A new technique for generating protocol test

Abstract

A novel procedure presented here generates test sequences for checking the conformity of protocol implementations to their specifications. The test sequences generated by this procedure only detect the presence of many faults, but they do not locate the faults. It can always detect the problem in an implementation with a single fault.A protocol entity is specified as a finite state machine (FSM). It typically has two interfaces: an interface with the user and with the lower-layer protocol. The inputs from both interfaces are merged into a single set I and the outputs from both interfaces are merged into a single set O. The implementation is assumed to be a black box.The key idea in this procedure is to tour all states and state transitions and to check a unique signature for each state, called the Unique Input/Output (UIO) sequence. A UIO sequence for a state is an I/O behavior that is not exhibited by any other state.