A Constraint Optimisation Model for Analysis of Telecommunication Protocol Logs

Testing a telecommunication protocol often requires protocol log analysis. A protocol log is a sequence of messages with timestamps. Protocol log analysis involves checking that the content of messages and timestamps are correct with respect to the protocol specification. We model a protocol specification using constraint programming (MiniZinc), and we present an approach where a constraint solver is used to perform protocol log analysis. Our case study is the Public Warning System service, which is a part of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G standard. We were able to analyse logs containing more than 3000 messages with more than 4000 errors