Carnegie Mellon
Bomb Lab
1
Carnegie Mellon
Agenda
Overview of Bomb
Lab
Assembly Refresher
Intro to GDB
Unix Refresher
Bomb Lab Demo
2
Carnegie Mellon
Bomb Lab
Oh no! Dr. Evil has written an evil program that will
“explode” the machines!
The program is in phases, each of which reads in input –
something like a password – from standard input.
If your input is correct, you go on to the next phase.
If not, the bomb explodes. The program prints “BOOM!!!”
and terminates, and you lose half a point. (Your score is
updated automatically.)
3
Carnegie Mellon
Bomb Lab
We give you:
▪ Partial source code, in which Dr. Evil mocks you
▪ The executable file itself
You can’t read the C source code. So how can you figure
out what the program does?
From the binary executable!
4
Carnegie Mellon
Agenda
Overview of Bomb Lab
Assembly Refresher
Intro to GDB
Unix Refresher
Bomb Lab Demo
5
Carnegie Mellon
x86-64 Integer Registers
%rax return %eax %r8 arg 5 %r8d
%rbx %ebx %r9 arg 6 %r9d
%rcx arg 4 %ecx %r10 %r10d
%rdx arg 3 %edx %r11 %r11d
%rsi arg 2 %esi %r12 %r12d
%rdi arg 1 %edi %r13 %r13d
%rsp %esp %r14 %r14d
%rbp %ebp %r15 %r15d
6
Carnegie Mellon
Assembly: Operands
Data type Syntax Examples Notes
Immediate
$0x0 Don’t forget 0x
values (constant Start with $
$-15213 means hex!
integers)
Can represent a
%esi
Registers Start with % value or an
%rax
address
Parentheses Parentheses
around a (%esi) dereference. If
Memory register, or %esi stores an
locations addressing 0x8(%rax) address, (%esi)
mode – (%rax, %rsi, 4) is the value at
D(Rb,Ri,S) that address.
7
Carnegie Mellon
Assembly: Some Common Operations
Instruction Effect
mov %rdi, %rax rax = rdi
add %rdi, %rax rax = rax + rdi
sub %rdi, %rax rax = rax - rdi
lea (%rdi, %rsi, 2), rax = rdi + (2 * rsi) (doesn’t dereference)
%rax
call foo Calls function “foo”
push %eax Pushes eax onto the stack
pop %eax Pops a value off the stack and into eax
ret Returns to the return address (i.e., the
next line in the calling function)
nop Does nothing!
You may see suffixes on the end: Specify operand is 1, 2, 4, 8 bytes
b, w, l, q
8
Carnegie Mellon
Assembly: Comparisons and Jumps
Remember from class that Assembly uses comparisons and
jumps (gotos) to execute various conditionals and loops.
cmp b, a sets the same flags as computing a – b.
test b, a sets the same flags as computing a & b.
These are usually followed by a conditional jump
instruction that relies on the results.
Watch out for operand order:
cmpl %eax, %edx if %edx > %eax,
jg 401095 jump to 401095
9
Carnegie Mellon
Assembly: Comparisons and Jumps
Instruction Effect Instruction Effect
jmp Always jump ja Jump if above (unsigned >)
je/jz Jump if =/0 jae Jump if above or equal
jne/jnz Jump if ≠/0 jb Jump if below (unsigned <)
jg Jump if > jbe Jump if below or equal
jge Jump if >= js Jump if negative
jl Jump if < jns Jump if nonnegative
jle Jump if <=
10
Carnegie Mellon
Assembly: Comparisons and Jumps
cmp $0x42, %edi
je 400d3b
edi == 66
if ____________, jump to 400d3b
cmp %esi, %edx
jle 400e71
edx <= esi
if_____________, jump to 400e71
test %rdi, %rdi
jne 400e87
if ____________,
%rdi != 0 jump to 400e87
11
Carnegie Mellon
Agenda
Overview of Bomb Lab
Assembly Refresher
Intro to GDB
Unix Refresher
Bomb Lab Demo
12
Carnegie Mellon
Your Defusing Toolkit
objdump –t bomb prints the symbol table
strings bomb prints all printable strings
objdump –d bomb prints the Assembly
gdb bomb shows you the executable file in Assembly and
lets you step through it line by line, peeking into the
registers and stack as you go
13
Carnegie Mellon
GDB: Stepping Through Code
break <location>
▪ sets a breakpoint. Location can be a function name or an address.
▪ Pro tip: you have to reset your break points when you restart GDB!
run / run <filename>
▪ runs the program up till the next breakpoint.
▪ Pro tip: instead of typing in your inputs each time, you can put
them in a text file, one per line, and run that.
disassemble (or disas – but not dis!!!)
▪ shows you the current function, with an arrow to the next line.
step / stepi / nexti
▪ step executes one C statement – it doesn’t work for us.
▪ stepi steps to the next line of Assembly.
▪ nexti does the same but doesn’t stop in function calls.
▪ stepi <n> or nexti <n> steps through n lines.
14
Carnegie Mellon
GDB: Examining Data
info registers
▪ prints the (hex) contents of every register.
print $<register>
▪ prints the contents of a register.
▪ Note the $ – not a %.
▪ Use /x or /d, to specify hex or decimal: print /d $rax.
x $<register> / x 0x<address>
▪ prints what the register points to (or what’s at the given address).
▪ By default, prints one word (a “word” here is 4 bytes).
▪ However, in addition to specifying format (now including /s,
string), you can specify how many objects of what size to print, in
the format x /[num][size][format], for example:
x /4wd $rsp
15
Carnegie Mellon
One Last Hint: sscanf
The bomb frequently calls sscanf to read in formatted
arguments.
If you’re not familiar with the formatting used by printf,
now’s the time!
Example: %s %x %s represents an input of a string, hex
number, and string.
This could be handy in figuring out what kinds of
arguments a phase is expecting.
man sscanf!
16
Carnegie Mellon
Agenda
Overview of Bomb Lab
Assembly Refresher
Intro to GDB
Unix Refresher
Bomb Lab Demo
17
Carnegie Mellon
Unix Refresher
At the very least, you should be comfortable with:
▪ man to read manual pages
▪ cd to change directories
▪ ls to list contents of the current directory
▪ ls –l to list contents with extra info, including permission bits
▪ scp to send files between your computer and the Shark machines
▪ ssh to log into the Shark machines
▪ tar to tar (-cvf) and untar (-xvf) things (-z for optional gzip)
▪ chmod to change permission bits if necessary
▪ flags (e.g. –R to apply a command recursively to a folder)
Helpful hints: Tab autocompletes. An up arrow scrolls up
through your last few commands.
18
Carnegie Mellon
Agenda
Overview of Bomb Lab
Assembly Refresher
Intro to GDB
Unix Refresher
Bomb Lab Demo
19