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EVM-Puzzles: Learn Ethereum By Solving Interactive Puzzles
by 0xKitsuneMarch 28th, 2022
Too Long; Didn't Read
An easy to understand walkthrough of EVM-Puzzles. This walkthrough is packed with tons of low-level information to help you take the dive down the EVM rabbit hole.Company Mentioned
Coins Mentioned
EVM-Puzzles is a collection of challenges that will help you to better understand the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Each puzzle starts out by giving you a series of opcodes and prompts you to input the correct transaction value or calldata that will allow the sequence to run without reverting. This walkthrough aims to be a low impact guide for each puzzle, making it easy for anyone with any experience level to fully understand the why and the how behind each solution. This walkthrough will assume that you are familiar with stack machines. If not, take a look at how stack machines work before starting. It’s helpful to know that each element on the stack in the EVM is 32 byes (ie. one word). In this repo, there are 10 puzzles. For someone with no experience with the EVM, this should take about 1-2 hours. For someone with basic EVM experience, this should take about 1 hour. If you are very comfortable with the EVM but you still want to go through the walkthrough, this should take somewhere around 30 minutes. With that note, we are ready to get started!
First, head over to the EVM-Puzzles repo, clone the project and set up your local environment. Make sure you have hardhat installed. If you don’t, you can simply enter npm install --save-dev hardhat when you are in the root project folder.
Next, if you are newer to the EVM, take a brief look at the EVM opcodes (don’t feel the need to understand everything, just get the general idea).
With all of that out of the way, let’s check out the first puzzle. To start the first puzzle, cd into the root directory of the project and enter npx hardhat play into the terminal.
Puzzle #1
Let’s take a look at the first puzzle. You are given a series of opcodes that represent a contract. The puzzle prompts you to enter a value to send, or in other words if you sent a transaction to this contract, what would the transaction value need to be for this contract to run without hitting the REVERT instruction? Go ahead and give it a shot and then feel free to come back here if you get stuck or want an in depth look at the solution after solving the puzzle.
############
# Puzzle 1 #
############
00 34 CALLVALUE
01 56 JUMP
02 FD REVERT
03 FD REVERT
04 FD REVERT
05 FD REVERT
06 FD REVERT
07 FD REVERT
08 5B JUMPDEST
09 00 STOP
? Enter the value to send: (0)
Ok, now for the explainer. First, we need to know what the CALLVALUE instruction does. This opcode gets the value of the current call (ie. the transaction value) in wei and pushes that value to the top of the stack. So if we entered a value of 10, before the CALLVALUE instruction is
evaluated, the stack would look like this.
[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
After the CALLVALUE opcode is evaluated, the stack would look like this.
[10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next, we need to know what the JUMP instruction does. This opcode consumes the top value on the stack and jumps to the nth instruction in the sequence where n is the value at the top of the stack. A quick example will make this more clear. Lets say we have the following sequence.
00 34 CALLVALUE
01 56 JUMP
02 FD REVERT
03 FD REVERT
04 80 JUMPDEST
05 80 DUP1
06 00 STOP
? Enter the value to send: (0)
If we enter 4 in as the value to send, the CALLVALUE opcode will push 4 onto the stack. After CALLVALUE, now our stack looks like this.
[4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Then the JUMP opcode consumes the top value on the stack and jumps to the instruction at that position. Since the value on the top of the stack is 4, the program counter jumps to the fourth instruction and continues. A JUMP opcode must alter the program counter to end up at a JUMPDEST instruction. For the above example, we can think of the program looking like this after the JUMP instruction is evaluated.
05 80 DUP1
06 00 STOP
Now that all of that is clear, let’s get back to the puzzle. We need to enter a value so that the program runs without hitting a REVERT instruction.
00 34 CALLVALUE
01 56 JUMP
02 FD REVERT
03 FD REVERT
04 FD REVERT
05 FD REVERT
06 FD REVERT
07 FD REVERT
08 5B JUMPDEST
09 00 STOP
To do this, we can enter a call value of 8, which causes the CALLVALUE instruction to push 8 onto the stack where the JUMP instruction then consumes that value and jumps to the 8th instruction, skipping all of the REVERT instructions. Nice work, one puzzle down!
Puzzle #2
Now that you have your feet wet, let’s take a look at the second puzzle. Give it a shot on your own and just like before, feel free to come back to check out the solution as well as the explanation. Here is the puzzle.
