eviction_strategy_evaluator

Eviction Strategy Evaluator

Eviction Strategy Evaluator is a tool that utilizes libflush to find an effective and fast eviction strategy for any device.

It has been used for our ARMageddon: Cache Attacks on Mobile Devices paper by Lipp, Gruss, Spreitzer, Maurice and Mangard that has been published at the Usenix Security Symposium 2016 and presented at Black Hat Europe 2016.

Table of content

• Installation
  • Dependencies
• Usage
• Configuration
  • Global configuration
  • Device configuration
• Example
• License
• References

Installation

The tool is shipped with a setup.py and can be compiled by running:

python setup.py install

Dependencies

Eviction Strategy Evaluator builds the source code of libflush and, thus, the dependencies of libflush need to be installed on the host system. In addition, it requires the following dependencies:

• click (required)
• PyYAML (required)
• pandas (required)
• adb (to communicate with Android devices)

Usage

eviction_strategy_evaluator [OPTIONS] <command> [COMMAND_OPTIONS]

The following options are available:

• -c, --configuration-file (required)

  Path to the used global configuration file.

• -x, --device-configuration-file (required)

  Path to the used device configuration file.

• -v, --verbose

  Verbose mode

• -f, --force

  Force mode to override files and re-compile existing binaries.

• --help

  Show the help information.

The following commands are available:

• evaluate_strategy

  Evaluates a single log file LOGFILE using the given threshold.

  The following options are available:

  • -t, --threshold (required)

    The threshold that is used to distinguish between a cache hit and a cache miss.

• evaluate_strategies [OPTIONS] LOGFILE_DIRECTORY

  Evaluates all log files in the given LOGFILE_DIRECTORY using the given threshold.

  The following options are available:

  • -t, --threshold (required)

    The threshold that is used to distinguish between a cache hit and a cache miss.

• run_strategy

  Compiles an eviction strategy for the target devices and executes it. Then it will pull the log file.

  The following options are available:

  • -n, --number-of-measurements

    The number of measurements that should be taken.

  • -e, --eviction-counter (required)

    The number of loop executions.

  • -a, --number-of-accesses-in-loop (required)

    The number of accesses in a loop.

  • -d, --different-addresses-in-loop (required)

    The number of accesses to different addresses in a loop.

  • -s, --step-size

    The loop increment.

  • -m, --mirroring

    If the eviction strategy should be mirrored.

• run_strategies

  Compile and run multiple eviction strategies for the target devices and executes them. Then it will pull the log files.

  The following options are available:

  • -n, --number-of-measurements

    The number of measurements that should be taken.

  • -e, --max-eviction-counter (required)

    The maximum number of loop executions.

  • -a, --max-number-of-accesses-in-loop (required)

    The maximum number of accesses in a loop.

  • -d, --max-different-addresses-in-loop (required)

    The maximum number of accesses to different addresses in a loop.

  • -s, --max-step-size

    The maximum loop increment.

  • -m, --with-mirroring

    If the eviction strategies should be also tested with mirroring.

Configuration

In order to use the eviction strategy evaluator you need two different configuration files. One global configuration file specifying the location of the source of libflush as well as the directories used for storing the executables and logfiles. In addition, you need a device configuration file that specifies several properties of the target device.

Global configuration

The global configuration file must provide the following entries:

libflush:
  source-directory: /path/to/libflush
build:
  directory: /path/to/builds
logs:
  directory: /path/to/logs

Device configuration

The device configuration file must provide the following entries:

device:
  name: Alcatel POP2 Touch
  codename: alto45
  arch: armv7
  adb-id: e7e3ca47
  executable-directory: /data/local/tmp
  log-directory: /data/local/tmp
  threshold: 95
cache:
  number-of-sets: 512
  line-length: 64

Example

After you have created your configuration files you can evaluate different strategies on it:

eviction_strategy_evaluator -c config.yml -x alto45.yml run_strategies -e 25 -a 10 -d 10

Then you can evaluate them:

eviction_strategy_evaluator -c config.yml -x alto45.yml evaluate_strategies /tmp/logs/alto45 -t 95

You will end up with a strategies.db as well as a strategies.csv file.

License

Licensed under the zlib license.

References

• [1] ARMageddon: Cache Attacks on Mobile Devices (USENIX Security 2016) - Lipp, Gruss, Spreitzer, Maurice, Mangard
• [2] ARMageddon: How Your Smartphone CPU Breaks Software-Level Security and Privacy (Black Hat Europe 2016) - Lipp, Maurice
• [3] Cache Template Attacks: Automating Attacks on Inclusive Last-Level Caches (USENIX Security 2015) - Gruss, Spreitzer, Mangard