Experience Report: Verifying MPI Java Programs Using Software Model Checking

• Published in: 2017 IEEE 28th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) pp. 294 - 304
• Main Authors: Ayub, Muhammad Sohaib, Rehman, Waqas Ur, Siddiqui, Junaid Haroon
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.10.2017
• Subjects: Adaptation models; Java; Java PathFinder (JPF); Message passing; Message Passing Interface in Java (MPJ); Message systems; Model checking; Software
• ISSN: 2332-6549
• DOI: 10.1109/ISSRE.2017.15

Parallel and distributed computing have enabled development of much more scalable software. However, developing concurrent software requires the programmer to be aware of nondeterminism, data races, and deadlocks. MPI (message passing interface) is a popular standard for writing message-oriented distributed applications. Some messages in MPI systems can be processed by one of the many machines and in many possible orders. This non-determinism can affect the result of an MPI application. The alternate results may or may not be correct. To verify MPI applications, we need to check all these possible orderings and use an application specific oracle to decide if these orderings give correct output. MPJ Express is an open source Java implementation of the MPI standard. Model checking of MPI Java programs is a challenging task due to their parallel nature. We developed a Java based model of MPJ Express, where processes are modeled as threads, and which can run unmodified MPI Java programs on a single system. This model enabled us to adapt the Java PathFinder explicit state software model checker (JPF) using a custom listener to verify our model running real MPI Java programs. The evaluation of our approach shows that model checking reveals incorrect system behavior that results in very intricate message orderings.