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Running Pysa

This page walks you through the basics of running Pysa. If you want exercises to walk you through using Pysa's more advanced features, check out this tutorial.

Setup​

The setup requires the following 4 types of files.

  1. Source Code (*.py): This is your application's code.
  2. Taint Config (taint.config): This file declares sources, sinks, features, and rules.
  3. Taint Models (.pysa): These files link together the information in your source code and taint.config. They tell Pysa where in our code there exist sources and sinks.
  4. Pysa Configuration (.pyre_configuration): Parts of this file are critical to using Pysa. source_directories tells Pysa the directory containing the source code you want to analyze. taint_models_path tells Pysa where to find the config and model files.

Example​

Let's look at a simple taint analysis example. To follow along, create a directory static_analysis_example and navigate to it. Paste the code snippets into the appropriately named files.

1. Source Code​

# static_analysis_example/source.py

import os

def get_image(url):
    command = "wget -q https:{}".format(url)
    return os.system(command)

def convert():
    image_link = input("image link: ")
    image = get_image(image_link)

Notice the following:

  • The input function is a taint source since it gets input directly from the user.
  • The os.system function is a taint sink, since we do not want user-controlled values to flow into it.
  • The return value of input is used as the URL for a wget call, which is executed by os.system. The wget can therefore be doing anything, out of the programmer's control.
  • This data flow should be identified as a potential security issue.

2. Taint Config​

# static_analysis_example/stubs/taint/core_privacy_security/taint.config

{
  "sources": [
    {
      "name": "UserControlled",
      "comment": "use to annotate user input"
    }
  ],

  "sinks": [
    {
      "name": "RemoteCodeExecution",
      "comment": "use to annotate execution of code"
    }
  ],

  "features": [],

  "rules": [
    {
      "name": "Possible shell injection",
      "code": 5001,
      "sources": [ "UserControlled" ],
      "sinks": [ "RemoteCodeExecution" ],
      "message_format": "Data from [{$sources}] source(s) may reach [{$sinks}] sink(s)"
    }
  ]
}

This declares the valid sources and sinks that Pysa should recognize. We also tell Pysa that data flowing from a UserControlled source to a RemoteCodeExecution sink is a possible shell injection.

3. Taint Models​

# static_analysis_example/stubs/taint/core_privacy_security/general.pysa

# model for raw_input
def input(__prompt) -> TaintSource[UserControlled]: ...

# model for os.system
def os.system(command: TaintSink[RemoteCodeExecution]): ...

This file links together the information in source.py and taint.config. We use it to tell Pysa where in our code there exist sources and sinks.

4. Pysa Configuration​

# static_analysis_example/.pyre_configuration

{
  "source_directories": ["."],
  "taint_models_path": "stubs/taint"
}

Pysa needs to know what directory to analyze, as well as where to find the config and model files.

Analysis​

Now let's run the static analysis:

[~/static_analysis_example] $ pyre analyze
 Ζ› Fixpoint iterations: 2
[
  {
    "line": 9,
    "column": 22,
    "path": "source.py",
    "code": 5001,
    "name": "Possible shell injection",
    "description":
      "Possible shell injection [5001]: Data from [UserControlled] source(s) may reach [RemoteCodeExecution] sink(s)",
    "long_description":
      "Possible shell injection [5001]: Data from [UserControlled] source(s) may reach [RemoteCodeExecution] sink(s)",
    "concise_description":
      "Possible shell injection [5001]: Data from [UserControlled] source(s) may reach [RemoteCodeExecution] sink(s)",
    "define": "source.convert"
  }
]

Looking at the output, we see that pyre surfaces the tainted data flow that we expected.

Let's run it again and save the results:

[~/static_analysis_example] $ pyre analyze --save-results-to ./

The --save-results-to option will save more detailed results to ./taint-output.json.

Understanding the results​

See Static Analysis Post Processor.