This series of posts delves into a collection of experiments I did in the past while playing around with LLVM and VMProtect. I recently decided to dust off the code, organize it a bit better and attempt to share some knowledge in such a way that could be helpful to others. The macro topics are divided as follows:
Foreword
First, let me list some important events that led to my curiosity for reversing obfuscation solutions and attack them with LLVM.
- In 2017, a group of friends (SmilingWolf, mrexodia and xSRTsect) and I, hacked up a Python-based devirtualizer and solved a couple of VMProtect challenges posted on the Tuts4You forum. That was my first experience reversing a known commercial protector, and taught me that writing compiler-like optimizations, especially built on top of a not so well-designed IR, can be an awful adventure.
- In 2018, a person nicknamed RYDB3RG, posted on Tuts4You a first insight on how LLVM optimizations could be beneficial when optimising VMProtected code. Although the easy example that was provided left me with a lot of questions on whether that approach would have been hassle-free or not.
- In 2019, at the SPRO conference in London, Peter and I presented a paper titled “SATURN - Software Deobfuscation Framework Based On LLVM”, proposing, you guessed it, a software deobfuscation framework based on LLVM and describing the related pros/cons.
The ideas documented in this post come from insights obtained during the aforementioned research efforts, fine-tuned specifically to get a good-enough output prior to the recompilation/decompilation phases, and should be considered as stable as a proof-of-concept can be.
Before anyone starts a war about which framework is better for the job, pause a few seconds and search the truth deep inside you: every framework has pros/cons and everything boils down to choosing which framework to get mad at when something doesn’t work. I personally decided to get mad at LLVM, which over time proved to be a good research playground, rich with useful analysis and optimizations, consistently maintained, sporting a nice community and deeply entangled with the academic and industry worlds.
With that said, it’s crystal clear that LLVM is not born as a software deobfuscation framework, so scratching your head for hours, diving into its internals and bending them to your needs is a minimum requirement to achieve your goals.
I apologize in advance for the ample presence of long-ish code snippets, but I wanted the reader to have the relevant C++ or LLVM-IR code under their nose while discussing it.
Lifting
The following diagram shows a high-level overview of all the actions and components described in the upcoming sections. The blue blocks represent the inputs, the yellow blocks the actions, the white blocks the intermediate information and the purple block the output.
Enough words or code have been spent by others (1, 2, 3, 4) describing the virtual machine architecture used by VMProtect, so the next paragraph will quickly sum up the involved data structures with an eye on some details that will be fundamental to make LLVM’s job easier. To further simplify the explanation, the following paragraphs will assume the handling of x64 code virtualized by VMProtect 3.x. Drawing a parallel with x86 is trivial.
Liveness and aliasing information
Let’s start by saying that many deobfuscation tools are completely disregarding, or at best unsoundly handling, any information related to the aliasing properties bound to the memory accesses present in the code under analysis. LLVM on the contrary is a framework that bases a lot of its optimization passes on precise aliasing information, in such a way that the semantic correctness of the code is preserved. Additionally LLVM also has strong optimization passes benefiting from precise liveness information, that we absolutely want to take advantage of to clean any unnecessary stores to memory that are irrelevant after the execution of the virtualized code.
This means that we need to pause for a moment to think about the properties of the data structures involved in the code that we are going to lift, keeping in mind how they may alias with each other, for how long we need them to hold their values and if there are safe assumptions that we can feed to LLVM to obtain the best possible result.
A suboptimal representation of the data structures is most likely going to lead to suboptimal lifted code because the LLVM’s optimizations are going to be hindered by the lack of information, erring on the safe side to keep the code semantically correct. Way worse though, is the case where an unsound assumption is going to lead to lifted code that is semantically incorrect.
At a high level we can summarize the data-related virtual machine components as follows:
30 virtual registers: used internally by the virtual machine. Their liveness scope starts after the
VmEnter, when they are initialized with the incoming host execution context, and ends before theVmExit(s), when their values are copied to the outgoing host execution context. Therefore their state should not persist outside the virtualized code. They are allocated on the stack, in a memory chunk that can only be accessed by specificVmHandlersand is therefore guaranteed to be inaccessible by an arbitrary stack access executed by the virtualized code. They are independent from one another, so writing to one won’t affect the others. During the virtual execution they can be accessed as a whole or in subregisters. From now on referred to asVmRegisters.19 passing slots: used by VMProtect to pass the execution state from one
VmBlockto another. Their liveness starts at the epilogue of aVmBlockand ends at the prologue of the successorVmBlock(s). They are allocated on the stack and, while alive, they are only accessed by the push/pop instructions at the epilogue/prologue of eachVmBlock. They are independent from one another and always accessed as a whole stack slot. From now on referred to asVmPassingSlots.16 general purpose registers: pushed to the stack during the
VmEnter, loaded and manipulated by means of theVmRegistersand popped from the stack during theVmExit(s), reflecting the changes made to them during the virtual execution. Their liveness scope starts before theVmEnterand ends after theVmExit(s), so their state must persist after the execution of the virtualized code. They are independent from one another, so writing to one won’t affect the others. Contrarily to theVmRegisters, the general purpose registers are always accessed as a whole. The flags register is also treated as the general purpose registers liveness-wise, but it can be directly accessed by someVmHandlers.4 general purpose segments: the
FSandGSgeneral purpose segment registers have their liveness scope matching with the general purpose registers and the underlying segments are guaranteed not to overlap with other memory regions (e.g.SS,DS). On the contrary, accesses to theSSandDSsegments are not always guaranteed to be distinct with each other. The liveness of theSSandDSsegments also matches with the general purpose registers. A little digression: in the past I noticed that some projects were lifting the stack with an intra-virtual function scope which, in my experience, may cause a number of problems if the virtualized code is not a function with a well-formed stack frame, but rather a shellcode that pops some value pushed prior to entering the virtual machine or pushes some value that needs to live after exiting the virtual machine.
