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Fighting livelock in the i-protocol: A comparative study of verification tools

  • Stony Brook University
  • Sun Microsystems
  • University of Pennsylvania

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

The i-protocol, an optimized sliding-window protocol for GNU UUCP, came to our attention two years ago when we used the Con-currency Factory’s local model checker to detect, locate, and correct a non-trivial livelock in version 1.04 of the protocol. Since then, we have repeated this verification effort with five widely used model checkers, namely, COSPAN, Murϕ, SMV, SPIN, and XMC. It is our contention that the i-protocol makes for a particularly compelling case study in protocol verification and for a formidable benchmark of verification-tool performance, for the following reasons: 1) The i-protocol can be used to gauge a tool’s ability to detect and diagnose livelock errors. 2) The size of the i-protocol’s state space grows exponentially in the window size, and the entirety of this state space must be searched to verify that the protocol, with the livelock error eliminated, is deadlock- or livelock-free. 3) The i-protocol is an asynchronous, low-level software system equipped with a number of optimizations aimed at minimizing control-message and retransmission overhead. It lacks the regular structure that is often present in hardware designs. In this sense, it provides any verification tool with a vigorous test of its analysis capabilities.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems - 5th International Conference, TACAS 1999 Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 1999, Proceedings
EditorsW. Rance Cleaveland
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages74-88
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)3540657037, 9783540657033
DOIs
StatePublished - 1999
Event5th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 1999 Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 1999 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: Mar 22 1999Mar 28 1999

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume1579
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference5th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 1999 Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 1999
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityAmsterdam
Period03/22/9903/28/99

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