############
# Puzzle 2 #
############
00 34 CALLVALUE
01 38 CODESIZE
02 03 SUB
03 56 JUMP
04 FD REVERT
05 FD REVERT
06 5B JUMPDEST
07 00 STOP
08 FD REVERT
09 FD REVERT
? Enter the value to send: (0)
Just like before, we need to enter a transaction value to send that will cause the program to run without reverting. If we take a look at the sequence of instructions, we can see that we need the JUMP opcode to alter the program counter to the 6th instruction. Just like before, the first instruction is CALLVALUE, so we know that the value we enter will end up on the top of the stack after the first instruction.
Let’s take a look at the CODESIZE instruction. This opcode gets the size of the code running in the current environment. In this example, we can manually check the size of the code by looking at how many opcodes there are in the sequence. Each opcode is 1 byte, and in this puzzle we have 10 opcodes meaning that the size of the code is 10 bytes. As an important side note, the EVM uses hex numbers to represent byte code. If you are unfamiliar, check out how hex numbers work. With this in mind, we can know that 0a gets pushed to the stack, representing 10 bytes.
The next opcode we come across is the SUB instruction, which takes the first stack element minus the second stack element, pushing the result on the top of the stack. Both inputs at the top of the stack before the SUB instruction are consumed. For example if we had a stack that looked like this.
[3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Executing the SUB instruction would produce the following stack result.
[1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
With this information lets get back to the puzzle. We now know that the program first evaluates the CALLVALUE instruction, pushing the value we entered onto the stack. Then the program evaluates the CODESIZE instruction, which pushes 0a (representing 10 bytes) onto the stack. We also know that we need JUMP to alter the program counter to the 6th instruction. This is what the stack looks like after the CODESIZE instruction.
[a your_input 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
If you haven’t finished the puzzle already, go ahead and try to use the above information to enter the correct value. Otherwise, feel free to read on for the last step of the solution.
Since we know the SUB instruction is next, we need to enter a value such that 0a - your_input equals 6, which makes our answer 4.
Puzzle #3
Get ready to switch gears a little. Instead of entering a transaction value to solve the puzzle, we are going to have to enter calldata. Calldata is a read-only byte-addressable space where the transaction data during a message or call is held. In plain english, this is byte code payload that is attached to a message (click here to learn more about the anatomy of a transaction in Ethereum). Let’s take a look at the puzzle.
############
# Puzzle 3 #
############
00 36 CALLDATASIZE
01 56 JUMP
02 FD REVERT
03 FD REVERT
04 5B JUMPDEST
05 00 STOP
? Enter the calldata:
For this puzzle, its helpful to know that 1 byte is 8 bits and that numbers 0-255 can represent one byte in the EVM. This puzzle also introduces us to a new opcode calledCALLDATASIZE. This instruction gets the size of the calldata in bytes and pushes it onto the stack.
With that knowledge, this makes the puzzle pretty straightforward. We will need to pass in calldata such that the CALLDATASIZE instruction pushes 4 on the stack. From there, the JUMP instruction will jump to the fourth instruction in the sequence, reaching the JUMPDEST. To keep it simple, 0xff can be used to represent 1 byte since ff in hexadecimal evaluates to 255 in decimal format. All we need to do is copy ff four times, making the byte code we should enter: 0xffffffff. Another puzzle down!
Puzzle #4
Enter bitwise. In this puzzle we see our first XOR instruction. As usual, feel free to give it a shot and figure it out on your own. When you’re ready, head back here for the solution and explanation.
############
# Puzzle 4 #
############
00 34 CALLVALUE
01 38 CODESIZE
02 18 XOR
03 56 JUMP
04 FD REVERT
05 FD REVERT
06 FD REVERT
07 FD REVERT
08 FD REVERT
09 FD REVERT
0A 5B JUMPDEST
0B 00 STOP
? Enter the value to send: (0)
We know that CALLVALUE will push the value we enter onto the top of the stack. Also we can know how big the CODESIZE is by taking a look at how many instructions there are. In this program, we have 12 instructions, which makes 12 bytes or 0c in hexadecimal, which gets pushed to the stack. So now our stack looks like this.
[c your_input 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Let’s take a look at the XOR instruction. This instruction evaluates two numbers in their binary representation and returns a 1 in each bit position where the bits of either, but not both operands are 1s. Let’s take a look at quick example. Say that we have two numbers on the top of the stack.
[5 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
When executing the XOR instruction, we can imagine the two numbers in binary representation like this.
00000000000000000000000000000101
00000000000000000000000000000011
Then, bit by bit, the two numbers are evaluated against each other. If one bit is a 0 and the other bit is a 1, the resulting bit will be a 1, if both bits are 0s or both bits are 1s, the resulting number is a 0. So the result of 5 XOR 3 is this.
00000000000000000000000000000110
Back to the puzzle. We know that we have 0c at the top of the stack and your_input in the second stack position. After the XOR, the JUMP opcode needs to send us to the 10th instruction. Now with all this information known, we just need to enter a callvalue so that 0c XOR callvalue results in hexadecimal 10. Go ahead and give it a shot on your own.