Helper functions
With the information gathered from the previous section, we can proceed with defining some basic LLVM-IR structures that will then be used to lift the individual VmHandlers, VmBlocks and VmFunctions.
When I first started with LLVM, my approach to generate the needed structures or instruction chains was through the IRBuilder class, but I quickly realized that I was spending more time looking at the documentation to generate the required types and instructions than actually focusing on designing them. Then, while working on SATURN, it became obvious that following Remill’s approach is a winning strategy, at least for the initial high level design phase. In fact their idea is to implement the structures and semantics in C++, compile them to LLVM-IR and dynamically load the generated bitcode file to be used by the lifter.
Without further ado, the following is a minimal implementation of a stub function that we can use as a template to lift a VmStub (virtualized code between a VmEnter and one or more VmExit(s)):
struct VirtualRegister final {
union {
alignas(1) struct {
uint8_t b0;
uint8_t b1;
uint8_t b2;
uint8_t b3;
uint8_t b4;
uint8_t b5;
uint8_t b6;
uint8_t b7;
} byte;
alignas(2) struct {
uint16_t w0;
uint16_t w1;
uint16_t w2;
uint16_t w3;
} word;
alignas(4) struct {
uint32_t d0;
uint32_t d1;
} dword;
alignas(8) uint64_t qword;
} __attribute__((packed));
} __attribute__((packed));
using rref = size_t &__restrict__;
extern "C" uint8_t RAM[0];
extern "C" uint8_t GS[0];
extern "C" uint8_t FS[0];
extern "C"
size_t HelperStub(
rref rax, rref rbx, rref rcx,
rref rdx, rref rsi, rref rdi,
rref rbp, rref rsp, rref r8,
rref r9, rref r10, rref r11,
rref r12, rref r13, rref r14,
rref r15, rref flags,
size_t KEY_STUB, size_t RET_ADDR, size_t REL_ADDR,
rref vsp, rref vip,
VirtualRegister *__restrict__ vmregs,
size_t *__restrict__ slots);
extern "C"
size_t HelperFunction(
rref rax, rref rbx, rref rcx,
rref rdx, rref rsi, rref rdi,
rref rbp, rref rsp, rref r8,
rref r9, rref r10, rref r11,
rref r12, rref r13, rref r14,
rref r15, rref flags,
size_t KEY_STUB, size_t RET_ADDR, size_t REL_ADDR)
{
// Allocate the temporary virtual registers
VirtualRegister vmregs[30] = {0};
// Allocate the temporary passing slots
size_t slots[19] = {0};
// Initialize the virtual registers
size_t vsp = rsp;
size_t vip = 0;
// Force the relocation address to 0
REL_ADDR = 0;
// Execute the virtualized code
vip = HelperStub(
rax, rbx, rcx, rdx, rsi, rdi,
rbp, rsp, r8, r9, r10, r11,
r12, r13, r14, r15, flags,
KEY_STUB, RET_ADDR, REL_ADDR,
vsp, vip, vmregs, slots);
// Return the next address(es)
return vip;
}
The VirtualRegister structure is meant to represent a VmRegister, divided in smaller sub-chunks that are going to be accessed by the VmHandlers in ways that don’t necessarily match the access to the subregisters on the x64 architecture. As an example, virtualizing the 64 bits bswap instruction will yield VmHandlers accessing all the word sub-chunks of a VmRegister. The __attribute__((packed)) is meant to generate a structure without padding bytes, matching the exact data layout used by a VmRegister.
The rref definition is a convenience type adopted in the definition of the arguments used by the helper functions, that, once compiled to LLVM-IR, will generate a pointer parameter with a noalias attribute. The noalias attribute is hinting to the compiler that any memory access happening inside the function that is not dereferencing a pointer derived from the pointer parameter, is guaranteed not to alias with a memory access dereferencing a pointer derived from the pointer parameter.
The RAM, GS and FS array definitions are convenience zero-length arrays that we can use to generate indexed memory accesses to a generic memory slot (stack segment, data segment), GS segment and FS segment. The accesses will be generated as getelementptr instructions and LLVM will automatically treat a pointer with base RAM as not aliasing with a pointer with base GS or FS, which is extremely convenient to us.
The HelperStub function prototype is a convenience declaration that we’ll be able to use in the lifter to represent a single VmBlock. It accepts as parameters the sequence of general purpose register pointers, the flags register pointer, three key values (KEY_STUB, RET_ADDR, REL_ADDR) pushed by each VmEnter, the virtual stack pointer, the virtual program counter, the VmRegisters pointer and the VmPassingSlots pointer.
The HelperFunction function definition is a convenience template that we’ll be able to use in the lifter to represent a single VmStub. It accepts as parameters the sequence of general purpose register pointers, the flags register pointer and the three key values (KEY_STUB, RET_ADDR, REL_ADDR) pushed by each VmEnter. The body is declaring an array of 30 VmRegisters, an array of 19 VmPassingSlots, the virtual stack pointer and the virtual program counter. Once compiled to LLVM-IR they’ll be turned into alloca declarations (stack frame allocations), guaranteed not to alias with other pointers used into the function and that will be automatically released at the end of the function scope. As a convenience we are setting the REL_ADDR to 0, but that can be dynamically set to the proper REL_ADDR provided by the user according to the needs of the binary under analysis. Last but not least, we are issuing the call to the HelperStub function, passing all the needed parameters and obtaining as output the updated instruction pointer, that, in turn, will be returned by the HelperFunction too.
