Injecting Artificial Memory Errors Into a Running Computer Program

Single-event upsets (SEUs) or "bitflips" are computer memory errors caused by radiation. BITFLIPS (Basic Instrumentation Tool for Fault Localized Injection of Probabilistic SEUs) is a computer program that deliberately injects SEUs into another computer program, while the latter is running, for the purpose of evaluating the fault tolerance of that program. BITFLIPS was written as a plug-in extension of the open-source Valgrind debugging and profiling software. BITFLIPS can inject SEUs into any program that can be run on the Linux operating system, without needing to modify the program's source code. Further, if access to the original program source code is available, BITFLIPS offers fine-grained control over exactly when and which areas of memory (as specified via program variables) will be subjected to SEUs.