resource constraints in software product lines”. In: Journal of Systems and Software 84.12 (2011), pages 2208 –2221. ISSN : 0164- 1212. DOI : 10. 1016 / j. jss. 2011. 06. 026. URL : http : / / www. sciencedirect. com / science / article / pii / S0164121211001518.

Digital Library

[11]

Anil Kurmus, Reinhard Tartler, Daniela Dorneanu, Bernhard Heinloth, Valentin Rothberg, Andreas Ruprecht, Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat, Daniel Lohmann, and Rüdiger Kapitza. “Attack Surface Metrics and Automated Compile-Time OS Kernel Tailoring”. In: Proceedings of the 20th Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium. (San Diego, CA, USA, Feb. 24–27, 2013). 2013. URL : http://www.internetsociety.org/sites/default/files/ 03_2_0.pdf.

[12]

C.T. Lee, J.M. Lin, Z.W. Hong, and W.T. Lee. “An Application-Oriented Linux Kernel Customization for Embedded Systems”. In: Journal of information science and engineering 20.6 (2004), pages 1093–1108. ISSN : 1016-2364.

[13]

Jörg Liebig, Christian Kästner, and Sven Apel. “Analyzing the discipline of preprocessor annotations in 30 million lines of C code”. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD ’11). (Porto de Galinhas, Brazil). 2011, pages 191–202. ISBN : 978-1-4503-0605-8. DOI : 10. 1145/1960275.1960299.

Digital Library

[14]

Linux Tiny – eLinux.org. 2014. URL : http://elinux.org/Linux_ Tiny (visited on 05/30/2014).

[15]

Anthony Massa. Embedded Software Development with eCos. 2002. ISBN : 978-0130354730.

Digital Library

[16]

Horst Schirmeier and Olaf Spinczyk. “Tailoring Infrastructure Software Product Lines by Static Application Analysis”. In: Proceedings of the 11th Software Product Line Conference (SPLC ’07). 2007, pages 255–260. ISBN : 0-7695-2888-0. DOI : 10. 1109 / SPLINE. 2007.33.

Digital Library

[17]

N. Siegmund, S.S. Kolesnikov, C. Kastner, S. Apel, D. Batory, M. Rosenmuller, and G. Saake. “Predicting performance via automated feature-interaction detection”. In: Proceedings of the 34nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE ’12). (Zurich, Switzerland). 2012, pages 167–177. ISBN : 978-1-4673-1067-3. DOI : 10.1109/ICSE.2012.6227196.

Digital Library

[18]

Norbert Siegmund, Marko Rosenmüller, Martin Kuhlemann, Christian Kästner, Sven Apel, and Gunter Saake. “SPL Conqueror: Toward optimization of non-functional properties in software product lines”. English. In: Software Quality Journal 20.3-4 (2012), pages 487–517. ISSN : 0963-9314. DOI : 10. 1007 / s11219 - 011 - 9152 - 9. URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11219-011-9152-9.

Digital Library

[19]

Julio Sincero, Reinhard Tartler, Daniel Lohmann, and Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat. “Efficient Extraction and Analysis of Preprocessor-Based Variability”. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Generative Programming and Component Engineering (GPCE ’10). (Eindhoven, The Netherlands). 2010, pages 33–42. ISBN : 978-1-4503-0154-1. DOI : 10.1145/1868294.1868300.

Digital Library

[20]

Samaneh Soltani, Mohsen Asadi, Dragan Gaˇsevi´c, Marek Hatala, and Ebrahim Bagheri. “Automated Planning for Feature Model Configuration Based on Functional and Non-functional Requirements”. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Software Product Line Conference - Volume 1. SPLC ’12. 2012, pages 56–65. ISBN : 978-1-4503- 1094-9. DOI : 10.1145/2362536.2362548. URL : http://doi. acm.org/10.1145/2362536.2362548.

Digital Library

[21]

Reinhard Tartler, Anil Kurmus, Bernard Heinloth, Valentin Rothberg, Andreas Ruprecht, Daniela Doreanu, Rüdiger Kapitza, Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat, and Daniel Lohmann. “Automatic OS Kernel TCB Reduction by Leveraging Compile-Time Configurability”. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Hot Topics in System Dependability (HotDep ’12). (Los Angeles, CA, USA). 2012, pages 1–6.

Digital Library

Cited By

Landsberg TDietrich CLohmann D(2024)Should I Bother? Fast Patch Filtering for Statically-Configured Software VariantsProceedings of the 28th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference10.1145/3646548.3672585(12-23)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3646548.3672585
Gollenstede NKulau UDietrich CEgger BLee D(2023)reUpNix: Reconfigurable and Updateable Embedded SystemsProceedings of the 24th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED International Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems10.1145/3589610.3596273(40-51)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3589610.3596273
Rothberg VDietrich CZiegler ALohmann D(2016)Towards scalable configuration testing in variable softwareACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093335.299325252:3(156-167)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093335.2993252
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Automatic feature selection in large-scale system-software product lines
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
2. Software and its engineering

Recommendations

Automatic feature selection in large-scale system-software product lines
GPCE '14

System software can typically be configured at compile time via a comfortable feature-based interface to tailor its functionality towards a specific use case. However, with the growing number of features, this tailoring process becomes increasingly ...
Tailoring dynamic software product lines
GPCE '11: Proceedings of the 10th ACM international conference on Generative programming and component engineering

Software product lines (SPLs) and adaptive systems aim at variability to cope with changing requirements. Variability can be described in terms of features, which are central for development and configuration of SPLs. In traditional SPLs, features are ...
Adapting the Database to Feature Changes in Software Product Lines
SPLC '23: Proceedings of the 27th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume A

Software Product Lines (SPL) support the development of families of software products that share a set of core assets but differ in certain features. To generate a new product, the engineer selects the desired features and the SPL assembles and adapts ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

GPCE 2014: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences

September 2014

141 pages

ISBN:9781450331616

DOI:10.1145/2658761

General Chair:
Ulrik Pagh Schultz
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
,
Program Chair:
Matthew Flatt
University of Utah, USA

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 50, Issue 3
GPCE '14
March 2015
141 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2775053
Editor:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGPLAN: ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 15 September 2014

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

GPCE'14

Sponsor:

SIGPLAN

GPCE'14: Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences

September 15 - 16, 2014

Västerås, Sweden

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 56 of 180 submissions, 31%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
211
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)13
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2

Reflects downloads up to 14 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Landsberg TDietrich CLohmann D(2024)Should I Bother? Fast Patch Filtering for Statically-Configured Software VariantsProceedings of the 28th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference10.1145/3646548.3672585(12-23)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3646548.3672585
Gollenstede NKulau UDietrich CEgger BLee D(2023)reUpNix: Reconfigurable and Updateable Embedded SystemsProceedings of the 24th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED International Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems10.1145/3589610.3596273(40-51)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3589610.3596273
Rothberg VDietrich CZiegler ALohmann D(2016)Towards scalable configuration testing in variable softwareACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093335.299325252:3(156-167)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093335.2993252
Rothberg VDietrich CZiegler ALohmann DFischer BSchaefer I(2016)Towards scalable configuration testing in variable softwareProceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences10.1145/2993236.2993252(156-167)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2993236.2993252
Dietrich CLohmann D(2015)The dataref versuchungACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review10.1145/2723872.272388049:1(51-60)Online publication date: 20-Jan-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2723872.2723880

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents