Raising BRK in assembly on i386 Linux - linux

I found and studied x86 memory access segmentation fault and it won't work in my code. The difference perhaps being that I don't use separate .text and .data segments but keep all in a single segment by creating a custom ELF header. Does that explain why the SYS_BRK call fails?
The program then continues by making the memory pages read/write/execute etc.
I tried to find the minimum code sample that illustrated the issue.
In kdbg the sample does work, but not when started from the command line, hence the message printing.
cpu 386
bits 32
; System calls used
%assign SYS_EXIT 1
%assign SYS_WRITE 4
%assign SYS_BRK 45
%assign SYS_MPROTECT 125
; flags for SYS_MPROTECT
%assign PROT_READ 1
%assign PROT_WRITE 2
%assign PROT_EXEC 4
%assign STDOUT 1
memstart: org 0x08048000
ehdr: ; Elf32_Ehdr (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format)
db 0x7F, "ELF" ; e_ident[EI_MAG0..EI_MAG03]
db 1 ; e_ident[EI_CLASS]
db 1 ; e_ident[EI_DATA]
db 1 ; e_ident[EI_VERSION]
db 0 ; e_ident[EI_OSABI]
db 0 ; e_ident[EI_ABIVERSION]
times 7 db 0 ; e_ident[EI_PAD]
dw 2 ; e_type
dw 3 ; e_machine
dd 1 ; e_version
dd start ; e_entry
dd phdr - $$ ; e_phoff
dd 0 ; e_shoff
dd 0 ; e_flags
dw ehdrsize ; e_ehsize
dw phdrsize ; e_phentsize
dw 1 ; e_phnum
dw 0 ; e_shentsize
dw 0 ; e_shnum
dw 0 ; e_shstrndx
ehdrsize equ $ - ehdr
phdr: ; Elf32_Phdr
dd 1 ; p_type
dd 0 ; p_offset
dd $$ ; p_vaddr
dd $$ ; p_paddr
dd filesize ; p_filesz
dd filesize ; p_memsz
dd 5 ; p_flags
dd 0x1000 ; p_align
phdrsize equ $ - phdr
memsize: dd 16*4096 ; = 16 * 4K pages
memtop: dd 0
start: ;int 3
xor ebx, ebx ; find the amount of allocated memory
mov eax, SYS_BRK
int 0x80 ; eax contains current memtop
sub eax, memstart ; got enough memory?
test eax, [memsize]
ja memgood
mov eax, memstart ; raise memory limit to memstart + memsize
add eax, [memsize]
mov ebx, eax
mov ecx, eax ; save requested memory size in ecx
mov eax, SYS_BRK
int 0x80
cmp eax, ecx
jne brk_error ; raising memory limit failed
memgood: mov edx, (PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE | PROT_EXEC)
mov ecx, [memsize] ; make memory read/write/execute
mov ebx, memstart
mov eax, SYS_MPROTECT
int 0x80
test eax, eax
js bailout
jmp launch ; lets start the party
brk_error: mov edx, brkelen
mov ecx, brke
mov ebx, STDOUT
mov eax, SYS_WRITE
int 0x80
jmp bailout
brke: db 'SYS_BRK failed, bye', 10
brkelen equ $ - brke
bailout: mov eax, SYS_EXIT
xor ebx, ebx
int 0x80
launch: mov edx, succlen
mov ecx, succ
mov ebx, STDOUT
mov eax, SYS_WRITE
int 0x80
jmp bailout
succ: db 'Success with mem config, bye', 10
succlen equ $ - succ
filesize equ $ - $$

You should use cmp here instead of test:
sub eax, memstart ; got enough memory?
test eax, [memsize]
ja memgood
The memory area described by SYS_BRK start a random offset of 0 to 0x02000000 after the executable unless address space layout randomisation is disabled, which I suspect your debugger does. You can use mmap to allocate memory at a specified address (don't set MAP_FIXED unless you want overwrite existing mappings) .
However this whole exercise with brk and mprotect seems rather pointless as apart from the stack upon program start memory is allocated exactly as the ELF header specified, instead you can:
phdr: ; Elf32_Phdr
dd 1 ; p_type
dd 0 ; p_offset
dd $$ ; p_vaddr
dd $$ ; p_paddr
dd filesize ; p_filesz
dd 16*4096 ; p_memsz
dd 7 ; p_flags
dd 0x1000 ; p_align
phdrsize equ $ - phdr

