Before You Start

Using and exploring angr in IPython (or other Python command line interpreters) is a main use case that we design angr for. When you are not sure what interfaces are available, tab completion is your friend!

Sometimes tab completion in IPython can be slow. We find the following workaround helpful without degrading the validity of completion results:

# Drop this file in IPython profile's startup directory to avoid running it every time.
import IPython
py = IPython.get_ipython()
py.Completer.use_jedi = False

Core Concepts

Before getting started with angr, you'll need to have a basic overview of some fundamental angr concepts and how to construct some basic angr objects. We'll go over this by examining what's directly available to you after you've loaded a binary!

Your first action with angr will always be to load a binary into a project. We'll use /bin/true for these examples.

>>> import angr
>>> proj = angr.Project('/bin/true')

A project is your control base in angr. With it, you will be able to dispatch analyses and simulations on the executable you just loaded. Almost every single object you work with in angr will depend on the existence of a project in some form.

Basic properties

First, we have some basic properties about the project: its CPU architecture, its filename, and the address of its entry point.

>>> import monkeyhex # this will format numerical results in hexadecimal
>>> proj.arch
<Arch AMD64 (LE)>
>>> proj.entry
0x401670
>>> proj.filename
'/bin/true'

• arch is an instance of an archinfo.Arch object for whichever architecture the program is compiled, in this case little-endian amd64. It contains a ton of clerical data about the CPU it runs on, which you can peruse at your leisure. The common ones you care about are arch.bits, arch.bytes (that one is a @property declaration on the main Arch class), arch.name, and arch.memory_endness.

• entry is the entry point of the binary!

• filename is the absolute filename of the binary. Riveting stuff!

The loader

Getting from a binary file to its representation in a virtual address space is pretty complicated! We have a module called CLE to handle that. CLE's result, called the loader, is available in the .loader property. We'll get into detail on how to use this soon, but for now just know that you can use it to see the shared libraries that angr loaded alongside your program and perform basic queries about the loaded address space.

>>> proj.loader
<Loaded true, maps [0x400000:0x5004000]>
​
>>> proj.loader.shared_objects # may look a little different for you!
{'ld-linux-x86-64.so.2': <ELF Object ld-2.24.so, maps [0x2000000:0x2227167]>,
 'libc.so.6': <ELF Object libc-2.24.so, maps [0x1000000:0x13c699f]>}
​
>>> proj.loader.min_addr
0x400000
>>> proj.loader.max_addr
0x5004000
​
>>> proj.loader.main_object  # we've loaded several binaries into this project. Here's the main one!
<ELF Object true, maps [0x400000:0x60721f]>
​
>>> proj.loader.main_object.execstack  # sample query: does this binary have an executable stack?
False
>>> proj.loader.main_object.pic  # sample query: is this binary position-independent?
True

The factory

There are a lot of classes in angr, and most of them require a project to be instantiated. Instead of making you pass around the project everywhere, we provide project.factory, which has several convenient constructors for common objects you'll want to use frequently.

This section will also serve as an introduction to several basic angr concepts. Strap in!

Blocks

First, we have project.factory.block(), which is used to extract a basic block of code from a given address. This is an important fact - angr analyzes code in units of basic blocks. You will get back a Block object, which can tell you lots of fun things about the block of code:

>>> block = proj.factory.block(proj.entry) # lift a block of code from the program's entry point
<Block for 0x401670, 42 bytes>
​
>>> block.pp()                          # pretty-print a disassembly to stdout
0x401670:       xor     ebp, ebp
0x401672:       mov     r9, rdx
0x401675:       pop     rsi
0x401676:       mov     rdx, rsp
0x401679:       and     rsp, 0xfffffffffffffff0
0x40167d:       push    rax
0x40167e:       push    rsp
0x40167f:       lea     r8, [rip + 0x2e2a]
0x401686:       lea     rcx, [rip + 0x2db3]
0x40168d:       lea     rdi, [rip - 0xd4]
0x401694:       call    qword ptr [rip + 0x205866]
​
>>> block.instructions                  # how many instructions are there?
0xb
>>> block.instruction_addrs             # what are the addresses of the instructions?
[0x401670, 0x401672, 0x401675, 0x401676, 0x401679, 0x40167d, 0x40167e, 0x40167f, 0x401686, 0x40168d, 0x401694]

Additionally, you can use a Block object to get other representations of the block of code:

>>> block.capstone                       # capstone disassembly
<CapstoneBlock for 0x401670>
>>> block.vex                            # VEX IRSB (that's a python internal address, not a program address)
<pyvex.block.IRSB at 0x7706330>

States

Here's another fact about angr - the Project object only represents an "initialization image" for the program. When you're performing execution with angr, you are working with a specific object representing a simulated program state - a SimState. Let's grab one right now!

>>> state = proj.factory.entry_state()
<SimState @ 0x401670>

A SimState contains a program's memory, registers, filesystem data... any "live data" that can be changed by execution has a home in the state. We'll cover how to interact with states in depth later, but for now, let's use state.regsand state.mem to access the registers and memory of this state:

>>> state.regs.rip        # get the current instruction pointer
<BV64 0x401670>
>>> state.regs.rax
<BV64 0x1c>
>>> state.mem[proj.entry].int.resolved  # interpret the memory at the entry point as a C int
<BV32 0x8949ed31>

Those aren't python ints! Those are bitvectors. Python integers don't have the same semantics as words on a CPU, e.g. wrapping on overflow, so we work with bitvectors, which you can think of as an integer as represented by a series of bits, to represent CPU data in angr. Note that each bitvector has a .length property describing how wide it is in bits.

