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APEx: Automated Tool for Generating Error Specifications

What is APEx?

APEx is a tool that automatically generates error specifications for C API functions by analyzing its usage. The details of the method are described in APEx: Automated Inference of Error Specifications for C APIs, by Yuan Kang, Baishakhi Ray and Suman Jana, presented at the 2016 International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2016).

Why is APEx useful?

Enforcing correct error handling in C is difficult for programmers, as well as automated checking tools. Since C has no built-in error reporting mechanism, developers rely on custom methods, usually using error codes passed through return values, to report errors upstream. Knowing these error codes, or error specifications, is important both for the developer to check and handle errors correctly, and for any bug finding tools to know what to check. Tools such as EPEx rely on error specifications to narrow down error conditions. However, manually discovering error specifications, is a tedious task, and for fully automating the discovery of error handling bugs, we wish to also generate these specifications automatically.

We used APEx to infer error specifications for Libgcrypt, GnuTLS, GTK, libc, OpenSSL and zlib, and used the specifications to find error handling bugs in applications that use these libraries.

How does APEx work?

APEx leverages the fact that error-handling code is more simple than regular code, and the availability of multiple applications using each library. Since error-handling code has less valid data to process, the execution contains less statements and less branches, which also means that there are less paths that follow the failure of a function.

To eliminate noise due to exceptions in this heuristic, as well as programming errors, APEx has each application vote on the likely error specification of each API function, and chooses the specification with a significant plurality.

Installation and usage

Prerequisites

CMake:

If you are using Ubuntu, you might need a newer version of CMake than what you can get through apt-get. You can download the source at: https://cmake.org/download/ It can be built and installed using the standard ./configure; make; sudo make install

LLVM and clang:

You can build the necessary parts of LLVM and clang by following the directions at: http://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html. It is necessary to follow Step 3, but it is not necessary to follow the optional Steps 4-6. Moreover, you do have to add the following flags to certain SVN commands to use the right versions:

  • In Step 2, add -r 278752 to the SVN command in the second bullet point, ie. run svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm -r 278752 instead of svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk llvm
  • In Step 3, add -r 278746 to the SVN command in the second bullet point, ie. run svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/trunk clang -r 278746 instead of svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/trunk clang.

To keep clang in your path, add the following line to ~/.bashrc: export PATH=[build directory]bin:$PATH The rest of the instructions assume that you have not done this, and will refer to [build directory]bin/ as the binary directory. If you did add the binary directory to your path, you don't have to enter the binary directory in your commands. To analyze a single file, however, you still have to enter the build directory that contains the include folder.

Installing the Clang checker:

  1. Go to the directory [path to llvm source folder]tools/clang/lib/StaticAnalyzer/Checkers
  2. Add the source files: Enter ln -s [path to this release folder]checker/APEx.h ., ln -s [path to this release folder]checker/APExFunc.cpp ., and ln -s [path to this release folder]checker/APExStmt.cpp ..
  3. Register the alpha.unix.APExFuncChecker and alpha.unix.APExStmtChecker checkers: Open ../../../include/clang/StaticAnalyzer/Checkers/Checkers.td, look for the block starting with let ParentPackage = UnixAlpha in {, and inside it, add the text:
def APExFuncChecker : Checker<"APExFuncChecker">,
  HelpText<"APEx path information gatherer that counts function calls.">,
  DescFile<"APExFunc.cpp">;
def APExStmtChecker : Checker<"APExStmtChecker">,
  HelpText<"APEx path information gatherer that counts statements.">,
  DescFile<"APExStmt.cpp">;
  1. Register the source file to be compiled: Open CMakeLists.txt, look for the block starting with add_clang_library(, and inside it, add the lines APExFunc.cpp and APExStmt.cpp.
  2. Open ../../../include/clang/StaticAnalyzer/Core/PathSensitive/ConstraintManager.h, and look for the print function in the ConstraintManager class, and add an extra parameter, SymbolRef Sym = NULL, ie. replace
  virtual void print(ProgramStateRef state,
                     raw_ostream &Out,
                     const char* nl,
                     const char *sep) = 0;

with

  virtual void print(ProgramStateRef state,
                     raw_ostream &Out,
                     const char* nl,
                     const char *sep,
                     SymbolRef Sym = NULL) = 0;
  1. Open ../Core/RangeConstraintManager.cpp, and find the declaration of print in the RangeConstraintManager class, and add the Sym parameter again, ie. replace
  void print(ProgramStateRef St, raw_ostream &Out,
             const char* nl, const char *sep) override;

with

  void print(ProgramStateRef St, raw_ostream &Out,
             const char* nl, const char *sep, SymbolRef Sym = NULL) override;

Then find the definition of RangeConstraintManager::print, and replace the header with the following header and code:

void RangeConstraintManager::print(ProgramStateRef St, raw_ostream &Out,
				   const char* nl, const char *sep,
				   SymbolRef Sym) {
  if (Sym) {
    const RangeSet *RangesToPrint = St->get<ConstraintRange>(Sym);
    if (RangesToPrint) {
      RangesToPrint->print(Out);
    }
    return;
  }
  1. Compile clang with the new checker: Inside the build directory, enter make clang.

Creating the function List

A file called analyze_func_list.txt needs to be in the directory in which you run the checker. It contains error specifications for fallible functions, as well as exit functions.

Entries

  1. Analyzed functions: [function name]
  2. Exit functions: 0[function name]

Sample function lists

The sample list of analyzed functions are in sample_lists

Libraries

The the error specifications for checking the internals of library code are stored in the following files, which you can use directly:

  • Libgcrypt: analyze_func_list_gcrypt.txt
  • GnuTLS: analyze_func_list_gnutls.txt
  • GTK: analyze_func_list_gtk.txt
  • libc: analyze_func_list_libc.txt
  • OpenSSL: analyze_func_list_ssl.txt
  • zlib: analyze_func_list_zlib.txt Concatenate it with the list of exit functions, exit_functions, in the same folder to use for the checker.

Usage:

Setup

If you are running the checker on a programming project, you need to make sure that the function list is present in every directory in which the compiler will run. To create a link of the list file in every directory in the project folder, run python utilities/setup.py [original list file] [project root path]

Running the checker

It is recommended that you use APExStmtChecker, as the statement count is a better indicator of an error path than function call count. If you do wish to use function count, replace APExStmtChecker with APExFuncChecker in the following directions:

  1. A single file:

    1. Keep analyze_func_list in the current working directory
    2. Enter: [binary directory]clang -cc1 -w -analyze -analyzer-opt-analyze-headers -analyzer-checker=alpha.unix.APExStmtChecker -I/usr/include -I[build directory]lib/clang/[version]/include/ [source file]
    3. The output file will have the suffix .ae.log.

  2. A whole project:

    1. For every step in the build process (eg. ./configure and make), prepend the command with: [binary directory]scan-build -enable-checker alpha.unix.APExStmtChecker -analyze-headers --use-analyzer [binary directory]clang
    2. Run python utilities/output_gatherer.py [combined output file] [project root path]

Generating the error specification

Run python analysis/run_analyses.py [output file] [per-program checker log files...]. The error specifications will be in the output files, in lines prepended by ErrorSpec:.

A simple application of the error specification

Run python analysis/check_specs.py [bug output folder] [error specification file] [per-program checker log files...]. The bug files are stored in the bug output folder. Their name will be the same as the corresponding log file, except with the .bugs extension, which replaces the extension of the original file name, if it exists.