Automatically Mining Program Build Information via Signature Matching

TL;DR

This paper presents a tool that automatically extracts build information from program binaries using signature matching, aiding auditing and benchmarking of HPC systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel signature-based method for identifying compilers and libraries in binaries, improving automation in build information extraction.

Findings

Successfully identifies multiple compilers and libraries

Accurately determines versions of build components

Demonstrates effectiveness in HPC system auditing

Abstract

Program build information, such as compilers and libraries used, is vitally important in an auditing and benchmarking framework for HPC systems. We have developed a tool to automatically extract this information using signature-based detection, a common strategy employed by anti-virus software to search for known patterns of data within the program binaries. We formulate the patterns from various "features" embedded in the program binaries, and the experiment shows that our tool can successfully identify many different compilers, libraries, and their versions.