We'll learn all about how to work with them soon, but for now, here's how to convert from python ints to bitvectors and back again:

>>> bv = state.solver.BVV(0x1234, 32)       # create a 32-bit-wide bitvector with value 0x1234
<BV32 0x1234>                               # BVV stands for bitvector value
>>> state.solver.eval(bv)                # convert to python int
0x1234

You can store these bitvectors back to registers and memory, or you can directly store a python integer and it'll be converted to a bitvector of the appropriate size:

>>> state.regs.rsi = state.solver.BVV(3, 64)
>>> state.regs.rsi
<BV64 0x3>
​
>>> state.mem[0x1000].long = 4
>>> state.mem[0x1000].long.resolved
<BV64 0x4>

The mem interface is a little confusing at first, since it's using some pretty hefty python magic. The short version of how to use it is:

• Use array[index] notation to specify an address

• Use .<type> to specify that the memory should be interpreted as <type> (common values: char, short, int, long, size_t, uint8_t, uint16_t...)

• From there, you can either:

  • Store a value to it, either a bitvector or a python int

  • Use .resolved to get the value as a bitvector

  • Use .concrete to get the value as a python int

There are more advanced usages that will be covered later!

Finally, if you try reading some more registers you may encounter a very strange looking value:

>>> state.regs.rdi
<BV64 reg_48_11_64{UNINITIALIZED}>

This is still a 64-bit bitvector, but it doesn't contain a numerical value. Instead, it has a name! This is called a symbolic variable and it is the underpinning of symbolic execution. Don't panic! We will discuss all of this in detail exactly two chapters from now.

Simulation Managers

If a state lets us represent a program at a given point in time, there must be a way to get it to the next point in time. A simulation manager is the primary interface in angr for performing execution, simulation, whatever you want to call it, with states. As a brief introduction, let's show how to tick that state we created earlier forward a few basic blocks.

First, we create the simulation manager we're going to be using. The constructor can take a state or a list of states.

>>> simgr = proj.factory.simulation_manager(state)
<SimulationManager with 1 active>
>>> simgr.active
[<SimState @ 0x401670>]

A simulation manager can contain several stashes of states. The default stash, active, is initialized with the state we passed in. We could look at simgr.active[0] to look at our state some more, if we haven't had enough!

Now... get ready, we're going to do some execution.

>>> simgr.step()

We've just performed a basic block's worth of symbolic execution! We can look at the active stash again, noticing that it's been updated, and furthermore, that it has not modified our original state. SimState objects are treated as immutable by execution - you can safely use a single state as a "base" for multiple rounds of execution.

>>> simgr.active
[<SimState @ 0x1020300>]
>>> simgr.active[0].regs.rip                 # new and exciting!
<BV64 0x1020300>
>>> state.regs.rip                           # still the same!
<BV64 0x401670>

/bin/true isn't a very good example for describing how to do interesting things with symbolic execution, so we'll stop here for now.

Analyses

angr comes pre-packaged with several built-in analyses that you can use to extract some fun kinds of information from a program. Here they are:

>>> proj.analyses.            # Press TAB here in ipython to get an autocomplete-listing of everything:
 proj.analyses.BackwardSlice        proj.analyses.CongruencyCheck      proj.analyses.reload_analyses       
 proj.analyses.BinaryOptimizer      proj.analyses.DDG                  proj.analyses.StaticHooker          
 proj.analyses.BinDiff              proj.analyses.DFG                  proj.analyses.VariableRecovery      
 proj.analyses.BoyScout             proj.analyses.Disassembly          proj.analyses.VariableRecoveryFast  
 proj.analyses.CDG                  proj.analyses.GirlScout            proj.analyses.Veritesting           
 proj.analyses.CFG                  proj.analyses.Identifier           proj.analyses.VFG                   
 proj.analyses.CFGEmulated          proj.analyses.LoopFinder           proj.analyses.VSA_DDG               
 proj.analyses.CFGFast              proj.analyses.Reassembler

A couple of these are documented later in this book, but in general, if you want to find how to use a given analysis, you should look in the api documentation. As an extremely brief example: here's how you construct and use a quick control-flow graph:

# Originally, when we loaded this binary it also loaded all its dependencies into the same virtual address  space
# This is undesirable for most analysis.
>>> proj = angr.Project('/bin/true', auto_load_libs=False)
>>> cfg = proj.analyses.CFGFast()
<CFGFast Analysis Result at 0x2d85130>
​
# cfg.graph is a networkx DiGraph full of CFGNode instances
# You should go look up the networkx APIs to learn how to use this!
>>> cfg.graph
<networkx.classes.digraph.DiGraph at 0x2da43a0>
>>> len(cfg.graph.nodes())
951
​
# To get the CFGNode for a given address, use cfg.get_any_node
>>> entry_node = cfg.get_any_node(proj.entry)
>>> len(list(cfg.graph.successors(entry_node)))
2

Now what?

Having read this page, you should now be aquainted with several important angr concepts: basic blocks, states, bitvectors, simulation managers, and analyses. You can't really do anything interesting besides just use angr as a glorified debugger, though! Keep reading, and you will unlock deeper powers...