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[clang] Allow inlining of copies without capabilities #506

Commits on Oct 5, 2022

  1. Add tests for clang setting the no_preserve_cheri_tags attribute

    These tests highlight some places where we can easily add the
    no_preserve_tags attribute to allow inlining small copies.
    arichardson committed Oct 5, 2022
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  3. Set no_preserve_tags for copies of structs without capabilities

    This allows inlining of structure assignments for structs that are at
    least capability size but do not contain any capabilities (e.g.
    `struct { long a; long b; }`). We can also set the attribute for all
    trivial auto var-init cases since those patterns never contain valid
    capabilities.
    
    Due to C's effective type rules, we have to be careful when setting the
    attribute and only perform the type-base tag-preservation analysis if we
    know the effective type. For example, marking a memcpy() to/from `long*`
    as not tag-preserving could result in tag stripping for code that uses
    type casts. Such code is correct even under strict aliasing rules since
    the first store to a memory location determines the type. Example from
    CTSRD-CHERI#506:
    ```
    void *malloc(__SIZE_TYPE__);
    void *memcpy(void *, const void *, __SIZE_TYPE__);
    
    void foo(long **p, long **q) {
        *p = malloc(32);
        *q = malloc(32);
        (*p)[0] = 1;
        (*p)[1] = 2;
        *(void (**)(long **, long **))(*p + 2) = &foo;
        memcpy(*q, *p, 32);
    }
    ```
    
    Despite the memcpy() argument being a long* (and therefore intuitively
    not tag preserving), we can't add the attribute since we don't actually
    know the type of the underlying object (malloc creates an allocated with
    no declared type). From C99:
    ```
    The effective type of an object for an access to its stored value is the
    declared type of the object, if any (footnote 75: Allocated objects have
    no declared type).
    
    If a value is stored into an object having no declared type through an
    lvalue having a type that is not a character type, then the type of the
    lvalue becomes the effective type of the object for that access and for
    subsequent accesses that do not modify the stored value.
    
    If a value is copied into an object having no declared type using memcpy
    or memmove, or is copied as an array of character type, then the effective
    type of the modified object for that access and for subsequent accesses
    that do not modify the value is the effective type of the object from
    which the value is copied, if it has one.
    
    For all other accesses to an object having no declared type, the effective
    type of the object is simply the type of the lvalue used for the access.
    ```
    
    There is another important caveat: we have to conservatively assume that
    the copy affects adjacent data (e.g. C++ subclass fields) that could
    hold capabilities if we don't know the copy size. If the copy size is
    <= sizeof(T), we can mark copies as non-tag-preserving since it cannot
    affect trailing fields (even if we are actually copying a subclass).
    
    We are also conservative if the structure contains an array of type
    ((un)signed) char or std::byte since those are often used to store
    arbitrary data (including capabilities). We could make this check more
    strict and require the array to be capability aligned, but that could be
    done as a follow-up change.
    arichardson committed Oct 5, 2022
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