- Licensing
- Overview
- Design Considerations
- Relationship to FORTIFY_SOURCE
- Metric-only Mode for FORTIFY_SOURCE
- How to Build OpenOSC Library
- How to Build Packages with OpenOSC Library
- Tested Platforms
- Known Issues
- Bibliography
This project's licensing restrictions are documented in the file 'LICENSE' under the root directory of this release. Basically it's ASL 2.0 licensed.
OpenOSC is an open-source object size check library written in C. It has been developed in order to promote the use of compiler builtin object size check capability for enhanced security. It provides robust support for detecting buffer overflows in various functions that perform operations on memory and strings. Not all types of buffer overflows can be detected with this library, but it does provide an extra level of validation for some functions that are potentially a source of buffer overflow flaws. It protects both C and C++ code.
The OpenOSC library is a standalone library with the following features:
- Metrics to understand buffer overflow detection effectiveness
- Ability to detect source buffer overread as well as buffer overflow
- Truncate overflow past the end of buffer in running process
- Abort behavior configurable
- Extensible to additional data movement routines
- Extension for SafeC bounds checking library available
OpenOSC contains two parts: the mapping header files and the runtime library.
The runtime library libopenosc.so contains the code to do runtime buffer overflow checks. This library is required to be linked by all packages.
The mapping header files contain the code to perform compile-time buffer overflow checks and map various memory routines to the runtime check routines in the runtime library.
The mapping header files are only required in the package build environment, while the runtime library is required in both the deployment environment and the package build environment.
Two OSC function mapping methods are supported in OpenOSC:
#define OPENOSC_ASM_LABEL_REDIRECT_METHOD 1
#define OPENOSC_FUNC_MACRO_REDEFINE_METHOD 2
They are two different mapping methods. The ASM_LABEL_REDIRECT method uses
__asm__ label to redirect an alias function to the real function at assembly
language level, while keeping them as different functions at C language level.
The FUNC_MACRO_REDEFINE method uses macro redefining mechanism to directly
redefine a foo function as a new openosc_foo function at C language level.
The two methods both have advantages and disadvantages.
Note that if your compiler is clang, the ASM_LABEL_REDIRECT method requires that your clang version must be >= 5.0 version.
The default mapping method is 1, the ASM_LABEL_REDIRECT method. User can choose the FUNC_MACRO_REDEFINE method by adding the below define to CFLAGS:
CFLAGS += "-DOPENOSC_MM=2"
New mapping method can be added as needed in future.
- Built-in OSC-METRICS feature
The built-in OSC-METRICS feature can be enabled by the below flag to CFLAGS:
CFLAGS += "-DOPENOSC_METRIC_FEATURE_ENABLED"
Additionally, the objsize-METRICS feature can be enabled by the below:
CFLAGS += "-DOPENOSC_METRIC_OBJSIZE_ENABLED"
Two OSC-watermarking methods are supported in OpenOSC:
#define RTD_ASM_BYTE_METHOD 1
#define RTD_ASM_LOC_METHOD 2
The default method is RTD_ASM_LOC_METHOD. This method uses DWARF debugging info,
so it requires the -g CFLAGS to take effect. And the OSC-METRICS info can be
stripped via the strip command, just like other debugging info. The other method
RTD_ASM_BYTE_METHOD directly inserts MAGIC words into the code, so it occupies
code memory, and does not require -g CFLAGS to take effect, also OSC-METRICS
info cannot be stripped. You can add "-DOPENOSC_METRIC_METHOD=1" to CFLAGS to
force using the RTD_ASM_BYTE_METHOD.
After building your binaries with the above CFLAGS, You can run the oscmetrics tool to collect the OSC-METRICS:
$ tools/oscmetrics.py -bmwv -d your-dir > metrics-report.txt
If the non-default RTD_ASM_BYTE_METHOD is used to generate OSC-METRICs info,
then you need to add the -t option to specify the type:
$ tools/oscmetrics.py -bmwv -d your-dir -t byte_inline > metrics-report.txt
It can generate a WatermarkPC decoding table as below:
###################################################
OSC-METRIC WatermarkPC summary for all binary files
## Note: DSTSIZE is format of: (dstsize, srcsize, copylen), (dstsize, copylen), or (dstsize).
## Copy-length of -9 means that the copy-length parameter
## for memcpy is unknown (non-constant) at compile-time.
###################################################
FileIndex: 3 ./test/openosc_test_cpp
Idx PC OSCFUNC CASE# DSTSIZE SRCFUNC SRCLINE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 0x400ce5 memcpy CASE7 5,20,4 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:23
1 0x400de4 memcpy CASE2 5,20,7 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:28
2 0x400e31 memcpy CASE2 5,20,8 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:30
3 0x400ea3 memcpy CASE3 5,20,-9 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:33
4 0x400f15 memcpy CASE3 5,20,-9 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:34
5 0x400f8b memcpy CASE3 5,20,-9 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:36
6 0x400fdd memcpy CASE2 0,20,1 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:38
7 0x401049 memcpy CASEa -1,20,2 openosc_test_memcpy() openosc_test_cpp.cpp:40
One trick: To generate the binary even when buffer overflow errors exist, add
-DOPENOSC_OVERFLOW_ERROR_OUT_DISABLE to CFLAGS. This will just print warnings
instead of errors at compile-time so that binary can be generated. If you use
-DOPENOSC_MM=2 CFLAGS, then you can add -DOPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE to CFLAGS
to collect OSC metrics only.
