Report From the CoalFace: Lessons Learnt Building A General-Purpose Always-On Provenance System

Authors: 

Nikilesh Balakrishnan, Thomas Bytheway, Ripduman Sohan, and Andy Hopper, University of Cambridge

Abstract: 

Over the past year we have implemented OPUS, an always-on system for observed provenance capture in user-space. In this paper we present some important lessons for anyone hoping to implement a general purpose provenance system operating at user-level. In particular, we highlight the problems and solutions associated with the explosion of interposition requirements attributable to function variants, challenges in maintaining semantic equivalence with POSIX and the importance of deactivating function interception in response to runtime errors. We also provide some insights on choosing the right database to manage provenance data.

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {184677,
author = {Nikilesh Balakrishnan and Thomas Bytheway and Ripduman Sohan and Andy Hopper},
title = {Report From the {CoalFace}: Lessons Learnt Building A {General-Purpose} {Always-On} Provenance System},
booktitle = {6th USENIX Workshop on the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP 2014)},
year = {2014},
address = {Cologne},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/tapp2014/agenda/presentation/balakrishnan},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}
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