using rawhammer on linux.

[alexel...@gmail.com]

Dear Sirs! I want to test my PC for rawhammer with your code. I want to know, if it is necessary to install Linux for it/ so I have some questions.
 1. please write if these lines are paths to test files ?
> /make.sh
 ./rowhammer_test
 2. Should I install Linux to run test?
 3. Should I use command line or some Linux software to put these lines and run the test?
 3. I have several Windows OSes installed on PC. Shpuld I install Linux on real PC?
 4. Can these test be done on Virtual machuines or Linux simulators?
 5. What versions of Linux do you recommend to install?

 Regards,
 Alexander

[Vít Šesták]

Hello,

 1. please write if these lines are paths to test files ?
> /make.sh
 ./rowhammer_test

The first one compiles the source code and creates the rowhammer_test file. The rowhammer_test is the test itself.
 

 2. Should I install Linux to run test?
…

 3. I have several Windows OSes installed on PC. Shpuld I install Linux on real PC?

 
Using Linux (or probably MacOS) is probably the easiest way to use the test. It probably could have been ported to another OS, but using a live Linux OS seems to be easier.

You, however, don't have to install Linux. It is enough to use a live Linux distribution.

 3. Should I use command line or some Linux software to put these lines and run the test?

Yes.

 4. Can these test be done on Virtual machuines or Linux simulators?

Well, while using a virtual machine is definitely possible, it might decrease the reliability of the test. The virtual machine has no direct access to physical hardware, so it does not know the physical memory layout. There might be also some additional memory fragmentation. So, in such case, you might be hammering some bits outside the VM. This is wrong for two reasons. First, the software can't directly detect such effect. Second, it might (at least theoretically) do some harm to the host system.

I am not sure what you mean by Linux simulators. If you mean a virtual machine, this is what I have replied above. If you mean something like Cygwin, you probably can. However, there might be some small nuances in the API. Remember that the rowhammer test ban be very fragile. Any such nuance can make the test not finding any errors on faulty RAM. Neither virtual machines nor Cygwin attempt to emulate hardware failures :)

Note that I have seen the rowhammer test to detect the RAM fault when running virtualized. But it might be less reliable in general, so I run it on bare metal.

 5. What versions of Linux do you recommend to install?

I have successfully compiled and performed rowhammer with Ubuntu 12.04 and Debian 8. Newer versions (e.g. Ubuntu 14.04) are probably also OK. I recommend using 64bit version. (I've recently seen reported some troubles (when compiling) probably related to using 32bit OS.)

It will, however, probably run on many other Linux distributions. These two are just some I've tried.

Regards,
Vít Šesták 'v6ak'