Related

Segmentation fault in my assembly program

I am getting a segmentation fault from this simple starting program.
I am using Ubuntu 16.10 and kdbg for debugging. Affter reaching starting __int 80h__, it stops moving to the next line.
section .bss ; section containing uninitialized data
BUFFLEN equ 1024 ; length of buffer
Buff: resb BUFFLEN ; text buffer itself
section .data ; section containing initialzed data
section .text ; secttion containing code
global _start ; linker needs to find the entry point!
_start:
nop ; this no-op keeps gdb happy
; read buffer full of text form stdin:
read:
mov eax, 3 ; specify sys_read call
mov ebx, 0 ; specify file descriptor 0 : standard input
mov ecx, Buff ; pass offset of the buffer to read to
mov edx, BUFFLEN ; pass number of bytes to be read at one pass
int 80h ; call sys_read to fill the buffer
mov esi,eax ; copy sys_read return value for safekeeping
cmp eax, 0 ; if eax = 0 , sys_read reached EOF on stdin
je Done ; jump if Equal ( to o, form compare)
; set up the register for the process buffer step:
mov ecx, esi ; place the number of bytes read into ecx
mov ebp, Buff ; pace address of buffer into ebp
dec ebp ; adjust the count to offset
; go through the buffer and cnvert lowercase to uppercase characters:
Scan:
cmp byte [ebp+ecx], 61h ; test input char agaisnst lowercase 'a'
jb Next ; if Below 'a' in ASCII, not lowercase
cmp byte [ebp+ecx], 7Ah ; test against lowercase 'z'
ja Next
sub byte [ebx+ecx], 20h ; subtract 20h to give uppercase..
Next:
dec ecx ; Decrement counter
jnz Scan ; if characters reamin, loop back
; Write the buffer full of processed text to stdout:
Write:
mov eax,4 ; Specify sys_write call
mov ebx, 1 ; Specify file descriptor 1 : stdout
mov ecx, Buff ; pass the offset of the buffer
mov edx, esi ; pass the # of bytes of data in the buffer
int 80h ; make sys_write kernel call
jmp read ; loop back and load another buffer full
Done:
mov eax, 1 ; Code for Exit sys_call
mov ebx, 0 ; return code of Zero
int 80h
I used these commands:
nasm -f elf -g -F stabs uppercaser1.asm
ld -m elf_i386 -o uppercaser1 uppercaser1.o
./uppercaser < inputflie
I think this code is generally public so I am posting with that in mind.
You should use the code as a guide to understanding what may be wrong in your code; however, it does not conform to any coding standard so it is pointless just to copy and paste and turn it in as an assignment; assuming that is the case.
You will never increase your assembly programming skills by merely doing a copy/paste.
lsb_release -a
...
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
nasm -f elf32 -g uppercase1.s -o uppercase1.o && ld -m elf_i386 uppercase1.o -o uppercase1
section .bss
Buff resb 1
section .data
section .text
global _start
_start:
nop
Read:
mov eax, 3 ; read syscall
mov ebx, 0 ; stdin
mov ecx, Buff ; pass address of the buffer to read to
mov edx, 1 ; read one char or one byte
int 0x80 ;
cmp eax, 0 ; if syscall returns returns 0
je Exit ;
cmp byte [Buff], 0x61 ; lower case a
jb Write ; jump if byte is below a in ASCII chart
cmp byte [Buff], 0x7a ; lower case z
ja Write ; jump if byte is above z in ASCII chart
sub byte [Buff], 0x20 ; changes the value in the buffer to an uppercase char
Write:
mov eax, 4 ; write syscall
mov ebx, 1 ; stdout
mov ecx, Buff ; what to print
mov edx, 1 ; length is one byte - each char is a byte
int 0x80
jmp Read ; go back to Read
Exit:
mov eax, 1
mov ebx, 0
int 0x80
Sample output:
david#ubuntuserver00A:~/asm$ ./uppercase1 < uppercase1.s
SECTION .BSS
BUFF RESB 1
SECTION .DATA
SECTION .TEXT
GLOBAL _START
_START:
NOP
READ:
MOV EAX, 3 ; READ SYSCALL
MOV EBX, 0 ; STDIN
MOV ECX, BUFF ; PASS ADDRESS OF THE BUFFER TO READ TO
MOV EDX, 1 ; READ ONE CHAR OR ONE BYTE
INT 0X80 ;
CMP EAX, 0 ; IF SYSCALL RETURNS RETURNS 0
JE EXIT ;
CMP BYTE [BUFF], 0X61 ; LOWER CASE A
JB WRITE ; JUMP IF BYTE IS BELOW A IN ASCII CHART
CMP BYTE [BUFF], 0X7A ; LOWER CASE Z
JA WRITE ; JUMP IF BYTE IS ABOVE Z IN ASCII CHART
SUB BYTE [BUFF], 0X20 ; CHANGES THE VALUE IN THE BUFFER TO AN UPPERCASE CHAR
WRITE:
MOV EAX, 4 ; WRITE SYSCALL
MOV EBX, 1 ; STDOUT
MOV ECX, BUFF ; WHAT TO PRINT
MOV EDX, 1 ; LENGTH IS ONE BYTE - EACH CHAR IS A BYTE
INT 0X80
JMP READ ; GO BACK TO READ
EXIT:
MOV EAX, 1
MOV EBX, 0
INT 0X80

