Verification of a cryptographic primitive: SHA-256 (abstract)

This article presents a full formal machine-checked verification of a C program: the OpenSSL implementation of SHA-256. This is an interactive proof of functional correctness in the Coq proof assistant, using the Verifiable C program logic. Verifiable C is a separation logic for the C language, proved sound with respect to the operational semantics for C, connected to the CompCert verified optimizing C compiler.

Verified compilers, such as Leroy's CompCert, are accompanied by a fully checked correctness proof. Both the compiler and proof are often constructed with an interactive proof assistant. This technique provides a strong, end-to-end correctness guarantee on top of a small trusted computing base. Unfortunately, these compilers are also challenging to extend since each additional transformation must be proven correct in full formal detail. At the other end of the spectrum, techniques for compiler correctness based on a domain-specific language for writing optimizations, such as Lerner's Rhodium and Cobalt, make the compiler easy to extend: the correctness of additional transformations can be checked completely automatically. Unfortunately, these systems provide a weaker guarantee since their end-to-end correctness has not been proven fully formally. We present an approach for compiler correctness that provides the best of both worlds by bridging the gap between compiler verification and compiler extensibility. In particular, we have extended Leroy's CompCert compiler with an execution engine for optimizations written in a domain specific and proved that this execution engine preserves program semantics, using the Coq proof assistant. We present our CompCert extension, XCert, including the details of its execution engine and proof of correctness in Coq. Furthermore, we report on the important lessons learned for making the proof development manageable.

Reasoning about real number expressions in a proof assistant is challenging. Several problems in theorem proving can be solved by using exact real number computation. I have implemented a library for reasoning and computing with complete metric spaces in the Coq proof assistant and used this library to build a constructive real number implementation including elementary real number functions and proofs of correctness. Using this library, I have created a tactic that automatically proves strict inequalities over closed elementary real number expressions by computation.KeywordsReal NumberRational NumberTheorem ProveRegular FunctionStrict InequalityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Quantum error correction (QEC) is fundamental for suppressing noise in quantum hardware and enabling fault-tolerant quantum computation. In this paper, we propose an efficient verification framework for QEC programs. We define an assertion logic and a program logic specifically crafted for QEC programs and establish a sound proof system. We then develop an efficient method for handling verification conditions (VCs) of QEC programs: for Pauli errors, the VCs are reduced to classical assertions that can be solved by SMT solvers, and for non-Pauli errors, we provide a heuristic algorithm. We formalize the proposed program logic in Coq proof assistant, making it a verified QEC verifier. Additionally, we implement an automated QEC verifier, Veri-QEC, for verifying various fault-tolerant scenarios. We demonstrate the efficiency and broad functionality of the framework by performing different verification tasks across various scenarios. Finally, we present a benchmark of 14 verified stabilizer codes.

A reliable communication layer is an essential component of a mobile agent system. We present a new fault-tolerant directory service for mobile agents, which can be used to route messages to them. The directory service, based on a technique of forwarding pointers, introduces some redundancy in order to ensure resilience to stopping failures of nodes containing forwarding pointers; in addition, it avoids cyclic routing of messages, and it supports a technique to collapse chains of pointers that allows direct communications between agents. We have formalised the algorithm and derived a fully mechanical proof of its correctness using the proof assistant Coq; we report on our experience of designing the algorithm and deriving its proof of correctness. The complete source code of the proof is made available from the WWW.

Algebras based on combinators, i.e., variable-free, have been proposed as a better representation for query compilation and optimization. A key benefit of combinators is that they avoid the need to handle variable shadowing or accidental capture during rewrites. This simplifies both the optimizer specification and its correctness analysis, but the environment from the source language has to be reified as records, which can lead to more complex query plans. This paper proposes NRAe, an extension of a combinators-based nested relational algebra (NRA) with built-in support for environments. We show that it can naturally encode an equivalent NRA with lambda terms and that all optimizations on NRA carry over to NRAe. This extension provides an elegant way to represent views in query plans, and can radically simplify compilation and optimization for source languages with rich environment manipulations. We have specified a query compiler using the Coq proof assistant with NRAe at its heart. Most of the compiler, including the query optimizer, is accompanied by a (machine-checked) correctness proof. The implementation is automatically extracted from the specification, resulting in a query compiler with a verified core.

We use Iris, an implementation of concurrent separation logic in the Coq proof assistant, to verify two queue data structures used for inter-process communication in an operating system under development. Our motivations are twofold. First, we wish to leverage formal verification to boost confidence in a delicate piece of industrial code that was subject to numerous revisions. Second, we aim to gain information on the cost-benefit tradeoff of applying a state-of-the-art formal verification tool in our industrial setting. On both fronts, our endeavor has been a success. The verification effort proved that the queue algorithms are correct and uncovered four algorithmic simplifications as well as bugs in client code. The simplifications involve the removal of two memory barriers, one atomic load, and one boolean check, all in a performance-sensitive part of the OS. Removing the redundant boolean check revealed unintended uses of uninitialized memory in multiple device drivers, which were fixed. The proof work was completed in person months, not years, by engineers with no prior familiarity with Iris. These findings are spurring further use of verification at Meta.

