Operational Semantics of Process Monitors

Abstract

$\text {CSP}_E$ is a specification language for runtime monitors that can directly express concurrency in a bottom-up manner that composes the system from simpler, interacting components. It includes constructs to explicitly flag failures to the monitor, which unlike deadlocks and livelocks in conventional process algebras, propagate globally and aborts the whole system’s execution. Although $\text {CSP}_E$ has a trace semantics along with an implementation demonstrating acceptable performance, it lacks an operational semantics. An operational semantics is not only more accessible than trace semantics but also indispensable for ensuring the correctness of the implementation. Furthermore, a process algebra like $\text {CSP}_E$ admits multiple denotational semantics appropriate for different purposes, and an operational semantics is the basis for justifying such semantics’ integrity and relevance. In this paper, we develop an SOS-style operational semantics for $\text {CSP}_E$, which properly accounts for explicit failures and will serve as a basis for further study of its properties, its optimization, and its use in runtime verification.