Verification of Web Applications with a Model Checker

Abstract

Web applications are hosted on a web server and executed within a browser environment. They are widely used and typically developed with HTML and Javascript. They often interact with web servers which makes stability and securityimportant aspects inthe developmentprocess. One way to increase both aspects is the usage of a model checker which can verify whether a software model contains errors and does not meet its requirements. The integration of formal verification in a web application software project is challenging because expert knowledge is necessary. This paper solves this problem with the usage of model-driven development and presents a domain-specific web application modelling language. Furthermore, an algorithm for an automated transformation into the model checker input language Promela is provided. Promela is used by the Spin model checker which tests automatically whether the corresponding web application model meets the given specification, informs the developer about possible errors and therefore increases software stability and security.