Cloud hypervisors are critical software whose formal verification can increase our confidence in the reliability and security of the cloud. This work presents a case study on formal verification of the virtual memory system of the cloud hypervisor Anaxagoros, a microkernel designed for resource isolation and protection. The code under verification is specified and proven in the frama-C software verification framework, mostly using automatic theorem proving. The remaining properties are interactively proven with the Coq proof assistant. We describe in detail selected aspects of the case study, including parallel execution and counting references to pages, and discuss some lessons learned, benefits and limitations of our approach.

Proceedings First International Workshop on Hammers for Type Theories

We develop a mechanized proof of Featherweight Java with Assignment and Immutability in the Coq proof assistant. This is a step towards more machine-checked proofs of a non-trivial type system. We used object immutability close to that of IGJ [9] . We describe the challenges of the mech- anisation and the encoding we used inside of Coq.

This work describes a formalization effort, using the Coq proof assistant, of fundamental results related to the classical theory of context-free grammars and languages. These include closure properties union, concatenation and Kleene star, grammar simplification elimination of useless symbols, inaccessible symbols, empty rules and unit rules, the existence of a Chomsky Normal Form for context-free grammars and the Pumping Lemma for context-free languages. The result is an important set of libraries covering the main results of context-free language theory, with more than 500 lemmas and theorems fully proved and checked. This is probably the most comprehensive formalization of the classical context-free language theory in the Coq proof assistant done to the present date, and includes the important result that is the formalization of the Pumping Lemma for context-free languages.

Building a trustworthy life-critical embedded system requires deep reasoning about the potential effects that sequences of machine instructions can have on full system operation. Rather than trying to analyze complete binaries and the countless ways their instructions can interact with one another --- memory, side effects, control registers, implicit state, etc. --- we explore a new approach. We propose an architecture controlled by a thin computational layer designed to tightly correspond with the lambda calculus, drawing on principles of functional programming to bring the assembly much closer to myriad reasoning frameworks, such as the Coq proof assistant. This approach allows assembly-level verified versions of critical code to operate safely in tandem with arbitrary code, including imperative and unverified system components, without the need for large supporting trusted computing bases. We demonstrate that this computational layer can be built in such a way as to simultaneously provide full programmability and compact, precise, and complete semantics, while still using hardware resources comparable to normal embedded systems. To demonstrate the practicality of this approach, our FPGA-implemented prototype runs an embedded medical application which monitors and treats life-threatening arrhythmias. Though the system integrates untrusted and imperative components, our architecture allows for the formal verification of multiple properties of the end-to-end system, including a proof of correctness of the assembly-level implementation of the core algorithm, the integrity of trusted data via a non-interference proof, and a guarantee that our prototype meets critical timing requirements.

This paper presents a new probabilistie primality test. Upon termination the test outputs "composite" or "prime", along with a short proof of correctness, which can be verified in deterministic polynomial time. The test is different from the tests of Miller [M], Solovay-Strassen [SSI, and Rabin [R] in that its assertions of primality are certain, rather than being correct with high probability or dependent on an unproven assumption.

The L4.verified project was a rare success in large-scale, formal verification: it provided a formal, machine-checked, code-level proof of the full functional correctness of the seL4 microkernel. In this paper we report on the development process and management issues of this project, highlighting key success factors. We formulate a detailed descriptive model of its middle-out development process, and analyze the evolution and dependencies of code and proof artifacts. We compare our key findings on verification and re-verification with insights from other verification efforts in the literature. Our analysis of the project is based on complete access to project logs, meeting notes, and version control data over its entire history, including its long-term, ongoing maintenance phase. The aim of this work is to aid understanding of how to successfully run large-scale formal software verification projects.

Nowadays, formal methods rely on tools of different kinds: proof assistants with which the user interacts to discover a proof step by step; and fully automated tools which make use of (intricate) decision procedures. But while some proof assistants can check the soundness of a proof, they lack automation. Regarding automated tools, one still has to be satisfied with their answers Yes/No/Do not know, the validity of which can be subject to question, in particular because of the increasing size and complexity of these tools.In the context of rewriting techniques, we aim at bridging the gap between proof assistants that yield formal guarantees of reliability and highly automated tools one has to trust. We present an approach making use of both shallow and deep embeddings. We illustrate this approach with a prototype based on the CiME rewriting toolbox, which can discover involved termination proofs that can be certified by the Coq proof assistant, using the Coccinelle library for rewriting.KeywordsModule TypeAutomate ToolProof AssistantGraph CriterionStrongly Connect ComponentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.