hardening-check(1)

1HARDENING-CHECK(1)                                          HARDENING-CHECK(1)
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NAME

6       hardening-check - check binaries for security hardening features
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SYNOPSIS

9       hardening-check [options] [ELF ...]
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11       Examine a given set of ELF binaries and check for several security
12       hardening features, failing if they are not all found.
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DESCRIPTION

15       This utility checks a given list of ELF binaries for several security
16       hardening features that can be compiled into an executable. These
17       features are:
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19       Position Independent Executable
20               This indicates that the executable was built in such a way
21               (PIE) that the "text" section of the program can be relocated
22               in memory. To take full advantage of this feature, the
23               executing kernel must support text Address Space Layout
24               Randomization (ASLR).
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26       Stack Protected
27               This indicates that there is evidence that the ELF was compiled
28               with the gcc(1) option -fstack-protector (e.g. uses
29               __stack_chk_fail). The program will be resistant to having its
30               stack overflowed.
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32               When an executable was built without any character arrays being
33               allocated on the stack, this check will lead to false alarms
34               (since there is no use of __stack_chk_fail), even though it was
35               compiled with the correct options.
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37       Fortify Source functions
38               This indicates that the executable was compiled with
39               -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 and -O1 or higher. This causes certain
40               unsafe glibc functions with their safer counterparts (e.g.
41               strncpy instead of strcpy), or replaces calls that are
42               verifiable at runtime with the runtime-check version (e.g.
43               __memcpy_chk insteade of memcpy).
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45               When an executable was built such that the fortified versions
46               of the glibc functions are not useful (e.g. use is verified as
47               safe at compile time, or use cannot be verified at runtime),
48               this check will lead to false alarms.  In an effort to mitigate
49               this, the check will pass if any fortified function is found,
50               and will fail if only unfortified functions are found.
51               Uncheckable conditions also pass (e.g. no functions that could
52               be fortified are found, or not linked against glibc).
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54       Read-only relocations
55               This indicates that the executable was build with -Wl,-z,relro
56               to have ELF markings (RELRO) that ask the runtime linker to
57               mark any regions of the relocation table as "read-only" if they
58               were resolved before execution begins. This reduces the
59               possible areas of memory in a program that can be used by an
60               attacker that performs a successful memory corruption exploit.
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62       Immediate binding
63               This indicates that the executable was built with -Wl,-z,now to
64               have ELF markings (BIND_NOW) that ask the runtime linker to
65               resolve all relocations before starting program execution. When
66               combined with RELRO above, this further reduces the regions of
67               memory available to memory corruption attacks.
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OPTIONS

70       --nopie, -p
71               Do not require that the checked binaries be built as PIE.
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73       --nostackprotector, -s
74               Do not require that the checked binaries be built with the
75               stack protector.
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77       --nofortify, -f
78               Do not require that the checked binaries be built with Fortify
79               Source.
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81       --norelro, -r
82               Do not require that the checked binaries be built with RELRO.
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84       --nobindnow, -b
85               Do not require that the checked binaries be built with
86               BIND_NOW.
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88       --nocfprotection, -b
89               Do not require that the checked binaries be built with control
90               flow protection.
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92       --quiet, -q
93               Only report failures.
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95       --verbose, -v
96               Report verbosely on failures.
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98       --report-functions, -R
99               After the report, display all external functions needed by the
100               ELF.
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102       --find-libc-functions, -F
103               Instead of the regular report, locate the libc for the first
104               ELF on the command line and report all the known "fortified"
105               functions exported by libc.
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107       --color, -c
108               Enable colorized status output.
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110       --lintian, -l
111               Switch reporting to lintian-check-parsable output.
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113       --debug Report some debugging during processing.
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115       --help, -h, -?
116               Print a brief help message and exit.
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118       --man, -H
119               Print the manual page and exit.
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RETURN VALUE

122       When all checked binaries have all checkable hardening features
123       detected, this program will finish with an exit code of 0. If any check
124       fails, the exit code with be 1. Individual checks can be disabled via
125       command line options.
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AUTHOR

128       Kees Cook <kees@debian.org>
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COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

131       Copyright 2009-2013 Kees Cook <kees@debian.org>.
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133       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
134       under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
135       Free Software Foundation; version 2 or later.
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