The global variable and function declarations are marked as extern "C" to avoid any form of name mangling. In fact we want to be able to fetch them from the dynamically loaded LLVM-IR Module using functions like getGlobalVariable and getFunction.
The compiled and optimized LLVM-IR code for the described C++ definitions follows:
%struct.VirtualRegister = type { %union.anon }
%union.anon = type { i64 }
%struct.anon = type { i8, i8, i8, i8, i8, i8, i8, i8 }
@RAM = external local_unnamed_addr global [0 x i8], align 1
@GS = external local_unnamed_addr global [0 x i8], align 1
@FS = external local_unnamed_addr global [0 x i8], align 1
declare i64 @HelperStub(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64, i64, i64, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8), %struct.VirtualRegister*, i64*) local_unnamed_addr
define i64 @HelperFunction(i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rax, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbx, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rcx, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdx, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsi, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdi, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbp, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsp, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r8, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r9, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r10, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r11, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r12, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r13, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r14, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r15, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %flags, i64 %KEY_STUB, i64 %RET_ADDR, i64 %REL_ADDR) local_unnamed_addr {
entry:
%vmregs = alloca [30 x %struct.VirtualRegister], align 16
%slots = alloca [30 x i64], align 16
%vip = alloca i64, align 8
%0 = bitcast [30 x %struct.VirtualRegister]* %vmregs to i8*
call void @llvm.memset.p0i8.i64(i8* nonnull align 16 dereferenceable(240) %0, i8 0, i64 240, i1 false)
%1 = bitcast [30 x i64]* %slots to i8*
call void @llvm.memset.p0i8.i64(i8* nonnull align 16 dereferenceable(240) %1, i8 0, i64 240, i1 false)
%2 = bitcast i64* %vip to i8*
store i64 0, i64* %vip, align 8
%arraydecay = getelementptr inbounds [30 x %struct.VirtualRegister], [30 x %struct.VirtualRegister]* %vmregs, i64 0, i64 0
%arraydecay1 = getelementptr inbounds [30 x i64], [30 x i64]* %slots, i64 0, i64 0
%call = call i64 @HelperStub(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rax, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbx, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rcx, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdx, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsi, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdi, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbp, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsp, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r8, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r9, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r10, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r11, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r12, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r13, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r14, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r15, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %flags, i64 %KEY_STUB, i64 %RET_ADDR, i64 0, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsp, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %vip, %struct.VirtualRegister* nonnull %arraydecay, i64* nonnull %arraydecay1)
ret i64 %call
}
Semantics of the handlers
We can now move on to the implementation of the semantics of the handlers used by VMProtect. As mentioned before, implementing them directly at the LLVM-IR level can be a tedious task, so we’ll proceed with the same C++ to LLVM-IR logic adopted in the previous section.
The following selection of handlers should give an idea of the logic adopted to implement the handlers’ semantics.
STACK_PUSH
To access the stack using the push operation, we define a templated helper function that takes the virtual stack pointer and value to push as parameters.
template <typename T> __attribute__((always_inline)) void STACK_PUSH(size_t &vsp, T value) {
// Update the stack pointer
vsp -= sizeof(T);
// Store the value
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &value, sizeof(T));
}
We can see that the virtual stack pointer is decremented using the byte size of the template parameter. Then we proceed to use the std::memcpy function to execute a safe type punning store operation accessing the RAM array with the virtual stack pointer as index. The C++ implementation is compiled with -O3 optimizations, so the function will be inlined (as expected from the always_inline attribute) and the std::memcpy call will be converted to the proper pointer type cast and store instructions.
STACK_POP
As expected, also the stack pop operation is defined as a templated helper function that takes the virtual stack pointer as parameter and returns the popped value as output.
template <typename T> __attribute__((always_inline)) T STACK_POP(size_t &vsp) {
// Fetch the value
T value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(T));
// Undefine the stack slot
T undef = UNDEF<T>();
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &undef, sizeof(T));
// Update the stack pointer
vsp += sizeof(T);
// Return the value
return value;
}
We can see that the value is read from the stack using the same std::memcpy logic explained above, an undefined value is written to the current stack slot and the virtual stack pointer is incremented using the byte size of the template parameter. As in the previous case, the -O3 optimizations will take care of inlining and lowering the std::memcpy call.
ADD
Being a stack machine, we know that it is going to pop the two input operands from the top of the stack, add them together, calculate the updated flags and push the result and the flags back to the stack. There are four variations of the addition handler, meant to handle 8/16/32/64 bits operands, with the peculiarity that the 8 bits case is really popping 16 bits per operand off the stack and pushing a 16 bits result back to the stack to be consistent with the x64 push/pop alignment rules.
From what we just described the only thing we need is the virtual stack pointer, to be able to access the stack.
