Re: [GSoC idea] ASAN support in kernel and userland

[Roy Marples <roy%marples.name@localhost>]

On 21/03/2012 9:31, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
> I wonder if the following idea matches the scope of the a GSoC 
> project.
> For LLVM there exists a (platform specific) feature called ASAN, 
> which
> provides a good chunk of the functionality of valgrind. As it is
> integrated into the compiler, it is quite fast. Since NetBSD is 
> missing
> valgrind support and porting that is quite a lot work, ASAN provide
> quite an improvement. I think porting it to userland can be done in a
> month at most for a student, including dealing e.g. with libc 
> overrides for
> assembler routines on x86. I also believe a basic working kernel
> implementation in the rest of the time is feasible. That would fit
> nicely between RUMP and normal kernel debugging as well. Thoughts?

I, for one, think this is a fantastic idea!
I use valgrind extensively on Linux during the development of dhcpcd 
and it
turns up some surprising issues that you don't see easily, nor 
experience
when it is running. I have often wondered if there are any problems 
with the
BSD specific code, but have no means of finding out. This project would 
allow
this!

Thanks

Roy