Context-Free Grep and Hierarchical Diff

The rise in high-level programming languages in system and network administration has affected the utility of grep and diff when used on files written in these languages. We have observed this problem firsthand in our collaborations with network administrators at Dartmouth Computing and in electrical power utilities. We are building context-free grep and hierarchical diff to address the limitations of grep and diff respectively. For both of our tools, we give examples of real-world problems they could address, sketch their design and evaluation, and describe their impact if built well.
(Digest | Poster | Tech Report )

These tools are part of our broader effort to help humans manage security through the lens of structured text. In our fieldwork with real-world organizations--including those in Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), network administration, and the power grid---we realized that many security policies are structured texts. Although much research has focused on security policies, less research has focused on helping humans efficiently manage security policies and their implementations. We design, build, and evaluate tools to help practitioners manage security by processing text in terms of its structure. More information

If you want to join the mailing list for this project, then please send me an email at Gabriel.A.Weaver AT Dartmouth DOT edu. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on use cases, or comments on the tools as we develop them.