// ADD semantic
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
__attribute__((const))
bool AF(T lhs, T rhs, T res) {
return AuxCarryFlag(lhs, rhs, res);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
__attribute__((const))
bool PF(T res) {
return ParityFlag(res);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
__attribute__((const))
bool ZF(T res) {
return ZeroFlag(res);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
__attribute__((const))
bool SF(T res) {
return SignFlag(res);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
__attribute__((const))
bool CF_ADD(T lhs, T rhs, T res) {
return Carry<tag_add>::Flag(lhs, rhs, res);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
__attribute__((const))
bool OF_ADD(T lhs, T rhs, T res) {
return Overflow<tag_add>::Flag(lhs, rhs, res);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
void ADD_FLAGS(size_t &flags, T lhs, T rhs, T res) {
// Calculate the flags
bool cf = CF_ADD(lhs, rhs, res);
bool pf = PF(res);
bool af = AF(lhs, rhs, res);
bool zf = ZF(res);
bool sf = SF(res);
bool of = OF_ADD(lhs, rhs, res);
// Update the flags
UPDATE_EFLAGS(flags, cf, pf, af, zf, sf, of);
}
template <typename T>
__attribute__((always_inline))
void ADD(size_t &vsp) {
// Check if it's 'byte' size
bool isByte = (sizeof(T) == 1);
// Initialize the operands
T op1 = 0;
T op2 = 0;
// Fetch the operands
if (isByte) {
op1 = Trunc(STACK_POP<uint16_t>(vsp));
op2 = Trunc(STACK_POP<uint16_t>(vsp));
} else {
op1 = STACK_POP<T>(vsp);
op2 = STACK_POP<T>(vsp);
}
// Calculate the add
T res = UAdd(op1, op2);
// Calculate the flags
size_t flags = 0;
ADD_FLAGS(flags, op1, op2, res);
// Save the result
if (isByte) {
STACK_PUSH<uint16_t>(vsp, ZExt(res));
} else {
STACK_PUSH<T>(vsp, res);
}
// 7. Save the flags
STACK_PUSH<size_t>(vsp, flags);
}
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(ADD_64) = ADD<uint64_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(ADD_32) = ADD<uint32_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(ADD_16) = ADD<uint16_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(ADD_8) = ADD<uint8_t>;
We can see that the function definition is templated with a T parameter that is internally used to generate the properly-sized stack accesses executed by the STACK_PUSH and STACK_POP helpers defined above. Additionally we are taking care of truncating and zero extending the special 8 bits case. Finally, after the unsigned addition took place, we rely on Remill’s semantically proven flag computations to calculate the fresh flags before pushing them to the stack.
The other binary and arithmetic operations are implemented following the same structure, with the correct operands access and flag computations.
PUSH_VMREG
This handler is meant to fetch the value stored in a VmRegister and push it to the stack. The value can also be a sub-chunk of the virtual register, not necessarily starting from the base of the VmRegister slot. Therefore the function arguments are going to be the virtual stack pointer and the value of the VmRegister. The template is additionally defining the size of the pushed value and the offset from the VmRegister slot base.
template <size_t Size, size_t Offset>
__attribute__((always_inline)) void PUSH_VMREG(size_t &vsp, VirtualRegister vmreg) {
// Update the stack pointer
vsp -= ((Size != 8) ? (Size / 8) : ((Size / 8) * 2));
// Select the proper element of the virtual register
if constexpr (Size == 64) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.qword, sizeof(uint64_t));
} else if constexpr (Size == 32) {
if constexpr (Offset == 0) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.dword.d0, sizeof(uint32_t));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 1) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.dword.d1, sizeof(uint32_t));
}
} else if constexpr (Size == 16) {
if constexpr (Offset == 0) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.word.w0, sizeof(uint16_t));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 1) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.word.w1, sizeof(uint16_t));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 2) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.word.w2, sizeof(uint16_t));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 3) {
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &vmreg.word.w3, sizeof(uint16_t));
}
} else if constexpr (Size == 8) {
if constexpr (Offset == 0) {
uint16_t byte = ZExt(vmreg.byte.b0);
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &byte, sizeof(uint16_t));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 1) {
uint16_t byte = ZExt(vmreg.byte.b1);
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &byte, sizeof(uint16_t));
}
// NOTE: there might be other offsets here, but they were not observed
}
}
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(PUSH_VMREG_8_LOW) = PUSH_VMREG<8, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(PUSH_VMREG_8_HIGH) = PUSH_VMREG<8, 1>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(PUSH_VMREG_16_LOWLOW) = PUSH_VMREG<16, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(PUSH_VMREG_16_LOWHIGH) = PUSH_VMREG<16, 1>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(PUSH_VMREG_16_HIGHLOW) = PUSH_VMREG<16, 2>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(PUSH_VMREG_16_HIGHHIGH) = PUSH_VMREG<16, 3>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(PUSH_VMREG_32_LOW) = PUSH_VMREG<32, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_32(POP_VMREG_32) = POP_VMREG<32, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(PUSH_VMREG_32_HIGH) = PUSH_VMREG<32, 1>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(PUSH_VMREG_64) = PUSH_VMREG<64, 0>;
We can see how the proper VmRegister sub-chunk is accessed based on the size and offset template parameters (e.g. vmreg.word.w1, vmreg.qword) and how once again the std::memcpy is used to implement a safe memory write on the indexed RAM array. The virtual stack pointer is also decremented as usual.
POP_VMREG
This handler is meant to pop a value from the stack and store it into a VmRegister. The value can also be a sub-chunk of the virtual register, not necessarily starting from the base of the VmRegister slot. Therefore the function arguments are going to be the virtual stack pointer and a reference to the VmRegister to be updated. As before the template is defining the size of the popped value and the offset into the VmRegister slot.
