- author = "Alexander Liggesmeyer and Jose Antonio {Zamudio Amaya} and Andreas Zeller",
- title = "Protocol Testing with {I/O} Grammars",
- howpublished = "arXiv 2509.20308",
- year = "2025",
- month = "24 " # sep,
- keywords = "genetic algorithms, genetic programming, protocol testing, Automated test generation, Fuzzing, SBFT, I/O grammars, Test Oracles, Coverage, Fandango",
- eprint = "2509.20308",
- archiveprefix = "arXiv",
- primaryclass = "cs.SE",
-
URL = "
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20308",
- size = "20 pages",
-
abstract = "We introduce I/O grammars as the first means to
completely specify the syntax and semantics of
protocols, including messages, states, and
interactions. Our implementation, based on the FANDANGO
framework, takes a single I/O grammar, and can act as a
test generator, as a mock object, and as a test oracle
for a client, a server, or both (or actually any number
of parties), a versatility not found in any existing
tool or formalism. User-defined constraints can have
the generator focus on arbitrary protocol features;
-path guidance systematically covers states, messages,
responses, and value alternatives in a unified
fashion.
We evaluate the effectiveness of our approach by applying it to several protocols, including DNS, FTP, and SMTP. We demonstrate that I/O grammars can specify advanced protocol features correctly and completely, while also enabling output validation of the programs under test. In its evaluation, we find that systematic coverage of the I/O grammar results in much quicker coverage of the input and response spaces (and thus functionality) compared to the random-based state-of-the-art approaches.",
- notes = "CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Saarbruecken, Germany",
