# Proof Certificates¶

One clear strength of model checkers, as opposed to proof assistants, say, is their ability to return precise error traces witnessing the violation of a given safety property. Such traces not only are invaluable for designers to correct bugs, they also constitute a checkable certificate. For instance Kind 2 display a counter-example trace that shows the evolution of values of all variables in the system up to a violation of the property. In most cases, it is possible to use a counter-example for a safety property to direct the execution of the system under analysis to a state that falsifies that property. In contrast, most model checkers are currently unable to return any form of corroborating evidence when they declare a safety property to be satisfied by the system. This is unsatisfactory in general since these are complex tools based on a variety of sophisticated algorithms and search heuristics, and so are not immune to errors.

To mitigate this problem, Kind 2 accompanies its safety claims with a certificate, an artifact embodying a proof of the claim. The certificate can then be validated by a trusted certificate/proof checker, in our case the LFSC checker.

## Certification chain¶

The certification process for Kind 2 is depicted in the graph below. Kind 2 generates two sorts of safety certificates, in the form of SMT-LIB 2 scripts: one certifying the faithfulness of the translation from the Lustre input model to the internal encoding, and another one certifying the invariance of the input properties for the internal encoding of the input system. These certificates are checked by CVC4, then turned into LFSC proof objects by collecting CVC4’s own proofs and assembling them to form an overall proof that can be efficiently verified by the LFSC proof checker.

Certification process

Trust is claimed at a higher level when both proof certificates are present. In practice, this means that Kind 2 didn’t make any mistake in its model checking phase, and that the translation of the Lustre model to the internal representation is faithful.

## Producing certificates and proofs with Kind 2¶

To illustrate this process, we rely on the toy model below (add_two.lus). The model encodes in Lustre a synchronous reactive component, add_two, that at each execution step other than the first, outputs the maximum between the previous value of its output variable c and the sum of the current values of input variables a and b. The value of c is initially 1.0. The model is annotated with an invariance property stating that, at each step, the output c is positive whenever both inputs are.

node add_two (a, b : real) returns (c : real) ;
var v : real;
let
v = a + b ;
c = 1.0 -> if (pre c) > v then (pre c) else v ;
--%PROPERTY (a > 0.0 and b > 0.0) => c > 0.0 ;
tel


Kind 2 offers the possibility to generate two types of certificates, SMT-LIB 2 certificates and actual proofs in the format of LFSC. It will do so only for systems whose properties (or contracts) are all proven valid.

### Requirements¶

Frontend certificates and proofs production require the user to have JKind installed on his machine (together with a suitable version of Java).

SMT-LIB 2 certificates do not require anything additional excepted for an SMT solver to check the certificates.

LFSC proofs production require a proof producing version of CVC4 (the binary can be specified with --cvc4_bin), and the LFSC checker to be compiled for the final proof checking phase.

#### LFSC checker¶

The LFSC checker is also distributed with Kind 2 in the directory lfsc, it contains the checker and the necessary signature files with the proof rules:

lfsc
|-- checker
|   ...
|-- signatures
|-- kind.plf
|-- sat.plf
|-- smt.plf
|-- th_base.plf
|-- th_int.plf
|-- th_real.plf


The checker can be compiled using:

autoreconf -i
./configure
make


### SMT-LIB 2 certificates¶

These certificates are always produced but are only used as an intermediate step for LFSC proof production. The user still has the possibility to get them as the final output of Kind 2 in a convenient form. To do so, invoke Kind 2 (on the previous example add_two.lus) with the following

kind2 --certif true add_two.lus


For successful runs, the output of Kind 2 will contain:

Certificate minimization
Kept 0 (out of 1) invariants at bound 1 (down from 1)
Certificate checker was written in add_two.out/certificates.0/certificate.smt2
Generating frontend eq-observer with jKind ...
Generating frontend certificate
...
Certificate minimization
Kept 0 (out of 4) invariants at bound 1 (down from 1)
Certificate checker was written in add_two.out/certificates.0/FECC.smt2


The certificates are located in the directory add_two.out which has the following structure:

add_two.out/
|-- certificates.0
|-- FEC.kind2
|-- FECC.smt2
|-- FECC_checker
|-- FECC_prelude.smt2
|-- certificate.smt2
|-- certificate_checker
|-- certificate_prelude.smt2
|-- jkind_sys.smt2
|-- jkind_sys_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- kind2_sys.smt2
|-- observer.smt2
|-- observer_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- observer_sys.smt2


In particular, it contains two scripts of interest: certificate_checker and FECC_checker. They are meant to be run with the name of an SMT solver as argument and should produce each three unsat results. The first one checks that the certificate of invariance is valid with the provided SMT solver and the second script checks that the frontend certificate is valid.

