Decentralized runtime analysis of multithreaded applications

Violations of a number of common safety properties of multithreaded programs–such as atomicity and absence of dataraces–cannot be observed by looking at the linear execution trace. We characterize a class of such properties, called robust properties, and define a simple but expressive epistemic logic to specify them. We then develop an efficient algorithm to automatically monitor and predict violations of robust safety properties. Our algorithm is based on capturing the causal structure of a computation through a mechanism similar to vector clock updates. The algorithm automatically synthesizes decentralized monitors to evaluate the information at each thread and to detect and predict safety violations. Based on this approach, a tool named DAME has been developed and evaluated on some simple examples.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: IPPS
• Authors: Koushik Sen, Abhay Vardhan, Gul Agha, Grigore Rosu
• Keywords: Common Safety Properties, Distributed And Parallel Computing, IPPS 2006, Robust Safety Properties, Safety Properties