Re: [gsoc] syscall/libc fuzzer proposal

[Eric Haszlakiewicz <erh%nimenees.com@localhost>]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 06:38:57PM -0500, David Young wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 05:32:28PM +0200, Mateusz Kocielski wrote:
> > 4. What are my main goals?
> > 
> > * write syscall/libc fuzzer
> > * develop additional tools to fuzzer environment
> > * cover as much project code as possible during testing
> 
> Mateusz,
> 
> I'm going to seize on one of your goals, sorry. :-) I'm awfully
> interested in measuring instruction & statement coverage in NetBSD, and
> in using actual/simulated conditions to exercise error paths....  There
> may be a GSoC project in that, too.

I once spent some time at work playing around with gcc's -ftest-coverage option,
and using lcov to display the results.  Other than having to write a short hack
to fix paths in the gcda file gcc creates it worked ok, but collecting the
coverage wasn't really the hard part.  It's the work of actually exercsing the
code paths, and making it easy enough to do so with the coverage option enabled
that people actually use it, or setting up something automatic to do the tests,
where things get a bit difficult.

IMO, that's certainly a worthwhile project, but keep in mind that it's not just
a "write some code" project, but also a "get people to buy into it" one, which
can be considerably more involved.

eric