Efficient model checking of fault-tolerant distributed protocols

Bokor, Péter; Kinder, Johannes; Serafini, Marco; Suri, Neeraj

doi:10.1109/dsn.2011.5958208

Cited by 15 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This means that several recent efforts in verification of safety properties in distributed systems through model checking (e.g., [18]) do not solve liveness bugs, which is the most difficult problem in our experience.…”

Section: B How To Test Bft Systems?mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

State Machine Replication for the Masses with BFT-SMART

Bessani

Sousa

Alchieri³

2014

2014 44th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks

453

349

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-The last fifteen years have seen an impressive amount of work on protocols for Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) state machine replication (SMR). However, there is still a need for practical and reliable software libraries implementing this technique. BFT-SMART is an open-source Java-based library implementing robust BFT state machine replication. Some of the key features of this library that distinguishes it from similar works (e.g., PBFT and UpRight) are improved reliability, modularity as a first-class property, multicore-awareness, reconfiguration support and a flexible programming interface. When compared to other SMR libraries, BFT-SMART achieves better performance and is able to withstand a number of realworld faults that previous implementations cannot.

show abstract

Section: B How To Test Bft Systems?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although distributed systems tracing, debugging and verification is a lively research area (e.g., [18], [19]), there are still no tools mature enough to be used. Our approach for testing BFT-SMART is based on JUnit, a popular unit testing tool.…”

Section: B How To Test Bft Systems?mentioning

confidence: 99%

State Machine Replication for the Masses with BFT-SMART

Bessani

Sousa

Alchieri³

2014

2014 44th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks

453

349

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Formalization and verification of a class of fault-tolerant distributed algorithms have been addressed in [5]. Their formalization uses the fact that for many distributed algorithms, the order in which messages arrive is not relevant, but only how many messages are received.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Modeling and Model Checking Fault-Tolerant Distributed Algorithms

John

Konnov

Schmid

et al. 2013

Model Checking Software

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Fault-tolerant distributed algorithms are central for building reliable, spatially distributed systems. In order to ensure that these algorithms actually make systems more reliable, we must ensure that these algorithms are actually correct. Unfortunately, model checking state-ofthe-art fault-tolerant distributed algorithms (such as Paxos) is currently out of reach except for very small systems. In order to be eventually able to automatically verify such fault-tolerant distributed algorithms also in larger systems, several problems have to be addressed. In this paper, we consider modeling and verification of fault-tolerant algorithms that basically only contain threshold guards to control the flow of the algorithm. As threshold guards are widely used in fault-tolerant distributed algorithms (and also in Paxos) efficient methods to handle them bring us closer to the above mentioned goal. As case study we use the reliable broadcasting algorithm by Srikanth and Toueg that tolerates even Byzantine faults. We show how one can model this basic fault-tolerant distributed algorithm in Promela such that safety and liveness properties can be efficiently verified in Spin. We provide experimental data also for other distributed algorithms.

show abstract

“…From a methodological viewpoint, our approach combines techniques from several areas including compact programs [49], counter abstraction [4,55], completeness thresholds for bounded model checking [6,16,42], partial order reduction [8,28,53,59], and Lipton's movers [48]. Regarding counter automata, our result entails flattability [46] of every counter system of threshold automata: a complete set of schemas immediately gives us a flat counter automaton.…”

Section: Discussion and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Para $$^2$$ 2 : parameterized path reduction, acceleration, and SMT for reachability in threshold-guarded distributed algorithms

Konnov

Lazić

Veith

et al. 2017

Form Methods Syst Des

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Automatic verification of threshold-based fault-tolerant distributed algorithms (FTDA) is challenging: FTDAs have multiple parameters that are restricted by arithmetic conditions, the number of processes and faults is parameterized, and the algorithm code is parameterized due to conditions counting the number of received messages. Recently, we introduced a technique that first applies data and counter abstraction and then runs bounded model checking (BMC). Given an FTDA, our technique computes an upper bound on the diameter of the system. This makes BMC complete for reachability properties: it always finds a counterexample, if there is an actual error. To verify state-of-the-art FTDAs, further improvement is needed. In contrast to encoding bounded executions of a counter system over an abstract finite domain in SAT, in this paper, we encode bounded executions over integer counters in SMT. In addition, we introduce a new form of reduction that exploits acceleration and the structure of the FTDAs. This aggressively prunes the execution space to be explored by the solver. In this way, we verified safety of seven FTDAs that were out of reach before.

show abstract

Efficient model checking of fault-tolerant distributed protocols

Cited by 15 publications

References 26 publications

State Machine Replication for the Masses with BFT-SMART

State Machine Replication for the Masses with BFT-SMART

Towards Modeling and Model Checking Fault-Tolerant Distributed Algorithms

Para $$^2$$ 2 : parameterized path reduction, acceleration, and SMT for reachability in threshold-guarded distributed algorithms

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About