Model Checking Cache Coherence Protocols for Distributed File Systems

Debugging complex software systems is a major problem. Proving properties of software systems can be thought of as a debugging tool. If a system S must satisfy property P but we can prove that it does not, then S has bugs in it. On the other hand, if S is proved to satisfy P then this is just a confirmation that a certain aspect of S is correct. We can prove properties of software systems at any stage of development. If we do these proofs early in the design stage, we can prevent errors from propagating to later development stages and therefore save time, money, and human effort. The traditional approach to proving properties of software systems is theorem proving. This approach has several pragmatic drawbacks. The size of the programs that we can prove correct is not very large. Theorem proving must be done by highly skilled experts in the field. Our approach to proving properties of software systems is model checking, which consists of proving the property by automatically checking e..