The RunTime embedded Monitoring Library (rtmlib) has been initially developed for runtime monitoring of real-time embedded systems either for ARM and X86 platforms [1] but now also supports RISC-V. rtmlib is a lean library that supports atomic operations on shared memory circular buffers and implements a monitor abstraction layer for infinite sequences of time-stamped symbols or events. This library is used to implement different monitoring architectures such as the ones proposed in [2] and [3]. Other efficient architectures can be deployed based on lock-free push, pull, and pop primitives over infinite trace sequences containing time-stamped events. The synchronization primitives for push, pull, and pop operations allow different readers and writers to progress asynchronously over the instantiated circular buffers and to synchronize when required. Indeed, the rtmlib solves the lock-free producer-consumer problem for circular buffer-based FIFO queues where readers are consumers and writers are producers.

The rtmlib 2 is not just an improved version of the old rtmlib but is also a library that supports hardware synthesis via Vivado HLS Tool from Xilinx or SmartHLS Tool Suite from Microchip. The rtmlib can support software and hardware monitoring via dedicated CPU and FPGA devices.

The figure shows our monitoring hybrid approach.

flowchart LR;
    DRAM_CPU[DRAM CPU]-- PCIe DMA -->DRAM_FPGA;
    DRAM_FPGA[DRAM FPGA]-- AXI4 -->HW_Monitor;
    HW_Monitor[HW Monitor]-->DRAM_FPGA;
    CPU_TRACE[CPU Trace]-- DMA ROUTER -->DRAM_CPU;
    DRAM_CPU[DRAM CPU]-- Ring Buffer -->SW_Monitor[SW Monitor];

This hybrid approach enables the offload of more heavy monitors to the FPGA and the connection of CPU cores with the fabric monitor accelerators. rtmlib has a direct association with the rmtld3synth tool as the monitor integration layer. rmtld3synth is a tool that can generate cpp11 monitors that can be implemented in software and hardware.

See examples folder for more details.

See https://anmaped.github.io/rtmlib/doc/ for more details on rtmlib API.

The utilization of Podman/Buildah is necessary for building and running tests using containers.

Build and run unit tests with

podman build -f Containerfile -t rtmlib-test-img .

Use the make command to build the unit tests. It depends on GCC 7 or above and other host libraries (see the Containerfile for more details on these dependencies!).

cd tests/
make

The expected output might be similar to

$ ./rtmlib_unittests 
rtmlib_rmtld3_nested_until.cpp success.
rtmlib_buffer_push_and_pull.cpp success.
rtmlib_buffer_push_and_pop.cpp success.
rtmlib_reader_and_writer.cpp success.

[...]
$

[1] de Matos Pedro, A., Pinto, J.S., Pereira, D. et al. Runtime verification of autopilot systems using a fragment of MTL-∫ . Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 20, 379–395 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-017-0470-5

[2] Nelissen G., Pereira D., Pinho L.M. (2015) A Novel Run-Time Monitoring Architecture for Safe and Efficient Inline Monitoring. In: de la Puente J., Vardanega T. (eds) Reliable Software Technologies – Ada-Europe 2015. Ada-Europe 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 9111. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19584-1_5

[3] de Matos Pedro A., Pereira D., Pinho L.M., Pinto J.S. (2014) Towards a Runtime Verification Framework for the Ada Programming Language. In: George L., Vardanega T. (eds) Reliable Software Technologies – Ada-Europe 2014. Ada-Europe 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8454. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08311-7_6