Verification and Synthesis of Symmetric Uni-Rings for Leads-To Properties

This paper investigates the verification and synthesis of parameterized protocols that satisfy leadsto properties $R \leadsto Q$ on symmetric unidirectional rings (a.k.a. uni-rings) of deterministic and constant-space processes under no fairness and interleaving semantics, where $R$ and $Q$ are global state predicates. First, we show that verifying $R \leadsto Q$ for parameterized protocols on symmetric uni-rings is undecidable, even for deterministic and constant-space processes, and conjunctive state predicates. Then, we show that surprisingly synthesizing symmetric uni-ring protocols that satisfy $R \leadsto Q$ is actually decidable. We identify necessary and sufficient conditions for the decidability of synthesis based on which we devise a sound and complete polynomial-time algorithm that takes the predicates $R$ and $Q$, and automatically generates a parameterized protocol that satisfies $R \leadsto Q$ for unbounded (but finite) ring sizes. Moreover, we present some decidability results for cases where leadsto is required from multiple distinct $R$ predicates to different $Q$ predicates. To demonstrate the practicality of our synthesis method, we synthesize some parameterized protocols, including agreement and parity protocols

Parameterized Verification of Safety Properties in Ad Hoc Network Protocols

We summarize the main results proved in recent work on the parameterized verification of safety properties for ad hoc network protocols. We consider a model in which the communication topology of a network is represented as a graph. Nodes represent states of individual processes. Adjacent nodes represent single-hop neighbors. Processes are finite state automata that communicate via selective broadcast messages. Reception of a broadcast is restricted to single-hop neighbors. For this model we consider a decision problem that can be expressed as the verification of the existence of an initial topology in which the execution of the protocol can lead to a configuration with at least one node in a certain state. The decision problem is parametric both on the size and on the form of the communication topology of the initial configurations. We draw a complete picture of the decidability and complexity boundaries of this problem according to various assumptions on the possible topologies.Comment: In Proceedings PACO 2011, arXiv:1108.145

Constraints-based Verification of Parameterized Cryptographic Protocols.

Cryptographic protocols are crucial for securing electronic transactions. The confidence in these protocols can be increased by the formal analysis of their security properties. Although many works have been dedicated to standard protocols like Needham-Schroeder very few address the more challenging class of group protocols. We present a synchronous model for group protocols, that generalizes standard protocol models by permitting unbounded lists inside messages. In this extended model we propose a correct and complete set of inference rules for checking security properties in presence of an active intruder for the class of Well-Tagged protocols. We prove that the application of these rules on a constraint system terminates and that the normal form obtained can be checked for satisfiability. Therefore, we present here a decision procedure for this class

Towards a Constrained-based Verification of Parameterized Cryptographic Protocols

International audienceAlthough many works have been dedicated to standard protocols like Needham-Schroeder very few address the more challenging class of group protocol s. We present a synchronous model for group protocols, that generalizes standard protocol models by permitting unbounded lists inside messages. In this extended model we propose a correct and complete set of inference rules for checking security properties in presence of an active intruder for the class of well-tagged protocols. Our inference system generalizes the ones that are implemented in several tools for a bounded number of sessions and fixed size lists in message. In particular when applied to protocols whose specification does not contain unbounded lists our inference system provides a decision procedure for secrecy in the case of a fixed number of sessions

Parameterized Concurrent Multi-Party Session Types

Session types have been proposed as a means of statically verifying implementations of communication protocols. Although prior work has been successful in verifying some classes of protocols, it does not cope well with parameterized, multi-actor scenarios with inherent asynchrony. For example, the sliding window protocol is inexpressible in previously proposed session type systems. This paper describes System-A, a new typing language which overcomes many of the expressiveness limitations of prior work. System-A explicitly supports asynchrony and parallelism, as well as multiple forms of parameterization. We define System-A and show how it can be used for the static verification of a large class of asynchronous communication protocols.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2012, arXiv:1208.432

Using Flow Specifications of Parameterized Cache Coherence Protocols for Verifying Deadlock Freedom

We consider the problem of verifying deadlock freedom for symmetric cache coherence protocols. In particular, we focus on a specific form of deadlock which is useful for the cache coherence protocol domain and consistent with the internal definition of deadlock in the Murphi model checker: we refer to this deadlock as a system- wide deadlock (s-deadlock). In s-deadlock, the entire system gets blocked and is unable to make any transition. Cache coherence protocols consist of N symmetric cache agents, where N is an unbounded parameter; thus the verification of s-deadlock freedom is naturally a parameterized verification problem. Parametrized verification techniques work by using sound abstractions to reduce the unbounded model to a bounded model. Efficient abstractions which work well for industrial scale protocols typically bound the model by replacing the state of most of the agents by an abstract environment, while keeping just one or two agents as is. However, leveraging such efficient abstractions becomes a challenge for s-deadlock: a violation of s-deadlock is a state in which the transitions of all of the unbounded number of agents cannot occur and so a simple abstraction like the one above will not preserve this violation. In this work we address this challenge by presenting a technique which leverages high-level information about the protocols, in the form of message sequence dia- grams referred to as flows, for constructing invariants that are collectively stronger than s-deadlock. Efficient abstractions can be constructed to verify these invariants. We successfully verify the German and Flash protocols using our technique

Parameterized verification

The goal of parameterized verification is to prove the correctness of a system specification regardless of the number of its components. The problem is of interest in several different areas: verification of hardware design, multithreaded programs, distributed systems, and communication protocols. The problem is undecidable in general. Solutions for restricted classes of systems and properties have been studied in areas like theorem proving, model checking, automata and logic, process algebra, and constraint solving. In this introduction to the special issue, dedicated to a selection of works from the Parameterized Verification workshop PV \u201914 and PV \u201915, we survey some of the works developed in this research area

Probabilistic Bisimulation for Parameterized Systems (Technical Report)

Probabilistic bisimulation is a fundamental notion of process equivalence for probabilistic systems. Among others, it has important applications including formalizing the anonymity property of several communication protocols. There is a lot of work on verifying probabilistic bisimulation for finite systems. This is however not the case for parameterized systems, where the problem is in general undecidable. In this paper we provide a generic framework for reasoning about probabilistic bisimulation for parameterized systems. Our approach is in the spirit of software verification, wherein we encode proof rules for probabilistic bisimulation and use a decidable first-order theory to specify systems and candidate bisimulation relations, which can then be checked automatically against the proof rules. As a case study, we show that our framework is sufficiently expressive for proving the anonymity property of the parameterized dining cryptographers protocol and the parameterized grades protocol, when supplied with a candidate regular bisimulation relation. Both of these protocols hitherto could not be verified by existing automatic methods. Moreover, with the help of standard automata learning algorithms, we show that the candidate relations can be synthesized fully automatically, making the verification fully automated