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README.md

IKOS Analyzer

This folder contains the implementation of the analyzer.

Table of contents

Introduction

The IKOS Analyzer is an abstract interpretation-based static analyzer that aims at proving the absence of runtime errors in C and C++ programs.

See Checks for the full list of available checks.

Installation

IKOS Analyzer can be installed independently from the other components, but we recommend to build the analyzer from the root directory. To do so, follow the instructions in the root README.md.

Dependencies

To build and run the analyzer, you will need the following dependencies:

  • A C++ compiler that supports C++14 (gcc >= 4.9.2 or clang >= 3.4)
  • CMake >= 3.4.3
  • GMP >= 4.3.1
  • Boost >= 1.55
  • Python >= 3.3
  • SQLite >= 3.6.20
  • TBB >= 2
  • LLVM and Clang 14.0.x
  • (Optional) APRON >= 0.9.10
  • IKOS Core
  • IKOS AR
  • IKOS LLVM Frontend

Build and Install

To build and install the analyzer, run the following commands in the analyzer directory:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/analyzer-install-directory \
    -DLLVM_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE=/path/to/llvm/bin/llvm-config \
    -DCORE_ROOT=/path/to/core-install-directory \
    -DAR_ROOT=/path/to/ar-install-directory \
    -DFRONTEND_LLVM_ROOT=/path/to/frontend-llvm-install-directory \
    ..
$ make
$ make install

Tests

To build and run the tests, simply type:

$ make check

Documentation

To build the documentation, you will need Doxygen.

Then, simply type:

$ make doc
$ open doc/html/index.html

How to run IKOS

Suppose we want to analyze the following C program in a file, called loop.c:

 1: #include <stdio.h>
 2: int a[10];
 3: int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
 4:     size_t i = 0;
 5:     for (;i < 10; i++) {
 6:         a[i] = i;
 7:     }
 8:     a[i] = i;
 9:     printf("%i", a[i]);
10: }

To analyze this program with IKOS, simply run:

$ ikos loop.c

You shall see the following output. IKOS reports two occurrences of buffer overflow at line 8 and 9.

[*] Compiling loop.c
[*] Running ikos preprocessor
[*] Running ikos analyzer
[*] Translating LLVM bitcode to AR
[*] Running liveness analysis
[*] Running widening hint analysis
[*] Running interprocedural value analysis
[*] Analyzing entry point 'main'
[*] Checking properties for entry point 'main'

# Time stats:
clang        : 0.037 sec
ikos-analyzer: 0.023 sec
ikos-pp      : 0.007 sec

# Summary:
Total number of checks                : 7
Total number of unreachable checks    : 0
Total number of safe checks           : 5
Total number of definite unsafe checks: 2
Total number of warnings              : 0

The program is definitely UNSAFE

# Results
loop.c: In function 'main':
loop.c:8:10: error: buffer overflow, trying to access index 10 of global variable 'a' of 10 elements
    a[i] = i;
         ^
loop.c: In function 'main':
loop.c:9:18: error: buffer overflow, trying to access index 10 of global variable 'a' of 10 elements
    printf("%i", a[i]);
                 ^

The ikos command takes a source file (.c, .cpp) or a LLVM bitcode file (.bc) as input, analyzes it to find runtime errors (also called undefined behaviors), creates a result database output.db in the current working directory and prints a report.

In the report, each line has one of the following status:

  • safe: the statement is proven safe;
  • error: the statement always results into an error (or is unreachable);
  • unreachable: the statement is never executed;
  • warning may mean three things:
    1. the statement results into an error for some executions, or
    2. the static analyzer did not have enough information to conclude (check dependent on an external input, for instance), or
    3. the static analyzer was not powerful enough to prove the absence of errors;

By default, ikos shows warnings and errors directly in your terminal, like a compiler would do.

If the analysis report is too big, you shall use:

  • ikos-report output.db to examine the report in your terminal
  • ikos-view output.db to examine the report in a web interface

Analyze a whole project with ikos-scan

To run IKOS on a large project, you shall use ikos-scan.

ikos-scan is a command line utility that runs the static analyzer over a codebase after performing a regular build.

The ikos-scan command works by overriding the environment variables CC and CXX to intercept the compiler commands. Behind the scene, it builds the original program as well as the LLVM bitcode file that is necessary to run the analyzer.

To use ikos-scan, just prefix your build commands with ikos-scan. For instance, to analyze pkg-config:

$ tar xf pkg-config-0.29.2.tar.gz
$ cd pkg-config-0.29.2
$ ikos-scan ./configure
[...]
$ ikos-scan make
[...]
Analyze pkg-config? [Y/n]

ikos-scan will produce a .bc file for each executable in your project. You can analyze them with specific options using ikos [options] program.bc.

Examine a report with ikos-view

ikos-view provides a web interface to examine IKOS results. It is available directly in the analyzer.

The web interface shows the source code with syntax highlighting, and allows you to filter the warnings by checks.

To use ikos-view, first run the analyzer on your project to generate a result database output.db, then simply run:

$ ikos-view output.db

It will start a web server. You can then launch your favorite web browser and visit http://localhost:8080

Note that if you want syntax highlighting, you will need to install Pygments:

$ pip install --user pygments

Analysis Options

This section describes the most relevant options of the analyzer.

Checks

The list of available checks are:

  • buffer overflow analysis, -a=boa: checks for buffer overflows and out-of-bound array accesses.
  • division by zero analysis, -a=dbz: checks for integer divisions by zero.
  • null pointer analysis, -a=nullity: checks for null pointer dereferences.
  • assertion prover, -a=prover: prove user-defined properties, using __ikos_assert(condition).
  • unaligned pointer analysis, -a=upa: checks for unaligned pointer dereferences.
  • uninitialized variable analysis, -a=uva: checks for read of uninitialized variables.
  • signed integer overflow analysis, -a=sio: checks for signed integer overflows.
  • unsigned integer overflow analysis, -a=uio: checks for unsigned integer overflows.
  • shift count analysis, -a=shc: checks for invalid shifts, where the amount shifted is greater or equal to the bit-width of the left operand, or less than zero.
  • pointer overflow analysis, -a=poa: checks for pointer arithmetic overflows.
  • pointer comparison analysis, -a=pcmp: checks for pointer comparisons between pointers referring to different objects.
  • soundness analysis, -a=sound: checks for instructions that could make the analysis unsound, i.e miss bugs.
  • function call analysis, -a=fca: checks for function calls through function pointers of the wrong type.
  • dead code analysis, -a=dca: checks for unreachable statements.
  • double free analysis, -a=dfa: checks for double free, invalid free, use after free and use after return.
  • debugger, -a=dbg: prints debug information, using __ikos_print_values("desc", x) and __ikos_print_invariant().
  • memory watcher, -a=watch: prints memory writes at a given memory location, using __ikos_watch_mem(ptr, size).

By default, all the checks are enabled except:

  • unaligned pointer analysis, because it needs a congruence domain to generate meaningful results. See Numerical abstract domains.
  • unsigned integer overflow analysis, because it is not an undefined behavior according to the C standard.
  • pointer overflow analysis, because it is redundant with the buffer overflow analysis.
  • memory watcher, because it is slow.

If you want to run specific checks, use the -a parameter:

$ ikos -a=boa,nullity test.c

Note that you can use the wildcard character *, + and -:

$ ikos -a='*,-sio' test.c

In this example, all the checks are enabled except signed integer overflow checks.

Numerical abstract domains

IKOS is based on the theory of Abstract Interpretation. The analysis uses a numerical abstract domain internally to model integer variables.

The list of available numerical abstract domains are:

  • -d=interval: The interval domain, see CC77.
  • -d=congruence: The congruence domain, see Gra89.
  • -d=interval-congruence: The reduced product of interval and congruence.
  • -d=dbm: The Difference-Bound Matrices domain, see PADO01.
  • -d=var-pack-dbm: The Difference-Bound Matrices domain with variable packing, see VMCAI16.
  • -d=var-pack-dbm-congruence: The reduced product of DBM with variable packing and congruence.
  • -d=gauge: The gauge domain, see CAV12.
  • -d=gauge-interval-congruence: The reduced product of gauge, interval and congruence.
  • -d=apron-interval: The APRON interval domain, see Box.
  • -d=apron-octagon: The APRON octagon domain, see Oct.
  • -d=apron-polka-polyhedra: The APRON polka polyhedra domain, see NewPolka.
  • -d=apron-polka-linear-equalities: The APRON polka linear equalities domain, see NewPolka.
  • -d=apron-ppl-polyhedra: The APRON PPL polyhedra domain, see PPL.
  • -d=apron-ppl-linear-congruences: The APRON PPL linear congruences domain, see PPL.
  • -d=apron-pkgrid-polyhedra-lin-cong: The APRON Pkgrid polyhedra and linear congruences domain, see Pkgrid.
  • -d=var-pack-apron-octagon: The APRON octagon domain with variable packing.
  • -d=var-pack-apron-polka-polyhedra: The APRON Polka polyhedra domain with variable packing.
  • -d=var-pack-apron-polka-linear-equalities: The APRON Polka linear equalities domain with variable packing.
  • -d=var-pack-apron-ppl-polyhedra: The APRON PPL polyhedra domain with variable packing.
  • -d=var-pack-apron-ppl-linear-congruences: The APRON PPL linear congruences domain with variable packing.
  • -d=var-pack-apron-pkgrid-polyhedra-lin-cong: The APRON Pkgrid polyhedra and linear congruences domain with variable packing.

