Check and simulate: a case for incorporating model checking in network simulation

Existing network simulators perform reasonably well in evaluating the performance of network protocols, but lack the capability of verifying and validating the correctness of network protocols. In this paper we have extended J-Sim - an open-source, component-based compositional network simulation environment - with the model checking capability to explore the state space created by a network protocol until either the entire state space is explored (if the state space is finite) or an error (e.g., a violation of a user-defined safety assertion) is discovered. We also exploit protocol-specific properties in the process of exploring the state space, to reduce the size of the state space and to guide the (best-first) search towards paths that can potentially locate errors in less time. As a proof of concept, we have demonstrated use of the J-Sim model checker in locating errors in an automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocol. As compared to the Maude LTL model checker, the J-Sim model checker can locate errors in a timely manner and with shorter error traces.