If you want to run afl-fuzz over the network, then this is what you need. :) Note that the impact on fuzzing speed will be huge, expect a loss of 90%.

When to use this

when you have to fuzz a target that has to run on a system that cannot contain the fuzzing output (e.g., /tmp too small and file system is read-only)
when the target instantly reboots on crashes
... any other reason you would need this

how to get it running

Compiling

Just type make and let the autodetection do everything for you.

Note that you will get a 40-50% performance increase if you have libdeflate-dev installed. The GNUmakefile will autodetect it if present.

If your target has large test cases (10+kb) that are ascii only or large chunks of zero blocks then set CFLAGS=-DCOMPRESS_TESTCASES=1 to compress them. For most targets this hurts performance though so it is disabled by default.

on the target

Run afl-network-server with your target with the -m and -t values you need. Important is the -i parameter which is the TCP port to listen on. e.g.:

afl-network-server -i 1111 -m 25M -t 1000 -- /bin/target -f @@

on the (afl-fuzz) main node

Just run afl-fuzz with your normal options, however, the target should be afl-network-client with the IP and PORT of the afl-network-server and increase the -t value:

afl-fuzz -i in -o out -t 2000+ -- afl-network-client TARGET-IP 1111

Note the '+' on the -t parameter value. The afl-network-server will take care of proper timeouts hence afl-fuzz should not. The '+' increases the timeout and the value itself should be 500-1000 higher than the one on afl-network-server.

networking

The TARGET can be an IPv4 or IPv6 address, or a host name that resolves to either. Note that also the outgoing interface can be specified with a '%' for afl-network-client, e.g., fe80::1234%eth0.

Also make sure your default TCP window size is larger than your MAP_SIZE (130kb is a good value). On Linux that is the middle value of /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem

how to compile and install

make && sudo make install