Title
Improvements in Crash Consistency Testing for Persistent Memory File Systems

Authors
Lukas Werling, Thomas-Christian Oder, Lucas Wäldele, Daniel Ritz, Frank Bellosa

Affiliation
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Abstract
Achieving crash consistency in persistent memory (PM) applications is difficult due to the need for fine-granular cache flushes and memory fences. File systems are no exception. Previous works have found numerous bugs in PM file systems, but crash consistency testing as part of file system development is still rare. With this paper, we make crash consistency testing easier by improving Vinter, a crash consistency testing tool for file systems based on virtual machines. We introduce support for cross-media file systems with NVMe and PM that are not covered by other testing tools. To speed up testing, we add an alternative algorithm for simulating crashes that focuses on logic bugs rather than misuse of PM primitives.