By default, IKOS uses the fastest and least precise numerical domain, the interval domain. If you want to run the analysis with a specific domain, use the -d parameter:

$ ikos -d=var-pack-dbm test.c

For most users, we recommend to analyze your project with the fastest and least precise domain (i.e, interval) first, and then try slower but more precise domains until the analysis is too long for you. This is the best way to reach a low rate of false positives (i.e, warnings).

Here is a list of numerical domains, sorted from the fastest and least precise to the slowest and most precise:

  • -d=interval
  • -d=gauge-interval-congruence
  • -d=var-pack-dbm
  • -d=var-pack-apron-octagon
  • -d=var-pack-apron-ppl-polyhedra
  • -d=dbm
  • -d=apron-octagon
  • -d=apron-ppl-polyhedra

You should consider running different analyses in this specific order.

Please also note that:

  • Floating point variables are safely ignored.
  • In order to use the APRON abstract domain, you need to build IKOS with APRON first. See APRON Support.

Entry points

By default, the analyzer assumes the entry point of the program is main. You can specify a list of entry points using the --entry-points parameter:

$ ikos --entry-points=foo,bar test.c

IKOS analyses each entry point independently, as if they were running in different processes.

Multi-threading

The analyzer can use multi-threading to speed up the analysis. You can specify the number of threads to use with the --jobs or -j parameter:

$ ikos --jobs=4 test.c

Use -j to use all available threads. By default, the analyzer only uses one thread.

Warning: APRON numerical abstract domains are currently NOT thread-safe and might cause crashes.

Optimization level

The parameter --opt allows you to set the optimization level. Optimizations are performed by running a set of LLVM passes on the analyzed code.

Available levels are:

  • none: Disable all optimizations.
  • basic: Basic set of optimizations (similar to -O1). This is the default value.
  • aggressive: Aggressive optimizations (similar to -O3). This is not recommended since it might hide errors. The translation from LLVM to AR might fail because of unsupported instructions.

Inter-procedural vs Intra-procedural

An inter-procedural analysis analyzes a function considering its call stack while an intra-procedural analysis ignores it. The former produces more precise results than the latter but it is often much more expensive.

By default, IKOS performs an inter-procedural analysis. Use --proc=intra to perform an intra-procedural analysis.

Fixpoint engine parameters

The analyzer uses the theory of Abstract Interpretation to compute a fixpoint of the semantic of the program. The fixpoint engine can be tuned using several parameters.

When visiting a loop, the engine will first compute a fixed number of iterations, then use a widening strategy periodically to approximate the behavior of the loop, until convergence.

The fixed number of iterations performed before the widening strategy can be set using --widening-delay. By default, it is 1.

The period of the widening strategy can be set using --widening-period. By default, it is 1, thus the widening strategy is always applied.

The widening strategy can be set using --widening-strategy=:

  • widen: Use the widening operator to approximate the behavior of the loop (default)
  • join: Use the join operator, effectively computing all iterations (very slow)

After reaching a fixpoint, the engine will perform extra iterations to regain precision using a narrowing strategy, until convergence.

The narrowing strategy can be set using --narrowing-strategy=:

  • narrow: Use the narrowing operator, ensuring a fast convergence
  • meet: Use the meet operator, convergence can be slow
  • auto: Use the narrowing operator if available for the numerical abstract domain. Otherwise, perform 2 iterations using the meet operator (default)

You can specify a fixed number of narrowing iterations to perform using --narrowing-iterations.

You can specify the widening delay for a given function using --widening-delay-functions. For instance, --widening-delay-functions="main:10, f:32".

Partitioning

The analyzer can use abstract domain partitioning based on integer variables using the --partitioning option.

Using --partitioning=return, the analyzer will split the states at the end of a function according to the function return codes.

