Kernel Black Box Fault Detection for OS Health Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional telecommunication systems face challenges in timely fault detection in the execution environment, leading to delayed service availability and potential misjudgment of faults due to long or short detecting periods.
Innovation Solution
A Kernel Black Box (KBox) set is used to detect faults in the operation system by identifying unexpected resets, memory exhaustion, kernel lockup, kernel crashes, CPU hardware faults, and virtual machine resets, generating fault information and transmitting system fault notifications to the application high availability (HA) subsystem via a management unit in the infrastructure layer.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a long detecting period is used for fault detection, then the system can avoid false alarms caused by network communication delays, but the fault detection time is delayed and service availability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The fault detection function is segmented into two independent components: a kernel-level agent that continuously monitors system health and an application-layer HA subsystem that receives notifications. This segmentation allows the detection mechanism to operate independently of network communication cycles, enabling immediate local detection while avoiding the trade-off between detection speed and false alarm rate.
Solution Approach 2:
A kernel agent acts as an intermediary between the operating system and the application-layer HA subsystem. The agent continuously monitors system health and directly notifies the HA subsystem when faults are detected, bypassing the traditional heart beat mechanism that relies on periodic network communication. This intermediary eliminates the need to balance detection period against false alarm risk.
2Loss of time
If a short detecting period is used for fault detection, then the fault detection speed is improved, but false alarms occur due to network communication delays
Solution Approach 1:
The kernel agent serves as a reliable intermediary that directly monitors system health and communicates with the HA subsystem without relying on periodic network heart beat messages. This direct communication channel eliminates false alarms caused by network delays while maintaining continuous monitoring capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements self-service fault detection through the kernel agent that autonomously monitors system health and generates notifications independently of external heart beat mechanisms. This self-monitoring approach ensures reliable fault detection without being subject to network communication variations.
3Device complexity
If conventional heart beat detection is used, then the system structure remains simple, but fault detection cannot be performed in a timely manner and service availability is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The detection system is segmented into a lightweight kernel agent and an application-layer HA subsystem. The kernel agent handles continuous monitoring with minimal resource consumption, while the HA subsystem manages fault response logic. This segmentation improves service availability without significantly increasing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanical heart beat detection mechanism (relying on periodic network messages) is replaced with an event-driven notification mechanism at the kernel level. This substitution enables timely fault detection and improves service availability while maintaining relatively simple system architecture through the use of a lightweight kernel agent.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for quickly detecting a fault includes: detecting, by a Kernel Black Box KBox set, a fault occurred in an operation system; and generating, by the KBox set, fault information based on the detected fault; and transmitting, by the KBox set, system fault notification information including the fault information to an application high availability HA subsystem via a management unit of an infrastructure layer, to trigger a service fault processing of the application HA subsystem. Thus, the fault or unhealthiness of an OS is detected rapidly and a service application layer is timely notified to process the fault, thus reducing service loss.