Trick #2: the oscmetrics.py tool ignores intermediate relocatable *.o files by
default. You can add --scan_all_elf_files option to force the tool to scan the
*.o files too.
Trick #3: for cross-compilation binaries, you may need to specify the location
of cross-compilation tools: objdump, addr2line, etc. in a configfile, then run
oscmetrics.py with -c configfile option to get correct results.
Most compilers (gcc/clang/icc) provide the FORTIFY_SOURCE feature.
It is enabled by adding -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 option to CFLAGS.
CFLAGS += "-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
OpenOSC and compiler's FORTIFY_SOURCE are both built upon the compiler's builtin object size check capability, thus are equivalent in providing memory overflow detection/protection. As a result, a package can only be compiled with one of them: either OpenOSC or FORTIFY_SOURCE, but not both. FORTIFY_SOURCE and OpenOSC are mutually exclusive. OpenOSC will automatically detect the existence of _FORTIFY_SOURCE flag, and disable OpenOSC if detected.
OpenOSC can co-exist with FORTIFY_SOURCE. That is, some packages or binaries can be compiled with OpenOSC, and some other packages/binaries can be compiled with FORTIFY_SOURCE. They can co-exist on the same Linux system, and will be protected by different runtime libraries.
Here is a comparison summary table:
| Feature/Behavior | FORTIFY_SOURCE | OpenOSC |
|---|---|---|
| OSC Metrics | No support | Supported |
| Source Overread | No support | Supported |
| Traceback | No traceback | Print traceback |
| Abort behavior | Always abort | Configurable |
| Copy truncation | No truncate | Yes/Configurable |
| Logging | No syslog | Syslog/Configurable |
| Cover new routine | Not easy | Easy |
The OpenOSC OSC-METRICS feature has been enhanced to work with FORTIFY_SOURCE feature enabled.
It is enabled by adding -DOPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE option to CFLAGS.
CFLAGS += "-include openosc.h -DOPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
This does not turn on OSC-METRICS for objsize/copylen. If you want it, add the OPENOSC_METRIC_OBJSIZE_ENABLED flag.
CFLAGS += "-include openosc.h -DOPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE -DOPENOSC_METRIC_OBJSIZE_ENABLED -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
This will generate the same OSC-METRICS watermarks for the compiled binary file with the OPENOSC_METRIC_FEATURE_ENABLED flag. And you can use the same tools/oscmetrics.py script to decode the OSC-METRICS watermarks.
With this OPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE flag, the memory/string functions will always be mapped to itself, except for the addition of OSC-METRICS. The generated assembly/binary code should also be the same as before, except for the addition of OSC-METRICS. Of course, out-of-order generation of some assembly instructions are expected, and still considered the same code.
The nice thing about this metric-only mode is that you don't need to build the libopenosc.so library. You don't need to change your linking LDFLAGS, since you don't link with any additional library. The only change required is CFLAGS.
Note this Metric-only mode also works without FORTIFY_SOURCE feature. It will map all functions to themselves, except for the addition of OSC-METRICS. There is no need to change LDFLAGS and no need to build the libopenosc.so library.
CFLAGS += "-include openosc.h -DOPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE"
There are multiple flags to control the set of memory/string functions to cover. For example, defining OPENOSC_DISABLE_SOCKET_H_FUNCS will not cover all functions declared in the sys/socket.h header file, and defining the OPENOSC_DISABLE_STDIO_H_FUNCS flag will not cover all functions in the stdio.h header file. Defining OPENOSC_POLL_DISABLE will not cover the poll function.
You can also control the level of OSC-METRICS details. For example, you can define OPENOSC_NOMAP_METRIC_ONLY to always map all functions to CASE0, i.e., the NOMAP case, instead of more detailed CASE1/CASE2/CASE3/CASE4, which correnspond to Safe/Overflow/Runtime-protection/Unknown cases, respectively. This can help quickly find the occurrences of all function invocations in your code. By default, source buffer overread feature is ON, but you can define the OPENOSC_SRC_OVERREAD_DISABLE flag to turn if off.
One disadvantage of this Metric-only mode is: it can suppress some compile-time warning messages that are defined by function attributes of the OpenOSC covered functions, for example, the warn-unused-result or nonnull function attribute.
The clang compiler seems to implement its fortify-source buffer-overflow warning messages with function attributes, thus the buffer-overflow warnings messages are also suppressed with the Metric-only mode in clang. If clang can also check the warning condition in the optimization phase, in addition to the front-end (pre-optimization phase), then this issue can be fixed.