This can be used to improve the precision of the analysis on the following code pattern:

int init() {
    int status = xxx();
    if (status < 0) {
      return -1; // Error in xxx
    }

    status = yyy();
    if (status < 0) {
      return -2; // Error in yyy
    }

    zzz();

    return 0; // Success
}

Instead of performing the abstract union and lose precision, the analyzer will keep 3 invariants for each outcome of the init function.

Using --partitioning=manual, the analyzer will split the states according to the values of a given integer variable, set with __ikos_partitioning_var_int(x).

By default, partitioning is disabled.

Hardware addresses

In C code for embedded systems, it is usual to read or write at specific addresses to communicate with the hardware. By default, IKOS treats memory accesses at specific addresses as errors.

You can provide the --hardware-addresses parameter to specify a range of valid memory addresses:

$ ikos --hardware-addresses=0x20-0x40 project.bc

During the analysis, IKOS will assume that memory accesses in the range [0x20, 0x40] (in bytes, inclusive) are safe.

Other analysis options

  • --globals-init: use the given strategy for initialization of global variables.
  • --no-init-globals: disable global variable initialization for the given entry points.
  • --no-liveness: disable the liveness analysis.
  • --no-pointer: disable the pointer analysis.
  • --no-widening-hints: disable the detection of widening hints.
  • --no-fixpoint-cache: disable the cache of fixpoint for called functions.
  • --no-checks: disable all the checks
  • --argc: specify the value of argc for the analysis.
  • --no-libc: do not use libc intrinsics. Useful for bare metal programming.

See ikos --help for more information.

Report Options

This section describes the most relevant report options supported by ikos and ikos-report.

Format

You can specify the format of the report using the --format (or -f) parameter.

Available formats are:

  • text: Text format, convenient for the terminal;
  • csv: CSV format, convenient for spreadsheet import;
  • json: JSON format, convenient for developers.
  • web: Web interface, using ikos-view.
  • no: Disable the report.

By default, if the report has less than 15 entries, it will be printed out using the text format.

We recommend to use ikos-view to examine reports of large projects.

File

By default, the report is generated on the standard output. You can write it into a file using --report-file=/path/to/report

Status Filter

Use --status-filter to filter unwanted checks.

Possible values are: error, warning, safe, unreachable.

Note that you can use the wildcard character *, + and -.

Analysis Filter

Use --analyses-filter to filter unwanted checks.

Possible values are described in Checks.

Note that you can use the wildcard character *, + and -. For instance:

$ ikos-report --analyses-filter='*,-boa' output.db

This will generate a report with all the checks, except buffer overflows.

Verbosity

Use --report-verbosity [1-4] to specify the verbosity. A verbosity of one will give you very short messages, where a verbosity of 4 will provide you with all the information the analyzer has.

Other report options

See ikos-report --help for more information.

APRON Support

APRON is a C library for static analysis using Abstract Interpretation. It implements several complex abstract domains, such as the Polyhedra domain.

IKOS provides a wrapper for APRON, allowing you to use any APRON abstract domain in the analyzer.

To use APRON, first download, build and install it. Consider using the svn trunk. You will also need to build APRON with Parma Polyhedra Library enabled. Set HAS_PPL = 1 and define PPL_PREFIX in your Makefile.config

Now, to build IKOS with APRON support, just provide the option -DAPRON_ROOT=/path/to/apron-install when running cmake. For instance:

cmake \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/ikos-install \
    -DAPRON_ROOT=/path/to/apron-install \
    ..

See Numerical abstract domains for the list of numerical abstract domains.

Analysis Assumptions

This section describes the assumptions made by the analyzer about the code.

First, the analyzed code is compiled with the Clang compiler using the host target. Thus, Clang is responsible for specifying the data model (size of types), the data layout (alignments), the endianness, the signedness of char, the semantic of floating points, etc. depending on the host target. The analyzer uses the generated LLVM bitcode from Clang. This means that you can get different results depending on your host target.

During the analysis, the analyzer will make the following assumptions:

  • The program is single-threaded.
  • The program does not receive signals.
  • The program does not receive interrupts.
  • Extern functions (without implementation) do not update global variables.
  • Extern functions can write on their pointer parameters, but only with one level of indirection:
extern void f(int** p); // Assume to write on *p but not **p
  • Extern functions do not call user-defined functions (no callbacks).
  • Extern functions can throw exceptions.
  • Extern functions return well-initialized values.
  • Recursive function calls can update any value in memory.
  • Recursive function calls can throw exceptions.
  • Recursive function calls return well-initialized values.
  • Assembly codes are treated as extern function calls.
  • C standard library functions do not throw exceptions.

