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diff --git a/gcc_plugin/README.whitelist.md b/gcc_plugin/README.whitelist.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bcc02693 --- /dev/null +++ b/gcc_plugin/README.whitelist.md @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +======================================== +Using afl++ with partial instrumentation +======================================== + + This file describes how you can selectively instrument only the source files + that are interesting to you using the gcc instrumentation provided by + afl++. + + Originally developed by Christian Holler (:decoder) <choller@mozilla.com>, + adapted to gcc plugin by hexcoder-. + + +## 1) Description and purpose + +When building and testing complex programs where only a part of the program is +the fuzzing target, it often helps to only instrument the necessary parts of +the program, leaving the rest uninstrumented. This helps to focus the fuzzer +on the important parts of the program, avoiding undesired noise and +disturbance by uninteresting code being exercised. + +For this purpose, I have added a "partial instrumentation" support to the gcc +plugin of AFLFuzz that allows you to specify on a source file level which files +should be compiled with or without instrumentation. + + +## 2) Building the gcc plugin + +The new code is part of the existing afl++ gcc plugin in the gcc_plugin/ +subdirectory. There is nothing specifically to do :) + + +## 3) How to use the partial instrumentation mode + +In order to build with partial instrumentation, you need to build with +afl-gcc-fast and afl-g++-fast respectively. The only required change is +that you need to set the environment variable AFL_GCC_WHITELIST when calling +the compiler. + +The environment variable must point to a file containing all the filenames +that should be instrumented. For matching, the filename that is being compiled +must end in the filename entry contained in this whitelist (to avoid breaking +the matching when absolute paths are used during compilation). + +For example if your source tree looks like this: + +``` +project/ +project/feature_a/a1.cpp +project/feature_a/a2.cpp +project/feature_b/b1.cpp +project/feature_b/b2.cpp +``` + +and you only want to test feature_a, then create a whitelist file containing: + +``` +feature_a/a1.cpp +feature_a/a2.cpp +``` + +However if the whitelist file contains only this, it works as well: + +``` +a1.cpp +a2.cpp +``` + +but it might lead to files being unwantedly instrumented if the same filename +exists somewhere else in the project directories. + +The created whitelist file is then set to AFL_GCC_WHITELIST when you compile +your program. For each file that didn't match the whitelist, the compiler will +issue a warning at the end stating that no blocks were instrumented. If you +didn't intend to instrument that file, then you can safely ignore that warning. |