A Theory of Monitors (Extended Abstract)

We develop a behavioural theory for monitors - software entities that passively analyse the runtime behaviour of systems so as to infer properties about them. First, we extend the monitor language and instrumentation relation of [17] to handle piCalculus process monitoring. We then identify contextual behavioural preorders that allow us to relate monitors according to criteria defined over monitored executions of piCalculus processes. Subsequently, we develop alternative monitor preorders that are more tractable, and prove full-abstraction for the latter alternative preorders with respect to the contextual preorders.