template <size_t Size, size_t Offset>
__attribute__((always_inline)) void POP_VMREG(size_t &vsp, VirtualRegister &vmreg) {
// Fetch and store the value on the virtual register
if constexpr (Size == 64) {
uint64_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint64_t));
vmreg.qword = value;
} else if constexpr (Size == 32) {
if constexpr (Offset == 0) {
uint32_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint32_t));
vmreg.qword = ((vmreg.qword & 0xFFFFFFFF00000000) | value);
} else if constexpr (Offset == 1) {
uint32_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint32_t));
vmreg.qword = ((vmreg.qword & 0x00000000FFFFFFFF) | UShl(ZExt(value), 32));
}
} else if constexpr (Size == 16) {
if constexpr (Offset == 0) {
uint16_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint16_t));
vmreg.qword = ((vmreg.qword & 0xFFFFFFFFFFFF0000) | value);
} else if constexpr (Offset == 1) {
uint16_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint16_t));
vmreg.qword = ((vmreg.qword & 0xFFFFFFFF0000FFFF) | UShl(ZExtTo<uint64_t>(value), 16));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 2) {
uint16_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint16_t));
vmreg.qword = ((vmreg.qword & 0xFFFF0000FFFFFFFF) | UShl(ZExtTo<uint64_t>(value), 32));
} else if constexpr (Offset == 3) {
uint16_t value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint16_t));
vmreg.qword = ((vmreg.qword & 0x0000FFFFFFFFFFFF) | UShl(ZExtTo<uint64_t>(value), 48));
}
} else if constexpr (Size == 8) {
if constexpr (Offset == 0) {
uint16_t byte = 0;
std::memcpy(&byte, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint16_t));
vmreg.byte.b0 = Trunc(byte);
} else if constexpr (Offset == 1) {
uint16_t byte = 0;
std::memcpy(&byte, &RAM[vsp], sizeof(uint16_t));
vmreg.byte.b1 = Trunc(byte);
}
// NOTE: there might be other offsets here, but they were not observed
}
// Clear the value on the stack
if constexpr (Size == 64) {
uint64_t undef = UNDEF<uint64_t>();
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &undef, sizeof(uint64_t));
} else if constexpr (Size == 32) {
uint32_t undef = UNDEF<uint32_t>();
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &undef, sizeof(uint32_t));
} else if constexpr (Size == 16) {
uint16_t undef = UNDEF<uint16_t>();
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &undef, sizeof(uint16_t));
} else if constexpr (Size == 8) {
uint16_t undef = UNDEF<uint16_t>();
std::memcpy(&RAM[vsp], &undef, sizeof(uint16_t));
}
// Update the stack pointer
vsp += ((Size != 8) ? (Size / 8) : ((Size / 8) * 2));
}
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(POP_VMREG_8_LOW) = POP_VMREG<8, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(POP_VMREG_8_HIGH) = POP_VMREG<8, 1>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(POP_VMREG_16_LOWLOW) = POP_VMREG<16, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(POP_VMREG_16_LOWHIGH) = POP_VMREG<16, 1>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(POP_VMREG_16_HIGHLOW) = POP_VMREG<16, 2>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(POP_VMREG_16_HIGHHIGH) = POP_VMREG<16, 3>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(POP_VMREG_32_LOW) = POP_VMREG<32, 0>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(POP_VMREG_32_HIGH) = POP_VMREG<32, 1>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(POP_VMREG_64) = POP_VMREG<64, 0>;
In this case we can see that the update operation on the sub-chunks of the VmRegister is being done with some masking, shifting and zero extensions. This is to help LLVM with merging smaller integer values into a bigger integer value, whenever possible. As we saw in the STACK_POP operation, we are writing an undefined value to the current stack slot. Finally we are incrementing the virtual stack pointer.
LOAD and LOAD_GS
Generically speaking the LOAD handler is meant to pop an address from the stack, dereference it to load a value from one of the program segments and push the retrieved value to the top of the stack.
The following C++ snippet shows the implementation of a memory load from a generic memory pointer (e.g. SS or DS segments) and from the GS segment:
template <typename T> __attribute__((always_inline)) void LOAD(size_t &vsp) {
// Check if it's 'byte' size
bool isByte = (sizeof(T) == 1);
// Pop the address
size_t address = STACK_POP<size_t>(vsp);
// Load the value
T value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &RAM[address], sizeof(T));
// Save the result
if (isByte) {
STACK_PUSH<uint16_t>(vsp, ZExt(value));
} else {
STACK_PUSH<T>(vsp, value);
}
}
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(LOAD_SS_64) = LOAD<uint64_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_SS_32) = LOAD<uint32_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_SS_16) = LOAD<uint16_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_SS_8) = LOAD<uint8_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(LOAD_DS_64) = LOAD<uint64_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_DS_32) = LOAD<uint32_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_DS_16) = LOAD<uint16_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_DS_8) = LOAD<uint8_t>;
template <typename T> __attribute__((always_inline)) void LOAD_GS(size_t &vsp) {
// Check if it's 'byte' size
bool isByte = (sizeof(T) == 1);
// Pop the address
size_t address = STACK_POP<size_t>(vsp);
// Load the value
T value = 0;
std::memcpy(&value, &GS[address], sizeof(T));
// Save the result
if (isByte) {
STACK_PUSH<uint16_t>(vsp, ZExt(value));
} else {
STACK_PUSH<T>(vsp, value);
}
}
DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64(LOAD_GS_64) = LOAD_GS<uint64_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_GS_32) = LOAD_GS<uint32_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_GS_16) = LOAD_GS<uint16_t>;
DEFINE_SEMANTIC(LOAD_GS_8) = LOAD_GS<uint8_t>;
By now the process should be clear. The only difference is the accessed zero-length array that will end up as base of the getelementptr instruction, which will directly reflect on the aliasing information that LLVM will be able to infer. The same kind of logic is applied to all the read or write memory accesses to the different segments.
DEFINE_SEMANTIC
In the code snippets of this section you may have noticed three macros named DEFINE_SEMANTIC_64, DEFINE_SEMANTIC_32 and DEFINE_SEMANTIC. They are the umpteenth trick borrowed from Remill and are meant to generate global variables with unmangled names, pointing to the function definition of the specialized template handlers. As an example, the ADD semantic definition for the 8/16/32/64 bits cases looks like this at the LLVM-IR level:
@SEM_ADD_64 = dso_local constant void (i64*)* @_Z3ADDIyEvRm, align 8
@SEM_ADD_32 = dso_local constant void (i64*)* @_Z3ADDIjEvRm, align 8
@SEM_ADD_16 = dso_local constant void (i64*)* @_Z3ADDItEvRm, align 8
@SEM_ADD_8 = dso_local constant void (i64*)* @_Z3ADDIhEvRm, align 8
UNDEF
In the code snippets of this section you may also have noticed the usage of a function called UNDEF. This function is used to store a fictitious __undef value after each pop from the stack. This is done to signal to LLVM that the popped value is no longer needed after being popped from the stack.