File permissions in Linux assembly

I'm trying to get information about file permissions. I am using the sys_access system call. Here is my code snippet:
mov eax, 33
mov ebx, fileName
mov ecx, 1
int 80h
cmp eax, 0
jl .error
If eax is -1 there is an error, and I am not getting one, but I need to check all the permissions of the file (owner, group, others). How do I do that?
You can use the kernel function sys_newstat (No. 106 - look at this table) to get the file permissions. The structure stat is a never ending horror, but the following example works at least on my Debian Wheezy 64 bit (NASM, 32-bit and 64-bit modes):
SECTION .data
filename db '/root' ; Just an example, can be replaced with any name
filename_len equ $ - filename ; Length of filename
db 0 ; Terminator for `Int 80h / EAX = 106`
perm_out db 'Permissions: '
perm db 'drwxrwxrwx'
perm_len equ $ - perm ; Index of last character in `perm`
lf db 10
perm_out_len equ $ - perm_out ; Length of `Permissions: ...\n`
SECTION .bss
stat resb 256 ; Way too much, but size is variable depending on OS
SECTION .text
global _start
_start:
mov eax,4 ; sys-out
mov edx,filename_len ; length of string to print
mov ecx,filename ; Pointer to string
mov ebx,1 ; StdOut
int 0x80 ; Call kernel
mov eax,4 ; sys-out
mov edx,1 ; Length of string to print
mov ecx, lf ; Pointer to string
mov ebx,1 ; StdOut
int 0x80 ; Call kernel
mov eax, 106 ; sys_newstat
mov ebx, filename ; Pointer to ASCIIZ file-name
mov ecx, stat ; Pointer to structure stat
int 80h
test eax, eax
jz .noerr
mov eax,1 ; sys_exit
mov ebx,1 ; Exit code, 1=not normal
int 0x80 ; Call kernel
.noerr:
movzx eax, word [stat + 8] ; st_mode (/usr/include/asm/stat.h)
mov ebx, perm_len
; rwx bits
mov ecx, 9
.L1:
sub ebx, 1
shr eax, 1
jc .J1
mov byte [perm + ebx], '-'
.J1:
loop .L1
; directory bit
sub ebx, 1
shr eax, 6
jc .J2
mov byte [perm + ebx], '-'
.J2:
mov eax,4 ; sys-out
mov edx,perm_out_len ; Length of string to print
mov ecx,perm_out ; Pointer to string
mov ebx,1 ; StdOut
int 0x80 ; Call kernel
mov eax,1 ; sys_exit
mov ebx,0 ; Exit code, 0=normal
int 0x80 ; Call kernel

Why is my register-constant comparison not working in NASM Assembly?

Learning NASM Assembly in 32-bit Ubuntu.
This is giving me headaches: suppose that I have an array (I call it vector in the program) in .data:
vector db 1,2,3,4
size equ $-vector
And I also have a number 0:
index db 0
I want to store size in EBX, then store index in ECX, and finally check if ECX < EBX. In this example, it would be 0 < 4. My program simply doesn't do it:
SECTION .data
vector db 1,2,3,4
size equ $-vector
index db 0
; Vocabulary
msg1 db "ECX < EBX",10
msg1len equ $-msg1
msg2 db "ECX >= EBX",10
msg2len equ $-msg2
SECTION .text
global main
main:
; -----------------------------------------------
; MAIN
; -----------------------------------------------
mov EBX,size ; EBX = 4
mov ECX,[index] ; ECX = 0
call check ; Check ECX < EBX (0 < 4)
; -----------------------------------------------
; EXIT
; -----------------------------------------------
mov EAX,1
int 0x80
; -----------------------------------------------
; Check
; Checks whether ECX < EBX
; -----------------------------------------------
check:
cmp ECX,EBX
jge greater_or_equal
mov EAX,4
mov EBX,0
mov ECX,msg1
mov EDX,msg1len
int 0x80
jmp end_check
greater_or_equal:
mov EAX,4
mov EBX,0
mov ECX,msg2
mov EDX,msg2len
int 0x80
end_check:
ret
It outputs:
ECX >= EBX
But that's just not right. ECX should be 0 and EBX should be 4.
I don't see the problem - but I do have an observation:
mov EBX,size
This line bugs me - I wanted to do this:
mov EBX,[size]
But I would get a segmentation fault. I didn't know that would happen, but I'm guessing that it is because size isn't an address - it's just a number, so I can't use the brackets on it. I might be wrong (in which case this could be the cause of the problem).
index db 0
msg1 db "ECX < EBX",10
mov ecx, [index]
index is defined as db, so the instruction will move to ecx this 0 and 3 more bytes from msg1
Use:
index dd 0

