# Setup: Linux host, QEMU vm, arm64 kernel
This document will detail the steps involved in setting up a Syzkaller instance fuzzing any ARM64 linux kernel of your choice.
## Create a disk image
We will use buildroot to create the disk image.
You can obtain buildroot from [here](https://buildroot.uclibc.org/download.html).
Extract the tarball and perform a `make menuconfig` inside it.
Choose the following options.
Target options
Target Architecture - Aarch64 (little endian)
Toolchain type
External toolchain - Linaro AArch64
System Configuration
[*] Enable root login with password
( ) Root password ⇐= set your password using this option
[*] Run a getty (login prompt) after boot --->
TTY port - ttyAMA0
Target packages
[*] Show packages that are also provided by busybox
Networking applications
[*] dhcpcd
[*] iproute2
[*] openssh
Filesystem images
[*] ext2/3/4 root filesystem
ext2/3/4 variant - ext3
exact size in blocks - 6000000
[*] tar the root filesystem
Run `make`. After the build, confirm that `output/images/rootfs.ext3` exists.
## Get the ARM64 toolchain from Linaro
You will require an ARM64 kernel with gcc plugin support.
If not, obtain the ARM64 toolchain from Linaro.
Get `gcc-linaro-6.1.1-2016.08-x86_64_aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz` from [here](https://releases.linaro.org/components/toolchain/binaries/latest/aarch64-linux-gnu/).
Extract and add its `bin/` to your `PATH`.
If you have another ARM64 toolchain on your machine, ensure that this newly downloaded toolchain takes precedence.
## Compile the kernel
Once you have obtained the source code for the linux kernel you wish to fuzz, do the following.
$ ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- make defconfig
$ vim .config
Change the following options :
```
CONFIG_KCOV=y
CONFIG_KASAN=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=y
CONFIG_CMDLINE=”console=ttyAMA0”
CONFIG_KCOV_INSTRUMENT_ALL=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_FS=y
CONFIG_NET_9P=y
CONFIG_NET_9P_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_CROSS_COMPILE="aarch64-linux-gnu-"
```
```
$ ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- make -j40
```
If the build was successful, you should have a `arch/arm64/boot/Image` file.
## Obtain qemu for ARM64
Obtain the QEMU source from git or from the latest source release.
$ ./configure
$ make -j40
If the build was successful, you should have a `aarch64-softmmu/qemu-system-aarch64` binary.
## Boot up manually
You should be able to start up the kernel as follows.
$ /path/to/aarch64-softmmu/qemu-system-aarch64 \
-machine virt \
-cpu cortex-a57 \
-nographic -smp 1 \
-hda /path/to/rootfs.ext3 \
-kernel /path/to/arch/arm64/boot/Image \
-append "console=ttyAMA0 root=/dev/vda oops=panic panic_on_warn=1 panic=-1 ftrace_dump_on_oops=orig_cpu debug earlyprintk=serial slub_debug=UZ" \
-m 2048 \
-net user,hostfwd=tcp::10023-:22 -net nic
At this point, you should be able to see a login prompt.
## Set up the QEMU disk
Now that we have a shell, let us add a few lines to existing init scripts so that they are executed each time Syzkaller brings up the VM.
At the top of /etc/init.d/S50sshd add the following lines:
ifconfig eth0 up
dhcpcd
mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug
chmod 777 /sys/kernel/debug/kcov
Comment out the line
/usr/bin/ssh-keygen -A
Next we set up ssh. Create an ssh keypair locally and copy the public key to `/authorized_keys` in `/`. Ensure that you do not set a passphrase when creating this key.
Open `/etc/ssh/sshd_config` and modify the following lines as shown below.
PermitRootLogin yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile /authorized_keys
PasswordAuthentication yes
Reboot the machine, and ensure that you can ssh from host to guest as.
$ ssh -i /path/to/id_rsa root@localhost -p 10023
## Build syzkaller
make TARGETARCH=arm64 [CC=/gcc-linaro-6.3.1-2017.05-x86_64_aarch64-linux-gnu/bin/aarch64-linux-gnu-g++]
## Modify your config file and start off syzkaller
A sample config file that exercises the required options are shown below. Modify according to your needs.
```
{
"name": "QEMU-aarch64",
"target": "linux/arm64",
"http": ":56700",
"workdir": "/path/to/a/dir/to/store/syzkaller/corpus”,
"kernel_obj": “/path/to/linux/build/dir",
"syzkaller": "/path/to/syzkaller/arm64/",
"image": "/path/to/rootfs.ext3",
"sshkey": "/path/to/ida_rsa",
"procs": 8,
"type": "qemu",
"vm": {
"count": 1,
"qemu": "/path/to/qemu-system-aarch64",
"cmdline": "console=ttyAMA0 root=/dev/vda",
"kernel": “/path/to/Image",
"cpu": 2,
"mem": 2048
}
}
```
At this point, you should be able to visit `localhost:56700` and view the results of the fuzzing.
If you get issues after `syz-manager` starts, consider running it with the `-debug` flag.
Also see [this page](/docs/troubleshooting.md) for troubleshooting tips.