The __undef value is modeled as a global variable, which during the first phase of the optimization pipeline will be used by passes like DSE to kill overlapping post-dominated dead stores and it’ll be replaced with a real undef value near the end of the optimization pipeline such that the related store instruction will be gone on the final optimized LLVM-IR function.
Lifting a basic block
We now have a bunch of templates, structures and helper functions, but how do we actually end up lifting some virtualized code?
The high level idea is the following:
- A new LLVM-IR function with the
HelperStubsignature is generated; - The function’s body is populated with call instructions to the
VmHandlerhelper functions fed with the proper arguments (obtained from theHelperStubparameters); - The optimization pipeline is executed on the function, resulting in the inlining of all the helper functions (that are marked
always_inline) and in the propagation of the values; - The updated state of the
VmRegisters,VmPassingSlotsand stores to the segments is optimized, removing most of the obfuscation patterns used by VMProtect; - The updated state of the virtual stack pointer and virtual instruction pointer is computed.
A fictitious example of a full pipeline based on the HelperStub function, implemented at the C++ level and optimized to obtain propagated LLVM-IR code follows:
extern "C" __attribute__((always_inline)) size_t SimpleExample_HelperStub(
rptr rax, rptr rbx, rptr rcx,
rptr rdx, rptr rsi, rptr rdi,
rptr rbp, rptr rsp, rptr r8,
rptr r9, rptr r10, rptr r11,
rptr r12, rptr r13, rptr r14,
rptr r15, rptr flags,
size_t KEY_STUB, size_t RET_ADDR, size_t REL_ADDR, rptr vsp,
rptr vip, VirtualRegister *__restrict__ vmregs,
size_t *__restrict__ slots) {
PUSH_REG(vsp, rax);
PUSH_REG(vsp, rbx);
POP_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[1]);
POP_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[0]);
PUSH_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[0]);
PUSH_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[1]);
ADD<uint64_t>(vsp);
POP_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[2]);
POP_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[3]);
PUSH_VMREG<64, 0>(vsp, vmregs[3]);
POP_REG(vsp, rax);
return vip;
}
The C++ HelperStub function with calls to the handlers. This only serves as an example, normally the LLVM-IR for this is automatically generated from VM bytecode.
define dso_local i64 @SimpleExample_HelperStub(i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rax, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbx, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rcx, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdx, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsi, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdi, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbp, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsp, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r8, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r9, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r10, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r11, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r12, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r13, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r14, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r15, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %flags, i64 %KEY_STUB, i64 %RET_ADDR, i64 %REL_ADDR, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %vsp, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %vip, %struct.VirtualRegister* noalias %vmregs, i64* noalias %slots) local_unnamed_addr {
entry:
%rax.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rbx.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rcx.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rdx.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rsi.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rdi.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rbp.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%rsp.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r8.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r9.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r10.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r11.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r12.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r13.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r14.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%r15.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%flags.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%KEY_STUB.addr = alloca i64, align 8
%RET_ADDR.addr = alloca i64, align 8
%REL_ADDR.addr = alloca i64, align 8
%vsp.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%vip.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%vmregs.addr = alloca %struct.VirtualRegister*, align 8
%slots.addr = alloca i64*, align 8
%agg.tmp = alloca %struct.VirtualRegister, align 1
%agg.tmp4 = alloca %struct.VirtualRegister, align 1
%agg.tmp10 = alloca %struct.VirtualRegister, align 1
store i64* %rax, i64** %rax.addr, align 8
store i64* %rbx, i64** %rbx.addr, align 8
store i64* %rcx, i64** %rcx.addr, align 8
store i64* %rdx, i64** %rdx.addr, align 8
store i64* %rsi, i64** %rsi.addr, align 8
store i64* %rdi, i64** %rdi.addr, align 8
store i64* %rbp, i64** %rbp.addr, align 8
store i64* %rsp, i64** %rsp.addr, align 8
store i64* %r8, i64** %r8.addr, align 8
store i64* %r9, i64** %r9.addr, align 8
store i64* %r10, i64** %r10.addr, align 8
store i64* %r11, i64** %r11.addr, align 8
store i64* %r12, i64** %r12.addr, align 8
store i64* %r13, i64** %r13.addr, align 8
store i64* %r14, i64** %r14.addr, align 8
store i64* %r15, i64** %r15.addr, align 8
store i64* %flags, i64** %flags.addr, align 8
store i64 %KEY_STUB, i64* %KEY_STUB.addr, align 8
store i64 %RET_ADDR, i64* %RET_ADDR.addr, align 8
store i64 %REL_ADDR, i64* %REL_ADDR.addr, align 8
store i64* %vsp, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
store i64* %vip, i64** %vip.addr, align 8
store %struct.VirtualRegister* %vmregs, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
store i64* %slots, i64** %slots.addr, align 8
