@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Objective
1010
1111This document provides an overview of an external tool to verify the protection
1212mechanisms implemented by Clang's *Control Flow Integrity * (CFI) schemes
13- (``-fsanitize=cfi ``). This tool, provided a binary or DSO, should infer whether
13+ (``-fsanitize=cfi ``). This tool, given a binary or DSO, should infer whether
1414indirect control flow operations are protected by CFI, and should output these
1515results in a human-readable form.
1616
@@ -22,12 +22,12 @@ Location
2222========
2323
2424This tool will be present as a part of the LLVM toolchain, and will reside in
25- the " /llvm/tools/llvm-cfi-verify" directory, relative to the LLVM trunk. It will
25+ the `` /llvm/tools/llvm-cfi-verify `` directory, relative to the LLVM trunk. It will
2626be tested in two methods:
2727
2828- Unit tests to validate code sections, present in
29- " /llvm/unittests/tools/llvm-cfi-verify" .
30- - Integration tests, present in " /llvm/tools/clang/test/LLVMCFIVerify" . These
29+ `` /llvm/unittests/tools/llvm-cfi-verify `` .
30+ - Integration tests, present in `` /llvm/tools/clang/test/LLVMCFIVerify `` . These
3131 integration tests are part of clang as part of a continuous integration
3232 framework, ensuring updates to the compiler that reduce CFI coverage on
3333 indirect control flow instructions are identified.
@@ -38,16 +38,16 @@ Background
3838This tool will continuously validate that CFI directives are properly
3939implemented around all indirect control flows by analysing the output machine
4040code. The analysis of machine code is important as it ensures that any bugs
41- present in linker or compiler do not subvert CFI protections in the final
41+ present in the linker or compiler do not subvert CFI protections in the final
4242shipped binary.
4343
4444Unprotected indirect control flow instructions will be flagged for manual
45- review. These unexpected control flows may simply have not been accounted for in
46- the compiler implementation of CFI (e.g. indirect jumps to facilitate switch
45+ review. These unexpected control flows may not have been accounted for in
46+ the compiler implementation of CFI (e.g., indirect jumps to facilitate switch
4747statements may not be fully protected).
4848
4949It may be possible in the future to extend this tool to flag unnecessary CFI
50- directives (e.g. CFI directives around a static call to a non-polymorphic base
50+ directives (e.g., CFI directives around a static call to a non-polymorphic base
5151type). This type of directive has no security implications, but may present
5252performance impacts.
5353
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ the disassembly. A control flow graph would be generated from a small buffer of
6666the instructions surrounding the 'target' control flow instruction. If the
6767target instruction is branched-to, the fallthrough of the branch should be the
6868CFI trap (on x86, this is a ``ud2 `` instruction). If the target instruction is
69- the fallthrough (i.e. immediately succeeds) of a conditional jump, the
69+ the fallthrough (i.e., immediately succeeds) of a conditional jump, the
7070conditional jump target should be the CFI trap. If an indirect control flow
7171instruction does not conform to one of these formats, the target will be noted
7272as being CFI-unprotected.
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ fallthrough of a conditional jump), if the target represents a vcall that takes
7676arguments, these arguments may be pushed to the stack after the branch but
7777before the target instruction. In these cases, a secondary 'spill graph' in
7878constructed, to ensure the register argument used by the indirect jump/call is
79- not spilled from the stack at any point in the interim period . If there are no
79+ not spilled from the stack at any point in the interim. If there are no
8080spills that affect the target register, the target is marked as CFI-protected.
8181
8282Other Design Notes
0 commit comments