Hardware-assisted AddressSanitizer¶

Introduction ¶

Hardware-assisted AddressSanitizer (HWASan) is a memory error detector similar to AddressSanitizer, but based on memory tagging and address tagging (such as Top-Byte Ignore on AArch64). It provides similar bug detection with significantly lower memory overhead (~10–20%).

HWASan can detect:

Out-of-bounds accesses (heap, stack; globals tagging is not supported on all platforms)
Use-after-free
Use-after-return and use-after-scope
Double-free and invalid free

Supported Platforms ¶

Linux AArch64 (kernel 5.4+ with tagged address ABI; globals tagging is not implemented)
Android AArch64
Linux RISC-V 64
Linux x86_64 (experimental; requires CPU with Intel LAM and kernel support)

Usage ¶

Compile and link your program with -fsanitize=hwaddress:

% cat example.c
#include <stdlib.h>

int main() {
  char *volatile x = (char *)malloc(10);
  free(x);
  return x[5]; // Use-after-free!
}

% clang -O1 -g -fsanitize=hwaddress example.c
% ./a.out
==3304567==ERROR: HWAddressSanitizer: tag-mismatch on address 0xe469fffe0005 at pc 0xc05830a6e228
READ of size 1 at 0xe469fffe0005 tags: 60/7a (ptr/mem) in thread T0
    #0 0xc05830a6e228 in main example.c:6:10
    #1 0xf85b82ab2f18  (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6+0x22f18)
    #2 0xf85b82ab3058 in __libc_start_main (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6+0x23058)
    #3 0xc05830a231ec in _start (a.out+0x431ec)

[0xe469fffe0000,0xe469fffe0010) is a small unallocated heap chunk; size: 16 offset: 5

Cause: use-after-free
0xe469fffe0005 is located 5 bytes inside a 10-byte region [0xe469fffe0000,0xe469fffe000a)
freed by thread T0 here:
    #0 0xc05830a2b5c0 in free (a.out+0x4b5c0)
    #1 0xc05830a6e1f8 in main example.c:5:3
    #2 0xf85b82ab2f18  (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6+0x22f18)
    #3 0xf85b82ab3058 in __libc_start_main (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6+0x23058)
    #4 0xc05830a231ec in _start (a.out+0x431ec)

previously allocated by thread T0 here:
    #0 0xc05830a2bc38 in malloc (a.out+0x4bc38)
    #1 0xc05830a6e1ec in main example.c:4:30
    #2 0xf85b82ab2f18  (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6+0x22f18)
    #3 0xf85b82ab3058 in __libc_start_main (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6+0x23058)
    #4 0xc05830a231ec in _start (a.out+0x431ec)

SUMMARY: HWAddressSanitizer: tag-mismatch example.c:6:10 in main

Flags and Options ¶

Runtime flags can be passed using the HWASAN_OPTIONS environment variable:

$ HWASAN_OPTIONS="halt_on_error=0" ./a.out

To see the full list of available flags, run an instrumented binary with HWASAN_OPTIONS="help=1".

Flags passed via the HWASAN_OPTIONS environment variable take precedence over compile-time default options.

Compile-time Default Options ¶

Default options can be specified at compile/link time by defining the __hwasan_default_options function in your source code:

#include <sanitizer/hwasan_interface.h>

extern "C" const char *__hwasan_default_options() {
  return "halt_on_error=0";
}

Options Evaluation with Integrated Sanitizers ¶

HWASan works together with LeakSanitizer and UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer:

__hwasan_default_options(), __lsan_default_options(), and __ubsan_default_options() are all evaluated independently by their respective runtimes.
Similarly, HWASAN_OPTIONS, LSAN_OPTIONS, and UBSAN_OPTIONS environment variables are parsed separately by their respective runtimes.

Disabling Instrumentation ¶

Functions can be excluded from instrumentation using:

__attribute__((no_sanitize("hwaddress")))

Conditional compilation is supported via __has_feature(hwaddress_sanitizer).

More Information ¶

For details on the design, algorithm, and implementation of HWASan, see Hardware-assisted AddressSanitizer Design Documentation.