> add_two.out/certificates.0/certificate_checker z3
Checking base case
unsat
Checking 1-inductive case
unsat
Checking property subsumption
unsat

Checking base case
unsat
Checking 1-inductive case
unsat
Checking property subsumption
unsat


### LFSC proofs¶

The other option offered by Kind 2, and the most trustworthy one, is to produce LFSC proofs. This can be done with the following invocation:

kind2 --proof true add_two.lus


Successful runs emit outputs that contain lines such as:

Certificate minimization
Kept 0 (out of 1) invariants at bound 1 (down from 1)
...
Generating frontend eq-observer with jKind ...
Generating frontend proof
...
Certificate minimization
Kept 0 (out of 4) invariants at bound 1 (down from 1)
...


The important one is the last message that indicate the file in which the proof was written. The directory produced by Kind 2 will have the following structure:

add_two.out/
|-- certificates.0
|-- FEC.kind2
|-- base.smt2
|-- frontend_base.smt2
|-- frontend_implication.smt2
|-- frontend_induction.smt2
|-- frontend_proof.lfsc
|-- implication.smt2
|-- induction.smt2
|-- jkind_sys.smt2
|-- jkind_sys_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- kind2_phi.smt2
|-- kind2_phi_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- kind2_sys.smt2
|-- kind2_sys_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- obs_phi.smt2
|-- obs_phi_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- observer.smt2
|-- observer_lfsc_trace.smt2
|-- proof.lfsc


It contains as many proofs (at the root) as there are relevant analysis performed by Kind 2 (for modular and compositional reasoning). To make sure that the proof is an actual proof, one needs to call the LFSC checker on the generated output, together with the correct signatures:

lfsc-checker path/to/lfsc/signatures/{sat,smt,th_base,th_int,th_real,kind}.plf add_two.out/add_two.lus.0.lfsc


The return code for this command execution is 0 when everything was checked correctly. Two lines will be displayed when both the proof of invariance and the proof of correct translation by the frontend are valid:

File add_two.out/add_two.lus.0.lfsc, line 198, character 17: Check successful


In the case where only the invariance proof was produced and checked, the return code will still be 0 but only one Check successful will be in the output of lfsc-checker.

## Contents of certificates¶

For a given problem (whose safety property is P), an internal certificate consists in only a pair $$(k, \phi)$$ where $$\phi$$ is a k-inductive invariant of the system which implies the original properties. SMT-LIB 2 certificates are in fact scripts whose check make sure that $$\phi$$ implies P and is k-inductive. The LFSC proof is a formal proof that P is invariant in the system, using sub-proofs of validity (unsatisfiability) returned by CVC4.

## LFSC signature¶

A proof system is formally defined in LFSC through signatures, which contain a definition of the system’s language together with axioms and proof rules. The proof system used by CVC4 is defined over a number of signatures, which are included in its source code distribution. Those relevant to this work include signatures for propositional logic and resolution (sat.plf); first-order terms and formulas, with rules for CNF conversion and abstraction to propositional logic (smt.plf); equality over uninterpreted functions (th_base.plf); and real and integer linear arithmetic (th_int.plf and th_real.plf).

CVC4’s proof system is extended with an additional signature (kind.plf) for k-inductive reasoning, invariance and safety. This signature also specifies the encoding for state variables, initial states, transition relations, and property predicates. State variables are encoded as functions from natural numbers to values. This way, the unrolling of the transition relation does not need the creation of several copies of the state variable tuple x. For example, for the state vector x = (y , z) with y of type real and z of type integer, the LFSC encoding will make y and z respectively functions from naturals to reals and integers. So we will use the tuples (y(0) , z(0)), (y(1) , z(1)), … instead of (y0 , z0), (y1 , z1), … where y0 , y 1 , …, z0 , z1, … are (distinct) variables. Correspondingly, our LFSC encoding of a transition relation formula T[x, x’] is parametrized by two natural variables, the index of the pre-state and of the post-state, instead of two tuples of state variables. Similarly, I, P and $$\phi$$ are parametrized by a single natural variable.

The signature defines several derivability judgments, including one for proofs of invariance, which has the following type:

$\begin{split}\begin{split} \text{invariant}: \Pi\ \text{I}:&\ \mathbb{N} \to \text{formula}.\\ \Pi\ \text{T}:&\ \mathbb{N} \to \mathbb{N} \to \text{formula}.\\ \Pi\ \text{I}:&\ \mathbb{N} \to \text{formula}. \text{Type} \end{split}\end{split}$

It also contains various rules to build proofs of invariance by k-induction. This signature also specifies how to encapsulate proofs for the front-end certificates by providing a additional judgment, safe(I,T,P,I’,T’,P’), which can be derived only when invariant(I,T,P) is derivable and the observational equivalence between (I,T,P) and (I’,T’,P’) is provable (judgment woe). Self contained proofs of safety follow the sketch depicted below, where Smt stands for an unsatisfiability rule whose proof tree is obtained, with minor changes, from a proof produced by CVC4.

Proof sketch