Version 2.5.4
Oct 28, 2011

We are happy to announce the availability of a new version of the NuSMV model checker. NuSMV version 2.5.4 is available from https://nusmv.fbk.eu.

NuSMV 2 extends the previous versions of NuSMV with several new features, most notably with the possibility of performing SAT-based Bounded Model Checking (see the Overview below).

This is a minor release that provides many bug fixes, some internals improvement, and a few new features.

The main changes are listed below. For details please refer to the ChangeLog.

New features

  • System commands
    • Added two new commands bmc_pick_state and bmc_inc_simulate for interactive simulations using SAT;
    • Added option -n "name" to command add_property to specify the name
    • Removed unsupported options -o and -1 from the documentation command check_ltlspec_sbmc_inc;
  • Command line options and system variables
    • Added a new system boolean variable daggifier_enabled (Default set to 1), and a new relative command line option -disable_daggifier to enable/disable the daggifier while dumping SMV models.
  • Improvements (internal)
    • Performed several refactorings: added wff package and a few basic data structures (e.g. utils/Pair.c, utils/Triple.c);
    • The simplification of the expressions has been improved using additional simplification rules, the local symbol tables and pointers sorting;
    • Improved iteration over the hash tables elements;
    • Improved construction of static BDD var order.

Bug fixes

We fixed about 15 bugs in this version. Many thanks to those users who reported issues, and helped improving NuSMV.

Here is the list of the most critical bug fixed:

  • Fixed a wrong simplification rule within the rbc package;
  • Fixed a bug in condition simplification, which was not taking into account context;
  • Fixed a bug in prompt printing that was creating some syncronization problem with external tools (thanks to Sylvain Soliman from INRIA for the accurate bug report);
  • Fixed a bug in the trace reader that caused seg-faults;
  • Fixed an overflow in the operator swconst;
  • Fixed a bug in the command add_property that was wrongly adding a property P even if P was already used;
  • Added some additional checks to trap uncorrect PSL formulae;
  • Fixed a linking dependence about the library librbcdag.la in the Makefile that prevented the creation of linkable library.

Documentation

  • The output of -h option for check_ltlspec_sbmc_inc, bmc_pick_state, bmc_inc_simulate, add_property, daggifier_enabled commands, and the command line option -disable_daggifier have been updated according to the recent changes. The User Manual has been updated as well.

Attachment

Overview

NuSMV is a re-implementation and extension of SMV, the first model checker based on BDDs. It has been designed to be an open architecture for model checking, which can be reliably used for the verification of industrial designs, as a core for custom verification tools, and as a test-bed for formal verification techniques.

NuSMV version 2 extends NuSMV with new model checking algorithms and techniques. It combines classical BDD-based symbolic techniques with SAT-based techniques. It also presents other new features: for instance, it allows for a more powerful manipulation of multiple models; it can generate flat models for the whole language; it allows for cone of influence reduction.

The BDD-based model checking component exploits the CUDD library developed by Fabio Somenzi at Colorado University. The SAT-based model checking component includes an RBC-based Bounded Model Checker, connected to a SAT solver to be compiled separately (instructions and building support are batteries included in NuSMV, details are underneath). The currently available SAT solvers are: + The ZCHAFF SAT library developed by the Princeton University + The MINISAT SAT library developed by Niklas Een or Niklas Sorensson.

NuSMV version 2 is distributed with an OpenSource license, namely the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The aim is to provide a publicly available state-of-the-art symbolic model checker. With the OpenSource development model, a whole community participates in the development of a software systems, with a distributed team and independent peer review. This may result in a rapid system evolution, and in increased software quality and reliability: for instance, the OpenSource model has boosted the take-up of notable software systems, such as Linux and Apache. With the NuSMV OpenSource project, we would like to reach the same goals within the model checking community, opening the development of NuSMV.

You can find further details on NuSMV 2 and on the NuSMV project in paper:

A. Cimatti, E. Clarke, E. Giunchiglia, F. Giunchiglia, M. Pistore, M. Roveri, R. Sebastiani, and A. Tacchella. "NuSMV 2: An OpenSource Tool for Symbolic Model Checking". In Proc. CAV'02, LNCS. Springer Verlag, 2002.

Copyright

NuSMV version 2 (NuSMV 2 in short) is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL in short). A copy of LGPL-2.1 can be found at url <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.txt>.

The aim of the NuSMV OpenSource project is to allow anybody interested to participate to the development of NuSMV. To this purpose, we have chosen a license that:

  1. permits to use the system in research and commercial applications, without restrictions;
  2. is "copyleft", that is, it requires that anyone who improves the system has to make the improvements freely available.

In brief, the LGPL license allows anyone to freely download, copy, use, modify, and redistribute NuSMV 2, proviso that any modification and/or extension to the library is made publicly available under the terms of LGPL.

The license also allows the usage of the NuSMV 2 as part of a larger software system without being obliged to distributing the whole software under LGPL. Also in this case, the modification to NuSMV 2 (not to the larger software) should be made available under LGPL.

Notice that zchaff is for non-commercial purposes only. NO COMMERCIAL USE OF ZCHAFF IS ALLOWED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. Please contact Sharad Malik (malik@ee.princeton.edu) for details.

Notice also that the CUDD library is copyright University of Colorado. The CUDD library is not covered by LGPL.

Please contact <nusmv@list.fbk.eu> if you have any doubt or comment on the license.

Partners

Different partners have participated to the initial release of NuSMV 2. Every source file in the NuSMV 2 distribution contains a header that acknowledges the developers and the copyright holders for the file. In particular:

  • CMU and ITC-IRST contributed the source code of NuSMV version 1;
  • ITC-IRST has also developed several extensions for NuSMV 2;
  • ITC-IRST and the University of Trento have developed the SAT-based Bounded Model Checking package of NuSMV 2;
  • the University of Genova has contributed SIM, a state-of-the-art SAT solver, and the RBC package used in the Bounded Model Checking algorithms.
  • FBK-irst has developed version 2.5.0 and later.

The NuSMV team has also received several contributions for different part of the system. In particular:

  • Ariel Fuxman <afuxman@cs.toronto.edu> has extended the LTL to SMV tableau translator to the past fragment of LTL
  • Rik Eshuis <eshuis@cs.utwente.nl> has contributed a strong fairness model checking algorithm for LTL specifications
  • Dan Sheridan <dan.sheridan@contact.org.uk> has contributed several extensions and enhancements to the Bounded Model Checking algorithms.

Statements of interest have also come from several other commercial and academic institutions.

Mailing Lists

Refer to this page.

Bug Reports

We have performed an extensive test activity on NuSMV2. Still, NuSMV is large software system and contains many interacting features.

If you find a bug or misbehavior, please let us know, so that we can fix it for the next releases of NuSMV.

You can send an email to <nusmv-users@list.fbk.eu> with the description of the bug. Refer to this page for more information.

NuSMV Staff <>
https://nusmv.fbk.eu/