nasm, read syscall reads over buffer size

I have the following code. It works ok except one thing which limits its usage in other programs. When I run it in the debugger, Linux read system call returns value always bigger than the specified buffer size. Why is it and how to fix it, because it doesn't let the program to loop through the buffer array without a segmentation fault?
SECTION .data
address dd "log.txt", 0
badf dd "Bad file!",0
buffsize dd 1024
size dd 1024
filedesc dd 0
section .bss
buf resb 1024
SECTION .text
global main
main:
mov ebx, address
mov eax, 5 ; open(
mov ecx, 0 ; read-only mode
int 80h ; );
mov [filedesc], eax
read_loop:
mov ebx, [filedesc] ; file_descriptor,
mov eax, 3 ; read(
mov ecx, buf ; *buf,
mov edx, buffsize ; *bufsize
int 80h ; );
test eax, eax
jz done
js badfile
mov eax, 4 ; write(
mov ebx, 1 ; STDOUT,
mov edx, buffsize
mov ecx, buf ; *buf
int 80h
jmp read_loop
badfile:
mov eax, 4 ; write(
mov ebx, 1 ; STDOUT,
mov edx, 10
mov ecx, badf ; *buf
int 80h
done:
mov eax, 6
mov ebx, [filedesc]
int 0x80
mov ebx,0
mov eax,1
int 0x80
mov edx, buffsize ; *bufsize
Is wrong since buffsize is declared as follows:
buffsize dd 1024
the above code will move the address of buffsize to edx. What you want is:
mov edx, [buffsize]
which will move the value stored at buffsize to edx.
You have a few of those type of errors in there.
Could it be a negative error return code?
I don't see any test in your code for negative values.

Has anyone been able to create a hybrid of PE COFF and ELF?

I mean could a single binary file run in both Win32 and Linux i386 ?
This is not possible, because the two types have conflicting formats:
The initial two characters of a PE file must be 'M' 'Z';
The initial four characters of an ELF file must be '\x7f' 'E' 'L' 'F'.
Clearly, you can't create one file that satisifies both formats.
In response to the comment about a polyglot binary valid as both a 16 bit COM file and a Linux ELF file, that's possible (although really a COM file is a DOS program, not Windows - and certainly not Win32).
Here's one I knocked together - compile it with NASM. It works because the first two bytes of an ELF file ('\x7f' 'E') happen to also be valid 8086 machine code (a 45 byte relative jump-if-greater-than instruction). Minimal ELF headers cribbed from Brian Raiter.
BITS 32
ORG 0x08048000
ehdr: ; Elf32_Ehdr
db 0x7F, "ELF", 1, 1, 1, 0 ; e_ident
times 8 db 0
dw 2 ; e_type
dw 3 ; e_machine
dd 1 ; e_version
dd _start ; e_entry
dd phdr - $$ ; e_phoff
dd 0 ; e_shoff
dd 0 ; e_flags
dw ehdrsize ; e_ehsize
dw phdrsize ; e_phentsize
dw 1 ; e_phnum
dw 0 ; e_shentsize
dw 0 ; e_shnum
dw 0 ; e_shstrndx
ehdrsize equ $ - ehdr
times 0x47-($-$$) db 0
; DOS COM File code
BITS 16
mov dx, msg1 - $$ + 0x100
mov ah, 0x09
int 0x21
mov ah, 0x00
int 0x21
msg1: db `Hello World (DOS).\r\n$`
BITS 32
phdr: ; Elf32_Phdr
dd 1 ; p_type
dd 0 ; p_offset
dd $$ ; p_vaddr
dd $$ ; p_paddr
dd filesize ; p_filesz
dd filesize ; p_memsz
dd 5 ; p_flags
dd 0x1000 ; p_align
phdrsize equ $ - phdr
; Linux ELF code
_start:
mov eax, 4 ; SYS_write
mov ebx, 1 ; stdout
mov ecx, msg2
mov edx, msg2_len
int 0x80
mov eax, 1 ; SYS_exit
mov ebx, 0
int 0x80
msg2: db `Hello World (Linux).\n`
msg2_len equ $ - msg2
filesize equ $ - $$
The two formats are sufficiently different that a hybrid is unlikely.
However, Linux supports loading different executable formats by "interpreter". This way compiled .exe files containing CIL (compiled C# or other .NET languages) can be executed directly under Linux, for example.
Sure. Use Java.

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