gtirb-ddisasm-retypd

Utilize the retypd algorithm to infer type information for binaries lifted to GTIRB with ddisasm. This relies on internal souffle facts and outputs derived in ddisasm that are encoded in the AuxData section of the GTIRB file. These facts are only saved to AuxData when ddisasm is run with the --with-souffle-relations flag, for example:

$ ddisasm ./sample-binary --ir ./sample-binary.gtirb --with-souffle-relations

Dependencies

gtirb-ddisasm-retypd requires the following dependencies:

ddisasm to lift files to GTIRB, however, this is not a runtime dependency.
gtirb
gtirb-types

Usage

In order to use gtirb-ddisasm-retypd, lift a binary to GTIRB using ddisasm, then execute gtirb-ddisasm-retypd input.gtirb output.gtirb, where output.gtirb will have a copy of the input.gtirb, now with annotated types.

usage: gtirb-ddisasm-retypd [-h] [-d DEBUG_DIR] gtirb dest

Run retypd on ddisasm-generated GTIRB files

positional arguments:
  gtirb                 ddisasm generated GTIRB to operate on
  dest                  Path to write GTIRB to

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d DEBUG_DIR, --debug-dir DEBUG_DIR
                        retypd constraint gen debug

Structure

The high level dataflow of this looks like:

ddisasm generates the GTIRB of a given binary, including the generated souffle facts and outputs as AuxData members
gtirb-ddisasm-retypd is invoked and outputs the associated facts and outputs encoded in the input GTIRB file as facts files in a facts directory (this can be a temporary directory, or if invoked with --debug-dir can be output to a user-selected directory, this will also contain outputs from the ddisasm-retypd souffle program.
Once the output folder is generated, the ddisasm-retypd souffle program runs, which involves a few components:
- Per-architecture type sink and instruction-table information, in arch.dl. This is for providing instructions with type-specific information, and for denoting things like PUSH/POP in a architecture-generic way.
- Calling-convention information, in callingconv.dl. This is for providing information about which registers are used for which parameters in calling conventions, which parameters are provided on the stack. Eventually this will for architectures that require it, include an identification pass for calling convention. Right now it assumes that for a given loaded binary there is only one valid calling convention.
- Stack Analysis, in stack_tracker.dl. This is currently used for tracking stack height information across registers, though is intended to be expanded in the future. This currently populates the stack_pointer_tracking table which determine at which address, which register, has a pointer to which stack depth. In the future we'll stack recording accesses to stack variables, computing live ranges of stack-stored values, computing stack passed arguments, and ultimately using that for improving parameter detection and stack variable recovery.
- Function Signature Analysis, in signature.dl. This is where the strategies for inferring function arguments and function returns are.
- Subtype generation, in subtype.dl. This is where intermediate representation facts (such as def-use chains, function signature information, type-sinks etc.) are aggregated into a single representation such as subtype_reg, subtype_mem, etc.
- Constraint generation, in retypd.dl. This is where subtypes generated in subtype.dl are formatted as retypd-parsable constraints.
Once constraints are output by retypd.dl, these are then parsed by retypd into per-function ConstraintSet objects, and solved into a map from DerivedTypeVariable -> Sketch. These are then passed to the CTypeGenerator from retypd to generate CType objects.
CType objects are then translated to gtirb-type objects in gtirb.py, which are saved to the final output GTIRB file.

Known limitations

Currently there's a limited number of per-architecture type-revealing instructions listed, and otherwise the ddisasm arch.arithmetic_operation and arch.logic_operation are used, which aren't intended to be used for these. This leads to some inaccuracies. This also doesn't include information such as floating point operations and vectorized operations.
Currently any instruction thats OPC Reg, Num, such add Mul EAX, 2 is type-sunk as int <= Reg. This doesn't work for things like SHR RAX, 4 which need to be type-sunk as uint. This should in general be done with the per-opcode type-sinking.

Currently any access to an input parameter will generate a FUNC.in_N <= Reg. It seems like retypd constraints aren't huge fans of this:

test_recursive.in_0 ⊑ X
void ⊑ test_recursive.out
test_recursive.in_0 ⊑ Y
int ⊑ X.store.σ4@0
Y ⊑ Y.store.σ8@8

generates:

struct struct_0 {
    int32_t field_0; // offset 0
    struct struct_1* field_1; // offset 8
};
struct struct_1 {
    uint8_t field_0[8]; // offset 8
};

while,

test_recursive.in_0 ⊑ X
void ⊑ test_recursive.out
int ⊑ X.store.σ4@0
X ⊑ X.store.σ8@8

generates:

struct struct_0 {
    int32_t field_0; // offset 0
    struct struct_1* field_1; // offset 8
};
struct struct_1 {
    uint8_t field_0[4]; // offset 0
    uint8_t field_1[8]; // offset 8
};

Currently retypd's algorithm will always generate the safest typing of the given constraint-set. This means that types will typically flow to callees from callers, but not vice-versa. This results in many partial types being created, and on a per-function level structured inputs will not be merged in an expected way.
Currently constraints are only generated for functions, and not globals. For per-function information, types are only generated for the inputs and outputs of a given function, as this is what retypd is currently labeling as "interesting."
Currently retypd is responsible for determining the FunctionType output, which will correspondingly determine the ultimate number of arguments that a function is said to have. However this may be in conflict with the arguments our analysis deduced, since retypd may simplify out a .in_* relation that causes fewer parameters to be present in the final output.

Copyright and Acknowledgments

This code is licensed under the GPLv3 license. See the LICENSE file in the project root for license terms.

This project is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, One Liberty Center, 875 N. Randolph Street, Arlington, VA 22203 under contract #N68335-17-C-0700. The content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Government and no official endorsement should be inferred.

GrammaTech / gtirb-ddisasm-retypd