%0 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%1 = load i64*, i64** %rax.addr, align 8
%2 = load i64, i64* %1, align 8
call void @_Z8PUSH_REGRmm(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %0, i64 %2)
%3 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%4 = load i64*, i64** %rbx.addr, align 8
%5 = load i64, i64* %4, align 8
call void @_Z8PUSH_REGRmm(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %3, i64 %5)
%6 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%7 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %7, i64 1
call void @_Z9POP_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRmR15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %6, %struct.VirtualRegister* nonnull align 1 dereferenceable(8) %arrayidx)
%8 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%9 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx1 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %9, i64 0
call void @_Z9POP_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRmR15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %8, %struct.VirtualRegister* nonnull align 1 dereferenceable(8) %arrayidx1)
%10 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%11 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx2 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %11, i64 0
%12 = bitcast %struct.VirtualRegister* %agg.tmp to i8*
%13 = bitcast %struct.VirtualRegister* %arrayidx2 to i8*
call void @llvm.memcpy.p0i8.p0i8.i64(i8* align 1 %12, i8* align 1 %13, i64 8, i1 false)
%coerce.dive = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %agg.tmp, i32 0, i32 0
%coerce.dive3 = getelementptr inbounds %union.anon, %union.anon* %coerce.dive, i32 0, i32 0
%14 = load i64, i64* %coerce.dive3, align 1
call void @_Z10PUSH_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRm15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %10, i64 %14)
%15 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%16 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx5 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %16, i64 1
%17 = bitcast %struct.VirtualRegister* %agg.tmp4 to i8*
%18 = bitcast %struct.VirtualRegister* %arrayidx5 to i8*
call void @llvm.memcpy.p0i8.p0i8.i64(i8* align 1 %17, i8* align 1 %18, i64 8, i1 false)
%coerce.dive6 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %agg.tmp4, i32 0, i32 0
%coerce.dive7 = getelementptr inbounds %union.anon, %union.anon* %coerce.dive6, i32 0, i32 0
%19 = load i64, i64* %coerce.dive7, align 1
call void @_Z10PUSH_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRm15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %15, i64 %19)
%20 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
call void @_Z3ADDIyEvRm(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %20)
%21 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%22 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx8 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %22, i64 2
call void @_Z9POP_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRmR15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %21, %struct.VirtualRegister* nonnull align 1 dereferenceable(8) %arrayidx8)
%23 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%24 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx9 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %24, i64 3
call void @_Z9POP_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRmR15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %23, %struct.VirtualRegister* nonnull align 1 dereferenceable(8) %arrayidx9)
%25 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%26 = load %struct.VirtualRegister*, %struct.VirtualRegister** %vmregs.addr, align 8
%arrayidx11 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %26, i64 3
%27 = bitcast %struct.VirtualRegister* %agg.tmp10 to i8*
%28 = bitcast %struct.VirtualRegister* %arrayidx11 to i8*
call void @llvm.memcpy.p0i8.p0i8.i64(i8* align 1 %27, i8* align 1 %28, i64 8, i1 false)
%coerce.dive12 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %agg.tmp10, i32 0, i32 0
%coerce.dive13 = getelementptr inbounds %union.anon, %union.anon* %coerce.dive12, i32 0, i32 0
%29 = load i64, i64* %coerce.dive13, align 1
call void @_Z10PUSH_VMREGILm64ELm0EEvRm15VirtualRegister(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %25, i64 %29)
%30 = load i64*, i64** %vsp.addr, align 8
%31 = load i64*, i64** %rax.addr, align 8
call void @_Z7POP_REGRmS_(i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %30, i64* nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %31)
%32 = load i64*, i64** %vip.addr, align 8
%33 = load i64, i64* %32, align 8
ret i64 %33
}
The LLVM-IR compiled from the previous C++ HelperStub function.
define dso_local i64 @SimpleExample_HelperStub(i64* noalias nocapture nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rax, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readonly align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbx, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rcx, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdx, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsi, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdi, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbp, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsp, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r8, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r9, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r10, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r11, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r12, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r13, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r14, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r15, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %flags, i64 %KEY_STUB, i64 %RET_ADDR, i64 %REL_ADDR, i64* noalias nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %vsp, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readonly align 8 dereferenceable(8) %vip, %struct.VirtualRegister* noalias nocapture %vmregs, i64* noalias nocapture readnone %slots) local_unnamed_addr {
entry:
%0 = load i64, i64* %rax, align 8
%1 = load i64, i64* %vsp, align 8
%sub.i.i = add i64 %1, -8
