AssemblyLine

An ultra-lightweight C library and binary for generating machine code of x86_64 assembly language and executing on the fly without invoking another compiler, assembler or linker.

• Easy to use C library libassemblyline.
• Print or run assembly code with our cli tool asmline (see tools/README.md)
• Support for MMX, SSE2, AVX, and AVX2 instruction sets.
• Supports Scaled Index addressing mode (SIB) with the following syntax:
  [base + index*scale +\- offset], [base + scale*index +\- offset]
[scale*index +\- offset], [constant]
• Supports pointer: byte, word, dword, and qword
• Supports multi-length nop instructions (by using nop{2..11} as the instruction)
  see test/nop.asm for more information
• Supports jump instructions without labels: short, long, and far
• Memory chunk alignment by using nop-padding.
• Command line completion (zsh, bash) for asmline
• Different modes for assembling instructions.
  NASM: binary output will match that of nasm as closely as possible (default for SIB).
  STRICT: binary output will be in an 'as is' state in respect to the instruction.
  SMART: instructions could be manipulated to ensure binary output matches nasm (default).
  See tools/README.md Different Modes of Assembly section for more information
• man-pages for asmline and libassemblyline
• High instruction compatibility and easy to add new instructions (see src/README.md, and /src/instructions.c for a list of supported instructions.

How to Install

We have packages in the AUR.
Otherwise clone this repo or get a stable release tarball.

$ ./autogen.sh # when `git clone`d
$ ./configure && \
make  && \
sudo make install

Usage

1. $ cc your_program.c -lassemblyline to use the library and compile a C program using assemblyline
   
   
2. $ echo -e "mov rax, 0xADE1A1DE\nret" | asmline -r to use our asmline-cli tool
   (Will print 'the value is 0xade1a1de')
   

Jumpstart library

Full code example:

#include <assemblyline.h> // all assemblyline functions
#include <stdint.h>       // uint8_t
#include <stdio.h>        // printf
#include <sys/mman.h>     // mmap

int main() {
  const int buffer_size = 300; // bytes
  uint8_t *mybuffer = mmap(NULL, sizeof(uint8_t) * buffer_size,
                           PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE | PROT_EXEC,
                           MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);

  assemblyline_t al = asm_create_instance(mybuffer, buffer_size);

  asm_assemble_str(al, "mov rax, 0x0\nadd rax, 0x2; adds two");
  asm_assemble_str(al, "sub rax, 0x1; subs one\nret");

  int (*func)() = asm_get_code(al);

  int result = func();
  printf("The result is: %d\n", result);
  // prints "The result is: 1\n"

  asm_destroy_instance(al);
  munmap(mybuffer, buffer_size);
}

Lets dissect the example (and give alternatives):

1. Include the required header files and preprocessors

   #include <assemblyline.h> // all assemblyline functions
   #include <stdint.h>       // uint8_t
   #include <stdio.h>        // printf
   #include <sys/mman.h>     // mmap

2. Allocate an executable buffer of sufficient size (> 20 bytes) using mmap

   // the machine code will be written to this location
   const int buffer_size = 300; // bytes
   uint8_t *mybuffer = mmap(NULL, sizeof(uint8_t) * buffer_size,
                           PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE | PROT_EXEC,
                           MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);

3. Create an instance of assemblyline_t and attach mybuffer (or NULL, 0 for internal memory allocation)

   // manual memory allocation
   assemblyline_t al = asm_create_instance(mybuffer, buffer_size);
   
   // assemblyline-managed memory allocation
   assemblyline_t al = asm_create_instance(NULL, 0);

4. Assemble a file or string containing. The machine code will be written to mybuffer (or the internal buffer). Call those functions sequentially; subsequent new machine code will be appended at the end of the last instruction. Separate instructions with \n.

   asm_assemble_file(al, "./path/to/x64_file.asm");
   asm_assemble_str(al, "mov rax, 0x0\nadd rax, 0x2; adds two");
   asm_assemble_str(al, "sub rax, 0x1; subs one\nret");

5. Get the start address of the buffer containing the start of the assembly program

   void (*func)() = asm_get_code(al);
   
   // call the function
   int result = func();

6. Free all memory associated with assembyline (an external buffer is not freed)

   asm_destroy_instance(al);
   munmap(mybuffer, buffer_size);

   
   

Note: for more information see /src/assemblyline.h or run $ man libassemblyline for more information

Jumpstart Cli-tool: asmline

The general usage is asmline [OPTIONS]... FILE. asmline --help for all options.

; jump.asm
mov rcx, 0x123
jmp 0x4
add rcx, 1
mov rax, rcx
ret

Use -p for printing ASCII-hex to stdout

$ asmline -p jump.asm
b9 23 01 00 00 
eb 04 
48 83 c1 01 
48 89 c8 
c3 

Or pipe directly into it, use -r to run the code:

$ echo -n 'mov rax, 0xC0FFEE\nret' | asmline -pr
b8 ee ff c0 00 
c3 

# the value is 0xc0ffee

See tools/README.md for more info.

Adding new instructions

To add support for new instructions see src/README.md for more info.

Test files

$ make check to run all test suites (repo must be cloned for this to work)

• To run only one test suite TESTS=seto.asm make -e check, then check ./test/seto.log
• Or run the ./al_nasm_compare.sh seto.asm in the test directory
• Adding a new test: add the test file e.g. sub.asm to the directory and add sub.asm to the TESTS-variable in ./Makefile.am then run $ make clean check. Finally, add Makefile.am and sub.asm to git.
  
  

Contributing

We welcome any kind of contribution. Feel free to open issues if something is broken or you'd need feature. Or open up a PR if you've enhanced AssemblyLine already and want to see it here.

Acknowledgements

Authors:

• Chitchanok Chuengsatiansup (University of Adelaide)
• Daniel Genkin (Georgia Tech)
• Joel Kuepper (University of Adelaide)
• Markus Wagner (University of Adelaide)
• David Wu (University of Adelaide)
• Yuval Yarom (University of Adelaide)

This project was supported by:

• The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under award number FA9550-20-1-0425
• An ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project number DE200101577)
• An ARC Discovery Project (project number DP210102670)
• The Blavatnik ICRC at Tel-Aviv University
• Data61, CSIRO
• the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) under contracts FA8750-19-C-0531 and HR001120C0087
• the National Science Foundation under grant CNS-1954712
• Gifts from AMD, Google, and Intel