DynamoRIO

DynamoRIO is a BSD licensed dynamic binary instrumentation framework for the development of dynamic program analysis tools. DynamoRIO targets user space applications under the Android, Linux, and Windows operating systems running on the AArch32, IA-32, and x86-64 instruction set architectures.

DynamoRIO was originally created as a dynamic binary optimization system but has since been used for security, debugging, and analysis tools. DynamoRIO originated in a collaboration between Hewlett-Packard's Dynamo optimization system and the Runtime Introspection and Optimization (RIO) research group at MIT; hence the combined name "DynamoRIO". It was first released publicly as a proprietary binary toolkit in June 2002 and was later open-sourced with a BSD license in January 2009.

DynamoRIO is a process virtual machine that redirects a program's execution from its original binary code to a copy of that code. Instrumentation that carries out the actions of the desired tool are then added to this copy. No changes are made to the original program, which does not need to be specially prepared in any way. DynamoRIO operates completely at run time and handles legacy code, dynamically loaded libraries, dynamically generated code, and self-modifying code.

DynamoRIO monitors all control flow to capture the entire execution of the target program. This monitoring adds overhead even when no tool is present. DynamoRIO's average overhead is 11 percent.

DynamoRIO's API abstracts away the details of the virtualization process and focuses on monitoring or modifying the dynamic code stream of the program. A tool can insert trampolines into the program that invoke tool actions at specific program points. A tool can also insert instrumentation at the assembly language level, which provides fine-grained control over tool actions and tool performance. DynamoRIO supports adaptive optimization and adaptive instrumentation by allowing a tool to remove or modify its instrumentation at any point throughout the execution of the target program.