Asynchronous Fault-Tolerant Language Decidability for Runtime Verification of Distributed Systems

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Castañeda, Armando, Rodríguez, Gilde Valeria
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866908387418046464
author Castañeda, Armando
Rodríguez, Gilde Valeria
author_facet Castañeda, Armando
Rodríguez, Gilde Valeria
contents Implementing correct distributed systems is an error-prone task. Runtime Verification (RV) offers a lightweight formal method to improve reliability by monitoring system executions against correctness properties. However, applying RV in distributed settings - where no process has global knowledge - poses fundamental challenges, particularly under full asynchrony and fault tolerance. This paper addresses the Distributed Runtime Verification (DRV) problem under such conditions. In our model, each process in a distributed monitor receives a fragment of the input word describing system behavior and must decide whether this word belongs to the language representing the correctness property being verified. Hence, the goal is to decide languages in a distributed fault-tolerant manner. We propose several decidability definitions, study the relations among them, and prove possibility and impossibility results. One of our main results is a characterization of the correctness properties that can be decided asynchronously. Remarkably, it applies to any language decidability definition. Intuitively, the characterization is that only properties with no real-time order constraints can be decided in asynchronous fault-tolerant settings. These results expose the expressive limits of DRV in realistic systems, as several properties of practical interest rely on reasoning about real-time order of events in executions. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a weaker model where the system under inspection is verified indirectly. Under this weaker model we define predictive decidability, a decidability definition that turn some real-time sensitive correctness properties verifiable. Our framework unifies and extends existing DRV theory and sharpens the boundary of runtime monitorability under different assumptions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_00191
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Asynchronous Fault-Tolerant Language Decidability for Runtime Verification of Distributed Systems
Castañeda, Armando
Rodríguez, Gilde Valeria
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Implementing correct distributed systems is an error-prone task. Runtime Verification (RV) offers a lightweight formal method to improve reliability by monitoring system executions against correctness properties. However, applying RV in distributed settings - where no process has global knowledge - poses fundamental challenges, particularly under full asynchrony and fault tolerance. This paper addresses the Distributed Runtime Verification (DRV) problem under such conditions. In our model, each process in a distributed monitor receives a fragment of the input word describing system behavior and must decide whether this word belongs to the language representing the correctness property being verified. Hence, the goal is to decide languages in a distributed fault-tolerant manner. We propose several decidability definitions, study the relations among them, and prove possibility and impossibility results. One of our main results is a characterization of the correctness properties that can be decided asynchronously. Remarkably, it applies to any language decidability definition. Intuitively, the characterization is that only properties with no real-time order constraints can be decided in asynchronous fault-tolerant settings. These results expose the expressive limits of DRV in realistic systems, as several properties of practical interest rely on reasoning about real-time order of events in executions. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a weaker model where the system under inspection is verified indirectly. Under this weaker model we define predictive decidability, a decidability definition that turn some real-time sensitive correctness properties verifiable. Our framework unifies and extends existing DRV theory and sharpens the boundary of runtime monitorability under different assumptions.
title Asynchronous Fault-Tolerant Language Decidability for Runtime Verification of Distributed Systems
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00191