João Martins (2009)

MSc Student

in

MSc dissertation: SmART: An Application Reconfiguration Framework   
Co-adviser: Prof. Hervé Paulino
Period: September 2012 — September 2013
Grade: 18/20
Project: VIRTU (funded by the QREN/ADI, PIs: Prof. João Lourenço and Prof. Hervé Paulino)
Papers: CSDM'10 (DOI), PADTAD'10 (DOI)

A virtual appliance (VA) is a minimalist virtual machine image designed to run under some sort of virtualization technology (like VMware Workstation, VirtualBox or many others). Application configuration files frequently change (at least lightly) from one software release version to the next, and VA often include a specific outdates software package because there is no easy way to reconfigure the updated versions of the software packages. This thesis aims at automatically building parsers to convert configuration files to and independent format (XML) and back. These parsers will be used to automatically configure applications in Customized Virtual Appliances. The parsers will be built with the aid of a tool that will read a software package configuration file and, with the help of a user, identify the configuration file entities and blocks and their corresponding XML entities.

Keywords: Virtual appliance, automatic application configuration.