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crash-test-oracle · research · also recovery correctness checker

Crash-test oracle

A crash-test oracle is a checker that decides whether a recovered state satisfies the specified correctness and durability contract.

The allowed outcome can depend on which durable acknowledgements were observed before the fault. Merely opening recovered files does not check that contract; ALICE requires application-specific checkers.

Relations

related
crash-consistency, bounded-crash-testing, persistence-ordering

Citations

  1. Pillai et al. All File Systems Are Not Created Equal: On the Complexity of Crafting Crash-Consistent Applications. OSDI 2014; sections 3-4. (accessed 2026-10-12)
  2. University of Wisconsin-Madison ADSL. ALICE user documentation: checker contract and caveats. (accessed 2026-10-12)
  3. Hesela. Crash-consistency tests: the oracle is part of the result. (accessed 2026-10-12)

JSON: /data/terms/crash-test-oracle.json