Analyze an embedded software requiring a cross-compiler

Running the analyzer on an embedded software that requires a cross-compiler can be challenging.

You should try to use ikos-scan first, but this will probably fail with compiler errors.

To solve this issue, you will need to create an alternative build file that compiles everything to LLVM bitcode. For instance, if you use make, you could create Makefile.llvm based on Makefile.

In the alternative build file:

  • Locate the build rules that generate intermediate object files (.o).
  • In these rules, add the flag -save-temps=obj to the cross-compiler commands. This will generate a preprocessed file .i in addition to the .o.
  • At the end of these rules, add a command to compile the preprocessed file .i to LLVM bitcode .bc using: clang -c -emit-llvm -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0 -D__IKOS__ -g -O0 -Xclang -disable-O0-optnone <file.i> -o <file.bc>.
  • Locate the build rules that link the intermediate object files into binaries or shared libraries.
  • At the end of these rules, link the LLVM bitcodes .bc together using llvm-link.

For instance, in Makefile.llvm:

%.o: %.c
	$(CC) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) -save-temps=obj $< -o $@
	clang -c -emit-llvm -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0 -D__IKOS__ -g -O0 -Xclang -disable-O0-optnone $(subst .o,.i,$@) -o $(subst .o,.bc,$@)

program: a.o b.o
	$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) a.o b.o -o $@
	llvm-link a.bc b.bc -o [email protected]

clean:
	rm -f *.o *.i *.s *.bc

Then, run your build tool using the alternative build file to generate the LLVM bitcode (e.g, make -f Makefile.llvm).

You can finally analyze your program by running ikos on the generated LLVM bitcode file (e.g, ikos program.bc).

Model library functions to reduce warnings

The analyzer doesn't require the libraries used by your program. It will consider library functions as unknown extern functions and make some assumptions about them.

The analyzer will produce a warning for each call to an unknown function. You can use ikos-report --analyses-filter=sound output.db to list these warnings, or filter the "ignored call side effect" in ikos-view.

You can model library functions to improve the precision of the analysis and reduce the number of warnings. To model a library function, simply write a small implementation for it and link it in your program. This is usually called a "stub".

For instance, a stub for fgets could be:

#include <ikos/analyzer/intrinsic.h>

char* fgets(char* restrict str, int size, FILE* restrict stream) {
    __ikos_assert(size >= 0);
    __ikos_forget_mem(stream, sizeof(FILE));
    __ikos_abstract_mem(str, size);
    return __ikos_nondet_int() ? str : NULL;
}

The analyzer provides helper functions to implement these stubs, see include/ikos/analyzer/intrinsic.h

Note that most functions of the C standard library are already modeled, but not all of them.

Overview of the source code

The following illustrates the directory structure of this folder:

.
├── doc
│   └── doxygen
│       └── latex
├── include
│   └── ikos
│       └── analyzer
│           ├── analysis
│           │   ├── execution_engine
│           │   ├── pointer
│           │   └── value
│           ├── checker
│           ├── database
│           │   └── table
│           ├── json
│           ├── support
│           └── util
├── python
│   └── ikos
│       └── view
│           ├── static
│           │   ├── css
│           │   └── js
│           └── template
├── script
├── src
│   ├── analysis
│   │   ├── pointer
│   │   └── value
│   │       └── machine_int_domain
│   ├── checker
│   ├── database
│   │   └── table
│   ├── json
│   └── util
└── test
    └── regression

doc/

Contains Doxygen files.

include/

include/ikos/analyzer/analysis
include/ikos/analyzer/analysis/execution_engine
include/ikos/analyzer/analysis/pointer
include/ikos/analyzer/analysis/value
include/ikos/analyzer/checker

Contains definition of the different checks on the code (buffer overflow, division by zero, etc.), given the result of an analysis.

include/ikos/analyzer/database/table

Contains definition of the different output database tables.

include/ikos/analyzer/json

Contains definition of a JSON library.

include/ikos/analyzer/support

Contains various helpers, e.g, assertions.

include/ikos/analyzer/util

Contains definition of utilities for the analyzer, e.g, logging, colors, timers, etc.

python/

python/ikos/analyzer/view

Contains the web resources for ikos-view. It includes HTML, CSS and JS code.

script/

Contains python entry points for the command line tools.

src/

Contains implementation files, following the structure of include/ikos/analyzer.

  • src/ikos_analyzer.cpp contains the implementation of ikos-analyzer. This is the entry point for all analyses.