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Dynamic Livelock Analysis of Multi-threaded Programs

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Runtime Verification (RV 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 7687))

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Abstract

Compared to deadlocks, where one or more threads are blocked forever, livelocks are harder to detect as it is not easy to distinguish between a long and an infinite busy wait (i.e., no progress) cycle. We propose a dynamic livelock analysis for a multi-threaded program by examining its execution trace. From the observed trace events, our approach uncovers livelock potentials due to infinite executions where one or more threads in a group are acquiring and releasing resources in busy-wait cycles to avoid deadlocks. Furthermore, to confirm a livelock potential, we orchestrate a partial-order schedule to induce a livelock during a program re-execution. We implemented our proposed approach in a prototype tool CBuster, comprising a light-weight binary instrumentation framework for C/C++ programs to record events, and to replay partial-order schedules. We applied our approach to identify and confirm livelocks in a case study based on SQLite, a widely used embedded multi-threaded database engine.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NEC Labs America, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Malay K. Ganai

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  1. Malay K. Ganai
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Microsoft Research, One Microsoft Way, 98052, Redmond, WA, USA

    Shaz Qadeer

  2. College of Engineering, Koc University, Rumeli Feneri Yolu, 34450, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey

    Serdar Tasiran

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Ganai, M.K. (2013). Dynamic Livelock Analysis of Multi-threaded Programs. In: Qadeer, S., Tasiran, S. (eds) Runtime Verification. RV 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7687. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35632-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35632-2_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35631-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35632-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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