{"id":160246,"date":"2009-04-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/msr-research-item\/modist-transparent-model-checking-of-unmodified-distributed-systems\/"},"modified":"2023-08-19T19:13:21","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T02:13:21","slug":"modist-transparent-model-checking-of-unmodified-distributed-systems","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/modist-transparent-model-checking-of-unmodified-distributed-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"MODIST: Transparent Model Checking of Unmodified Distributed Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"asset-content\">\n<p>MODIST is the first model checker designed for transparently checking unmodified distributed systems running on unmodified operating systems. It achieves this transparency via a novel architecture: a thin interposition layer exposes all actions in a distributed system and a centralized, OS-independent model checking engine explores these actions systematically. We made MODIST practical through three techniques: an execution engine to simulate consistent, deterministic executions and failures; a virtual clock mechanism to avoid false positives and false negatives; and a state exploration framework to incorporate heuristics for efficient error detection.<\/p>\n<p>We implemented MODIST on Windows and applied it to three well-tested distributed systems: Berkeley DB, a widely used open source database; MPS, a deployed Paxos implementation; and PACIFICA, a primary-backup replication protocol implementation. MODIST found 35 bugs in total. Most importantly, it found protocol-level bugs (i.e., flaws in the core distributed protocols) in every system checked: 10 in total, including 2 in Berkeley DB, 2 in MPS, and 6 in PACIFICA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .asset-content --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MODIST is the first model checker designed for transparently checking unmodified distributed systems running on unmodified operating systems. It achieves this transparency via a novel architecture: a thin interposition layer exposes all actions in a distributed system and a centralized, OS-independent model checking engine explores these actions systematically. We made MODIST practical through three techniques: 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