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Fecha
2025-07-28
Derechos de acceso
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Título de la revista
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editorial
Elsevier
Citas
Resumen
The configuration space of some systems is so large that it cannot be computed. This is the case with the Linux Kernel, which provides more than 18,000 configurable options described across almost 1,700 files in the Kconfig language. As a result, many analyses of these systems rely on sampling their configuration space (e.g., debugging compilation errors, predicting configuration performance, finding the configuration that optimizes specific performance metrics, among others.). The Kernel and other Kconfig-based systems can be sampled pragmatically, using their built-in tool conf to get a sample directly from the Kconfig specification that is approximately random, or idealistically, generating a genuine random sample by first translating the Kconfig files into logic formulas, then using a logic engine to compute the probability that each option value has to appear in a configuration, and finally utilizing these probabilities to generate an authentically random sample. The pros of the idealistic approach are that it ensures the sample is representative of the population, but the cons are that it sets out many challenging problems that have not been solved yet (fundamentally, how to obtain a valid translation into Boolean that covers all the Kconfig language, and how to compute the option value probabilities for very large formulas). This paper introduces a new version of conf called randconfig+, which incorporates a series of improvements that increase the randomness and correctness of pragmatic sampling and also help validate the Boolean translation required for the idealistic approach. randconfig+ has been tested on ten versions of the Linux Kernel and twenty additional Kconfig systems. Its compatibility significantly enhances the current landscape, where some systems use a customized conf variant that is maintained independently, while others do not support sampling at all. randconfig+ not only offers universal sampling for all Kconfig systems but also simplifies its evolutive maintenance as a single tool rather than an unorganized collection of conf variants.
Descripción
The registered version of this article, first published in “Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 230, December 2025, 112577", is available online at the publisher's website: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112577
La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en “Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 230, December 2025, 112577", está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112577
This work has been funded by Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)/FEDER/Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universi-ties/Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)/Junta de Andalucía/CDTI with the following grants: COSY (PID2022-142043NB-I00), NAUTILUS (2023-PUNED-0012), Data-pl (PID2022-138486OB-I00), IRIS (PID2021-122812OB-I00), TASOVA PLUS research net-work (RED2022-134337-T), SENSOLIVE (PLSQ_00162) and AquaIA(GOPG-SE-23-0011).
La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en “Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 230, December 2025, 112577", está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112577
This work has been funded by Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)/FEDER/Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universi-ties/Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)/Junta de Andalucía/CDTI with the following grants: COSY (PID2022-142043NB-I00), NAUTILUS (2023-PUNED-0012), Data-pl (PID2022-138486OB-I00), IRIS (PID2021-122812OB-I00), TASOVA PLUS research net-work (RED2022-134337-T), SENSOLIVE (PLSQ_00162) and AquaIA(GOPG-SE-23-0011).
Categorías UNESCO
Palabras clave
Random sampling, Configurable systems, Variability modeling, Software product lines, Kconfig, SAT, Randconfig
Citación
David Fernandez-Amoros, Ruben Heradio, Jose-Miguel Horcas, Jose A. Galindo, David Benavides, Lidia Fuentes. Pragmatic random sampling of Kconfig-based systems: A unified approach. Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 230, December 2025, 112577, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.11257.
Centro
E.T.S. de Ingeniería Informática
Departamento
Ingeniería de Software y Sistemas Informáticos