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byte-monkey

Byte-Monkey is a small Java library for testing failure scenarios in JVM applications - it works by instrumenting application code on the fly to deliberately introduce faults like exceptions and latency. Original blogpost here.

Download

Latest version: 1.0.0

How to use

java -javaagent:byte-monkey.jar -jar your-java-app.jar

Supported Modes

• Fault: Throw exceptions from methods that declare those exceptions
• Latency: Introduce latency on method-calls
• Nullify: Replace the first non-primitive argument to the method with null
• Short-circuit: Throw corresponding exceptions at the very beginning of try blocks

Options

• mode: What mode to run in - currently supports fault, latency, nullify, and scircuit. Default is fault
• rate: Value between 0 and 1 - how often to activate the fault. Default is 1, i.e. 100%
• filter: Only instrument packages or methods matching the (java-style) regex. Default is .*, i.e. all methods

byte-monkey is configured with a comma-separated key-value pair string of the options as the agent argument.

java -javaagent:byte-monkey.jar=mode:fault,rate:0.5,filter:uk/co/probablyfine/ -jar your-java-app.jar

The example above would run in fault mode, activating on 50% of eligible method calls, for anything in the package tree below uk.co.probablyfine

Modes

Fault

Running byte-monkey in fault mode will cause the first declared exception in a method signature to be thrown.

CAVEAT: Byte-Monkey can only create Exceptions that expose a public default constructor as a result of how it instantiates them. If such a constructor doesn't exist, it falls back to a ByteMonkeyException instead.

Latency

Running byte-monkey in latency mode will cause the method to sleep before executing further instructions.

There is a configuration option available only during this mode:

• latency: Duration (in millis) to wait on method calls, only valid when running in Latency mode. Default is 100ms

Example: java -javaagent:byte-monkey.jar=mode:latency,rate:0.5,latency:150 -jar your-java-app.jar

Nullify

Running byte-monkey in nullify mode will replace the first non-primitive argument to the method call with a null value.

Methods with only primitive arguments or no arguments at all will not be affected by the agent in this mode.

Short-circuit

Running byte-monkey in scircuit mode will throw corresponding exceptions in the very beginning of try blocks.

There is a configuration option available only during this mode:

• tcindex: Index of which exception to throw when there are multiple catch blocks, e.g. tcindex=0 indicates the first type of exception in the catch block. Only valid when running in Short-circuit mode. Default is -1/first

Example:

java -javaagent:byte-monkey.jar=mode:scircuit,filter:package/path/ClassName/MethodName,tcindex=0 -jar your-java-app.jar

You can read this paper or this blog for more information about short-circuit testing.

Implementation Details

Byte-Monkey uses the JVM Instrumentation API. Implementing the API enables you to register transformers that can iterate over (and transform) class files as they are loaded by the JVM. Byte-Monkey uses Objectweb ASM which comes packaged with the JDK to chance the underlying bytecode of loaded classes

Injecting Failure

The bytecode of a simple "Hello, World!" method prior to having an exception injected looks like this:

  public void printSomething() throws java.io.IOException;
    Code:
       0: getstatic     #2                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
       3: ldc           #3                  // String Hello!
       5: invokevirtual #4                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
       8: return

After being transformed by the Byte-Monkey, it instead looks like this:

  public void printSomething() throws java.io.IOException;
    Code:
       0: ldc2_w        #18                 // double 0.5d
       3: invokestatic  #25                 // Method uk/co/probablyfine/bytemonkey/AddChanceOfFailure.shouldActivate:(D)Z
       6: ifeq          15
       9: ldc           #26                 // String java/io/IOException
      11: invokestatic  #32                 // Method uk/co/probablyfine/bytemonkey/CreateAndThrowException.throwOrDefault:(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/Throwable;
      14: athrow
      15: getstatic     #38                 // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
      18: ldc           #40                 // String Hello!
      20: invokevirtual #46                 // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
      23: return

This is the core of how Byte-Monkey works:

• 0: Load the failure injection rate onto the stack
• 3: A call to AddChanceOfFailure.shouldActivate which returns true/false depending on the rate
• 6: If shouldActivate was false, we jump straight to instruction 15 - the beginning of the original code.
• 9: Load the name of the exception that would be thrown (here an IOException)
• 11: Create the exception if it has a default constructor, or create a wrapper exception
• 14: Throw the exception

For modes other than fault, instructions 9 to 14 are replaced with mode-specific instructions.