InsTrim: Lightweight Instrumentation for Coverage-guided Fuzzing
InsTrim uses CFG and markers to instrument just what is necessary in the binary in llvm_mode. It is about 10-15% faster without disadvantages. It requires at least llvm version 3.8.0.
Set the environment variable AFL_LLVM_INSTRUMENT=CFG or AFL_LLVM_INSTRIM=1
during compilation of the target.
There is also an advanced mode which instruments loops in a way so that
afl-fuzz can see which loop path has been selected but not being able to
see how often the loop has been rerun.
This again is a tradeoff for speed for less path information.
To enable this mode set AFL_LLVM_INSTRIM_LOOPHEAD=1.
There is an additional optimization option that skips single block
functions. In 95% of the C targets and (guess) 50% of the C++ targets
it is good to enable this, as otherwise pointless instrumentation occurs.
The corner case where we want this instrumentation is when vtable/call table
is used and the index to that vtable/call table is not set in specific
basic blocks.
To enable skipping these (most of the time) unnecessary instrumentations set
AFL_LLVM_INSTRIM_SKIPSINGLEBLOCK=1
The paper: [InsTrim: Lightweight Instrumentation for Coverage-guided Fuzzing] (https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/bar2018_14_Hsu_paper.pdf)