Memory Tagging and how it improves C/C++ memory safety · HackerPapers discussions

Memory Tagging and how it improves C/C++ memory safety — mentioned by wyldfire

Fri, 17 May 2019 14:21:51 GMT

> Sanitizers are a game changer, they bring C++ closer to languages like Java and Rust. This is a stretch, IMO. I suppose it is ever-so-slightly-closer. > They do not bring the safety to production, since you probably do not want to use sanitizers in production or release You're right, they're not intended for use in production -- until now! ARM dedicated some virtual address bits to tagging memory [1][2][3] for ARMv8 so that we can have sanitizers in hardware. Imagine: chrome on your smartphone being protected! [1] https://developer.arm.com/docs/ddi0487/latest/arm-architectu... [2]…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Memory Tagging and how it improves C/C++ memory safety — mentioned by wyldfire

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 14:16:39 GMT

IIRC the ARM tagging would protect ~8 (maybe 16?) byte regions. More info on this is at [1] [2] -- note that some of this discusses a software-only approach (with likely higher performance impact). I think the majority of performance cost for HW Asan will come from the additional bits stored to memory, but it was "modest" (< 5%?). A couple of additional CPU instructions during memory allocate and free, these are probably of negligible impact. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.09517 [2] https://clang.llvm.org/docs/HardwareAssistedAddressSanitizer...

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Memory Tagging and how it improves C/C++ memory safety — HN submission

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 13:01:20 GMT

Memory Tagging and how it improves C/C++ memory safety

119 points; 36 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.