The gcc and icc compiler have no such issue, and are able to report compile-time buffer-overflow warning messages, with Metric-only mode.
The build system for the OpenOSC library is the well known GNU build system, a.k.a. Autotools. This system is well understood and supported by many different platforms and distributions which should allow this libary to be built on a wide variety of platforms. See the "Tested Platforms" section for details on what platforms this library was tested on during its development.
- Building
For those familiar with autotools you can probably skip this part. For those not and want to get right to building the code see below. And, for those that need additional information see the 'INSTALL' file in the same directory.
To build you do the following:
Case 1: If you have the openosc taball, then you do:
$ ./configure
$ make
Case 2: If you build from the git workspace, then please first install autotools, and then do:
$ autoreconf -vfi
$ ./configure
$ make
That is, autoreconf only needs to be run if you are building from the git
repository. Optionally, you can do make check if you want to run the unit
tests.
To build RedHat RPM packages:
$ ./configure
$ make rpm
A few OpenOSC RPM packages are generated:
- openosc RPM contains only the runtime library.
- openosc-devel RPM contains both runtime library and mapping header files.
- openosc-static RPM contains static library.
- openosc-tools RPM contains the tools to decode OSC tracebacks and collect OSC metrics.
To build Debian/Ubuntu DEB packages:
$ ./configure
$ make deb
- Installing
Installation must be preformed by root, an Administrator on most
systems. The following is used to install the library.
$ sudo make install
To install RedHat RPM packages:
$ make rpm
$ sudo rpm -ivh openosc-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
$ sudo rpm -ivh openosc-devel-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
To install Debian/Ubuntu DEB packages:
$ make deb
$ sudo apt install openosc_1.0.0-1_amd64.deb
The following build changes are required to build a package with OpenOSC.
CFLAGS += "-include openosc.h"
LDFLAGS += "-lopenosc"
Please install OpenOSC to your system before building your packages.
- Mock build on Centos
In Centos, you can modify the redhat RPM-config macros to add OpenOSC flags to the global RPM configs so that all packages can pick up the global RPM build options automatically.
The mock tool is recommended to build RPM packages on Centos.
Here is the steps to build OpenOSC-enabled RPM packages in mock:
mock -r epel-7-x86_64 --rootdir=your-rootdir --resultdir=your-result-dir --init
mock -r epel-7-x86_64 --rootdir=your-rootdir --resultdir=your-result-dir --install openosc-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
mock -r epel-7-x86_64 --rootdir=your-rootdir --resultdir=your-result-dir --install openosc-devel-1.0.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
mock -r epel-7-x86_64 --rootdir=your-rootdir --resultdir=your-result-dir --copyin redhat-rpm-config-macros-openosc usr/lib/rpm/redhat/macros
mock -r epel-7-x86_64 --rootdir=your-rootdir --resultdir=your-result-dir --no-clean --no-cleanup-after --rebuild your-srpm
mock -r epel-7-x86_64 --rootdir=your-rootdir --resultdir=your-result-dir --no-clean --no-cleanup-after --rebuild your-srpm2
The redhat-rpm-config-macros-openosc file has been modified to add the below:
__global_cflags += "-include openosc.h"
__global_ldflags += "-lopenosc"
Actually a new flag is defined to turn on/off OpenOSC build:
%_openosc_build 1
Each package can choose to enable or disable OpenOSC build independently in its RPM spec file:
# To enable OpenOSC build for your RPM package
%global _openosc_build 1
# To disable OpenOSC build for your RPM package
%undefine _openosc_build
- Enable the OSC-METRICS feature during package build
Add below to CFLAGS to enable the OSC-METRICS feature for your package build:
CFLAGS += "-include openosc.h -DOPENOSC_METRIC_FEATURE_ENABLED"
The library has been tested on the following systems:
- Centos 6/7/8 amd64/i386 glibc 2.12 - 2.28
- Linux Debian 9-11 amd64/i386 glibc 2.24 - 2.28
with most available compilers (gcc/clang/icc).
Note: Clang version >= 5.0 is required for ASM_LABEL_REDIRECT mapping method. Also, to get better compile-time errors/warnings, the function attributes of error/warning should be supported by Clang. The -fno-common option is recommended for Clang too for better detection of buffer overflows/overreads.
-
If you are building the library from the git repository you will have to first install autotools, then run autoreconf to create the configure script.
-
OPENOSC_METRIC_FEATURE_ENABLED does not impact compilation performance. However, OPENOSC_METRIC_OBJSIZE_ENABLED impacts the compilation performance significantly, especially for Clang.
-
OPENOSC_METRIC_ONLY_MODE suppresses some compile-time warning messages that are implemented by function attributes of the covered functions, like -Wunused-result. Fortify-source buffer-overflow warnings are suppressed for clang, but not for gcc/icc.
- [1] OpenOSC: Open Source Object Size Checking Library With Built-in Metrics, Yongkui Han, Pankil Shah, Van Nguyen, Ling Ma, Richard Livingston (Cisco Systems)
