Iris-Wasm: Robust and Modular Verification of WebAssembly Programs

WebAssembly makes it possible to run C/C++ applications on the web with near-native performance. A WebAssembly program is expressed as a collection of higher-order ML-like modules, which are composed together through a system of explicit imports and exports using a host language, enabling a form of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of ACM on programming languages Vol. 7; no. PLDI; pp. 1096 - 1120
Main Authors: Rao, Xiaojia, Georges, Aïna Linn, Legoupil, Maxime, Watt, Conrad, Pichon-Pharabod, Jean, Gardner, Philippa, Birkedal, Lars
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 06.06.2023
Subjects:
Formalisms
Higher order logic
Logic and verification
Programming logic
Separation logic
Theory of computation
higher-order logic
formal verification
separation logic
WebAssembly
ISSN:2475-1421, 2475-1421
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:WebAssembly makes it possible to run C/C++ applications on the web with near-native performance. A WebAssembly program is expressed as a collection of higher-order ML-like modules, which are composed together through a system of explicit imports and exports using a host language, enabling a form of higher- order modular programming. We present Iris-Wasm, a mechanized higher-order separation logic building on a specification of Wasm 1.0 mechanized in Coq and the Iris framework. Using Iris-Wasm, we are able to specify and verify individual modules separately, and then compose them modularly in a simple host language featuring the core operations of the WebAssembly JavaScript Interface. Building on Iris-Wasm, we develop a logical relation that enforces robust safety: unknown, adversarial code can only affect other modules through the functions that they explicitly export. Together, the program logic and the logical relation allow us to formally verify functional correctness of WebAssembly programs, even when they invoke and are invoked by unknown code, thereby demonstrating that WebAssembly enforces strong isolation between modules.
ISSN:2475-1421
2475-1421
DOI:10.1145/3591265