[PRL] Thesis Defense: Efficient, Transparent, and Comprehensive Runtime Code Manipulation

[Mitchell Wand]

From: CSAIL Event Calendar <eventcalendar at csail.mit.edu>
Sender: seminars-bounces at lists.csail.mit.edu
To: seminars at csail.mit.edu
Cc: 
Subject: TALK:8-26-04 Thesis Defense:  Efficient, Transparent, and Compr
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 11:55:14 -0400


Thesis Defense:  Efficient, Transparent, and Comprehensive Runtime Code Manipulation
Speaker: Derek L. Bruening
Host: Thesis Advisor:  Saman Amarasinghe
Host Affiliation: Committee:  Martin Rinard, Frans Kaashoek, Arvind

Date: 8-26-2004
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Refreshments: 1:45 PM
Location: 32-D463 Star

Abstract:



This thesis investigates the challenges of building a software system for

general-purpose runtime code manipulation.  Modern applications, with

dynamically-loaded modules and dynamically-generated code, are assembled at

runtime.  Observing and potentially manipulating every instruction, which

is critical for program analysis, instrumentation, trace gathering,

optimization, and similar tools, was once feasible at compile time; it can

now only be done at runtime.  Runtime code manipulation has been used in

special-purpose systems (often with hardware support) and in toy systems,

but no general framework has been developed that allows fine-grained and

comprehensive code manipulation without high overheads.



We present DynamoRIO, the first software system that can manipulate, at

runtime, and with zero impact, every instruction an arbitrary application

executes.  Zero impact requires matching native application behavior

through full transparency and negligible performance overhead.  DynamoRIO

is comprehensive, both in its ability to manipulate every single executed

instruction and in handling every application, including those with

dynamically-loaded, generated, or even modified code.  Furthermore, this is

achieved despite the formidable obstacles inherent in the IA-32

architecture, and requires no modification to the hardware, operating

system, or application.  Our system provides these capabilities with only

an average ten percent time and memory overhead across benchmarks on both

Windows and Linux.



DynamoRIO exports an interface for building custom runtime code

manipulation tools of all types.  It has been used by many researchers,

with several hundred downloads of our public release, and is being

commercialized in a product for protection against remote security

exploits, one of numerous applications of runtime code manipulation.

Relevant URL(S): 
For more information please contact: Mary McDavitt, 617-253-9620, mmcdavit at csail.mit.edu

_______________________________________________
Seminars mailing list
Seminars at lists.csail.mit.edu
http://lists.csail.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/seminars