%arrayidx.i.i = getelementptr inbounds [0 x i8], [0 x i8]* @RAM, i64 0, i64 %sub.i.i
%value.addr.0.arrayidx.sroa_cast.i.i = bitcast i8* %arrayidx.i.i to i64*
%2 = load i64, i64* %rbx, align 8
%sub.i.i66 = add i64 %1, -16
%arrayidx.i.i67 = getelementptr inbounds [0 x i8], [0 x i8]* @RAM, i64 0, i64 %sub.i.i66
%value.addr.0.arrayidx.sroa_cast.i.i68 = bitcast i8* %arrayidx.i.i67 to i64*
%qword.i62 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %vmregs, i64 1, i32 0, i32 0
store i64 %2, i64* %qword.i62, align 1
%3 = load i64, i64* @__undef, align 8
%qword.i55 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %vmregs, i64 0, i32 0, i32 0
store i64 %0, i64* %qword.i55, align 1
%add.i32.i = add i64 %2, %0
%cmp.i.i.i.i = icmp ult i64 %add.i32.i, %2
%cmp1.i.i.i.i = icmp ult i64 %add.i32.i, %0
%4 = or i1 %cmp.i.i.i.i, %cmp1.i.i.i.i
%conv.i.i.i.i = trunc i64 %add.i32.i to i32
%conv.i.i.i.i.i = and i32 %conv.i.i.i.i, 255
%5 = tail call i32 @llvm.ctpop.i32(i32 %conv.i.i.i.i.i)
%xor.i.i28.i.i = xor i64 %2, %0
%xor1.i.i.i.i = xor i64 %xor.i.i28.i.i, %add.i32.i
%and.i.i.i.i = and i64 %xor1.i.i.i.i, 16
%cmp.i.i27.i.i = icmp eq i64 %add.i32.i, 0
%shr.i.i.i.i = lshr i64 %2, 63
%shr1.i.i.i.i = lshr i64 %0, 63
%shr2.i.i.i.i = lshr i64 %add.i32.i, 63
%xor.i.i.i.i = xor i64 %shr2.i.i.i.i, %shr.i.i.i.i
%xor3.i.i.i.i = xor i64 %shr2.i.i.i.i, %shr1.i.i.i.i
%add.i.i.i.i = add nuw nsw i64 %xor.i.i.i.i, %xor3.i.i.i.i
%cmp.i.i25.i.i = icmp eq i64 %add.i.i.i.i, 2
%conv.i.i.i = zext i1 %4 to i64
%6 = shl nuw nsw i32 %5, 2
%7 = and i32 %6, 4
%8 = xor i32 %7, 4
%9 = zext i32 %8 to i64
%shl22.i.i.i = select i1 %cmp.i.i27.i.i, i64 64, i64 0
%10 = lshr i64 %add.i32.i, 56
%11 = and i64 %10, 128
%shl34.i.i.i = select i1 %cmp.i.i25.i.i, i64 2048, i64 0
%or6.i.i.i = or i64 %11, %shl22.i.i.i
%and13.i.i.i = or i64 %or6.i.i.i, %and.i.i.i.i
%or17.i.i.i = or i64 %and13.i.i.i, %conv.i.i.i
%and25.i.i.i = or i64 %or17.i.i.i, %shl34.i.i.i
%or29.i.i.i = or i64 %and25.i.i.i, %9
%qword.i36 = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %vmregs, i64 2, i32 0, i32 0
store i64 %or29.i.i.i, i64* %qword.i36, align 1
store i64 %3, i64* %value.addr.0.arrayidx.sroa_cast.i.i68, align 1
%qword.i = getelementptr inbounds %struct.VirtualRegister, %struct.VirtualRegister* %vmregs, i64 3, i32 0, i32 0
store i64 %add.i32.i, i64* %qword.i, align 1
store i64 %3, i64* %value.addr.0.arrayidx.sroa_cast.i.i, align 1
store i64 %add.i32.i, i64* %rax, align 8
%12 = load i64, i64* %vip, align 8
ret i64 %12
}
The LLVM-IR of the HelperStub function with inlined and optimized calls to the handlers
The last snippet is representing all the semantic computations related with a VmBlock, as described in the high level overview. Although, if the code we lifted is capturing the whole semantics related with a VmStub, we can wrap the HelperStub function with the HelperFunction function, which enforces the liveness properties described in the Liveness and aliasing information section, enabling us to obtain only the computations updating the host execution context:
extern "C" size_t SimpleExample_HelperFunction(
rptr rax, rptr rbx, rptr rcx,
rptr rdx, rptr rsi, rptr rdi,
rptr rbp, rptr rsp, rptr r8,
rptr r9, rptr r10, rptr r11,
rptr r12, rptr r13, rptr r14,
rptr r15, rptr flags, size_t KEY_STUB,
size_t RET_ADDR, size_t REL_ADDR) {
// Allocate the temporary virtual registers
VirtualRegister vmregs[30] = {0};
// Allocate the temporary passing slots
size_t slots[30] = {0};
// Initialize the virtual registers
size_t vsp = rsp;
size_t vip = 0;
// Force the relocation address to 0
REL_ADDR = 0;
// Execute the virtualized code
vip = SimpleExample_HelperStub(
rax, rbx, rcx, rdx, rsi, rdi,
rbp, rsp, r8, r9, r10, r11,
r12, r13, r14, r15, flags,
KEY_STUB, RET_ADDR, REL_ADDR,
vsp, vip, vmregs, slots);
// Return the next address(es)
return vip;
}
The C++ HelperFunction function with the call to the HelperStub function and the relevant stack frame allocations.
define dso_local i64 @SimpleExample_HelperFunction(i64* noalias nocapture nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rax, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readonly align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbx, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rcx, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdx, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsi, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rdi, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rbp, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readonly align 8 dereferenceable(8) %rsp, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r8, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r9, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r10, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r11, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r12, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r13, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r14, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull readnone align 8 dereferenceable(8) %r15, i64* noalias nocapture nonnull align 8 dereferenceable(8) %flags, i64 %KEY_STUB, i64 %RET_ADDR, i64 %REL_ADDR) local_unnamed_addr {
entry:
%0 = load i64, i64* %rax, align 8
%1 = load i64, i64* %rbx, align 8
%add.i32.i.i = add i64 %1, %0
store i64 %add.i32.i.i, i64* %rax, align 8
ret i64 0
}
The LLVM-IR HelperFunction function with fully optimized code.
It can be seen that the example is just pushing the values of the registers rax and rbx, loading them in vmregs[0] and vmregs[1] respectively, pushing the VmRegisters on the stack, adding them together, popping the updated flags in vmregs[2], popping the addition’s result to vmregs[3] and finally pushing vmregs[3] on the stack to be popped in the rax register at the end. The liveness of the values of the VmRegisters ends with the end of the function, hence the updated flags saved in vmregs[2] won’t be reflected on the host execution context. Looking at the final snippet we can see that the semantics of the code have been successfully obtained.
What’s next?
In Part 2 we’ll put the described structures and helpers to good use, digging into the details of the virtualized CFG exploration and introducing the basics of the LLVM optimization pipeline.