[llvm-dev] libfuzzer questions

Mon Aug 10 18:08:15 PDT 2015

On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Brian Cain via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

>
> First off, thanks -- this is a pretty great library and it feels like I'm
> learning a lot.
>

Thanks!

> I'm getting some more experience with libfuzzer and finding that I have a
> couple of questions:
>

>
> - How does libfuzzer decide to write a new test file?  What distinguishes
> this one from all the other cases for which new test inputs were not
> written?  Must be something about the path taken through the code?
>

Exactly.
It uses http://clang.llvm.org/docs/SanitizerCoverage.html to figure out if
any new edge in the control flow graph has been discovered with the given
input.

>
> - Can I use afl-cmin or is there something similar for libFuzzer?
>

I've never tried that. I'd expect you can.
libFuzzer and afl both use plain files to store the corpus.

I find that sometimes I get an enormous amount of tests and it becomes
> unmanageable.
>

libFuzzer has an option to minimize the corpus.
It's not perfect, but very simple.
-------------
 save_minimized_corpus               0 If 1, the minimized corpus is saved
into the first input directory
-------------

>
> - sometimes my process being tested appears to deadlock.  A common feature
> seems to be that AlarmCallback is allocating memory and as a consequence
> the ASan code is pending on a lock.  I'll speculate that this is because
> the alarm expired while the lock was already held.  Is this expected?  I
> can share specific call stacks if it helps.  I can just extend the timeout
> but I think it's probably appropriate.
>

Yes, please give more details.

>
> - AFL has a curses based display where a bunch of different stats are
> shown.  I'll be honest, I don't know how to read those yet. ;)  But I'd
> like to find some way to determine whether I'm seeing diminishing returns
> with libfuzzer.  Is there a good strategy?
>

libFuzzer just dumps stats to stderr.
As long as you periodically see lines like
#325 NEW    cov 11985 bits 14108 units 113 exec/s 325 ...
you are good.

Once you stop getting those, you may start playing with the flags.
(e.g. increase the max_len).
Unlike AFL which knows it all, libFuzzer still relies on a bit of user
help. :)

> - Can anyone share tips for how libFuzzer has been used with some success
> -- anything beyond what's already available in
> http://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html ?
>

We've found a few bugs in internal code.
Also, some bugs in GLIBC and MUSL LIBCs.
https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/FuzzingLibc
http://git.musl-libc.org/cgit/musl/commit/?id=39dfd58417ef642307d90306e1c7e50aaec5a35c
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/03/30/3

mclow@ yesterday reported a but in libc++ regex.

I guess I need to start tracking the list of trophies at
http://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html
Your additions are welcome!

--kcc

>
>
> --
> -Brian
>
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