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Where do arguments 5 and 6 go in this Microsoft x64 function call?

Reverse Engineering Asked by JoshuaS3 on September 30, 2021

I’m disassembling a working-as-expected compiled C program (MS/Windows x64, MinGW gcc 10.1.0). In the main function, I have the following call which passes 6 arguments to the function DotProduct:

...
// void** m3 [rbp-0x50] = DotProduct(ptr, ptr2, 3, 2, 2, 3);
  401b9f:   48 8b 55 b8             mov    rdx,QWORD PTR [rbp-0x48] // arg2 = m2
  401ba3:   48 8b 45 c0             mov    rax,QWORD PTR [rbp-0x40] // arg1 = m1
  401ba7:   c7 44 24 28 03 00 00    mov    DWORD PTR [rsp+0x28],0x3 // arg6 = 3   (+40) <- Δ main rsp
  401bae:   00
  401baf:   c7 44 24 20 02 00 00    mov    DWORD PTR [rsp+0x20],0x2 // arg5 = 2   (+32)
  401bb6:   00
  401bb7:   41 b9 02 00 00 00       mov    r9d,0x2                  // arg4 = 2
  401bbd:   41 b8 03 00 00 00       mov    r8d,0x3                  // arg3 = 3
  401bc3:   48 89 c1                mov    rcx,rax                  // arg1 = m1
  401bc6:   e8 34 fc ff ff          call   4017ff <DotProduct>      // DotProduct(m1, m2, 3, 2, 2, 3);
  401bcb:   48 89 45 b0             mov    QWORD PTR [rbp-0x50],rax // void** m3 [rbp-0x50] = returned
...

Note that arg5 and arg6 are placed into [rsp+0x20] and [rsp+0x28].

See what happens when DotProduct is called:

00000000004017ff <DotProduct>:
  4017ff:   55                      push   rbp
  401800:   53                      push   rbx
  401801:   48 83 ec 48             sub    rsp,0x48       // (-72)
  401805:   48 8d ac 24 80 00 00    lea    rbp,[rsp+0x80] // (-72+128) => (+56)

The rbp should be at -0x48+0x80 relative to main‘s rsp, which simplifies to +0x38 (+56, Δmain rsp). The stack pointer decreased 72 bytes, and the base pointer was placed 128 bytes above that (so 56 bytes above the previous stack pointer location). Next, DotProduct loads the first four arguments from their registers:

  40180d:   48 89 4d e0             mov    QWORD PTR [rbp-0x20],rcx
  401811:   48 89 55 e8             mov    QWORD PTR [rbp-0x18],rdx // (rbp-24) => (+56-24) => (+32) !
  401815:   44 89 45 f0             mov    DWORD PTR [rbp-0x10],r8d // (rbp-16) => (+56-16) => (+40) !
  401819:   44 89 4d f8             mov    DWORD PTR [rbp-0x8],r9d

Wait! How are rdx and r8d loaded into these memory locations? Aren’t they occupied by arguments 5 and 6? What happened?

Right after that, we have this:

  40181d:   8b 45 00                mov    eax,DWORD PTR [rbp+0x0]

What’s going on here? [rbp+0x0] hasn’t been initialized in this function, so what’s in this memory location? Where did arguments 5 and 6 go?

2 Answers

when you are here 4017ff: 55 push rbp

your 5th argument will be available at [rsp+28]
(8 bytes for return address and 20 bytes for HOMEPARAMS (space for saving the 4 args passed via register)

two pushes and one subtract will make your argument no 5 available at 0x28 + 0x8 +0x8 +0x48 = 0x80

so rbp+0 will hold the address of 5th argument after the LEA operation

Answered by blabb on September 30, 2021

I've spent many hours (too many for me to admit) trying to figure this out and I just realized what it is, right after hitting submit. push instructions implicitly decrease the stack pointer. The call to the function DotProduct calls push three times; once in the call instruction itself, where the return address is implicitly pushed, and twice in the function's prolog, where two quadword registers are explicitly pushed with the push instruction. This all automatically decreases rsp by 24 bytes, leaving arg5 and arg6 at [rbp] and [rbp+0x8]. The arguments aren't overwritten.

Answered by JoshuaS3 on September 30, 2021

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