Ok, now for the final steps. We know that we need the result of XOR to be 10, which in binary is represented as 1010. We also have 0c on the stack, which in binary is represented as 1100. So now we need to find a number such that c XOR your_input results in 1010, making the number we need to enter 0110. This evaluates to the hex number 06. 6 is our answer!
Puzzle #5
Welcome to the next puzzle, where we are met with a few new opcodes. Feel free to give it a shot. In the meantime, let’s take a look at the sequence of instructions for this puzzle.
############
# Puzzle 5 #
############
00 34 CALLVALUE
01 80 DUP1
02 02 MUL
03 610100 PUSH2 0100
06 14 EQ
07 600C PUSH1 0C
09 57 JUMPI
0A FD REVERT
0B FD REVERT
0C 5B JUMPDEST
0D 00 STOP
0E FD REVERT
0F FD REVERT
? Enter the value to send: (0)
DUP1 meet reader, reader meet DUP1. The DUP1 instruction is pretty straight forward. It duplicates the value at the 1st position on the stack and pushes the duplicate to the top of the stack. Similarly, DUP2 would duplicate the value at the second position on the stack and push the duplicate value to the top. There are DUP instructions for all positions in the stack (DUP1-DUP16).
Taking a look at the first two instructions of the puzzle, first CALLVALUE is executed, pushing the value we enter to the top of the stack. Then DUP1 is executed, duplicating the value we entered and pushing it to the top of the stack. So now after the first two instructions, our stack looks like this.
[your_input your_input 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Then we are met with another new instruction. The MUL instruction takes the first two values on the stack, multiplies them together and pushes the result onto the top of the stack. So in this instance, your_input is multiplied by your_input and the resulting stack looks like this.
[mul_result 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next we encounter the PUSH2 instruction. This instruction pushes a 2 byte value onto the top of the stack. When you see any PUSH instruction, it will always be accompanied by the value that it will push. For example, in our puzzle we have PUSH2 0100 meaning that it will push the 2 byte hex number 0100 onto the top of the stack. There are push instructions from PUSH1 to PUSH32.
Coming back to our puzzle, since the next instruction is PUSH2 0100, our resulting stack will now look like this.
[0100 mul_result 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Now we encounter the EQ instruction. This instruction takes the first two values on the stack, runs an equality comparison and pushes the result on the top of the stack. If the first two values are equal, 1 is pushed to the top, otherwise 0 is pushed to the stack instead. Both values at positions 1 and 2 on the stack are consumed from the EQ instruction.
For simplicity sake, let’s say that the mul_result is 0100 so when the EQ instruction is evaluated, 1 is pushed to the stack, making our stack now look like this.
[1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
The next instruction that is evaluated is PUSH1 0C which pushes 0c to the top of the stack. Following this instruction, we see yet another new instruction. The JUMPI instruction will conditionally alter the program counter. This instruction looks at the second stack element to know if it should jump or not, depending on if the second stack element is a 1 or a 0. Then the first stack element is used to know what position to jump to. The JUMPI instruction consumes both values at the top of the stack during this process. So taking a look at our puzzle, after the PUSH1 0c instruction, our stack looks like this.
[0c 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
First, the JUMPI instruction checks the second stack element. In this case it is 1 indicating that the program should jump. Then JUMPI checks the first stack element to know where it should jump to. The top stack value is 0c meaning that it will jump to the 12th instruction, which is our JUMPDEST.
And that will complete our puzzle! So with all this information we now know that we need to enter a callvalue so that when it gets duplicated once (making the first two elements on the stack the callvalue), and after the top stack values are multiplied, our result is the hex number 0100. Feel free to give it a shot from here and see if you can figure it out.
Ok now for the final steps. We can convert 0100 into a decimal number and get 256. Then we can take the square root of 256 since the DUP1 MUL is essentially multiplying the number by itself. The resulting number is 16, which is the answer to this puzzle!
Puzzle #6
5 puzzles down, 5 to go! As usual, give the puzzle a try, then feel free to come back here for the solution and explanation.
############
# Puzzle 6 #
############
00 6000 PUSH1 00
02 35 CALLDATALOAD
03 56 JUMP
04 FD REVERT
05 FD REVERT
06 FD REVERT
07 FD REVERT
08 FD REVERT
09 FD REVERT
0A 5B JUMPDEST
0B 00 STOP
? Enter the calldata:
Say hello to the CALLDATALOAD instruction. This instruction gets the input data from the calldata attached to a transaction. There are a few important things to note about this opcode. CALLDATALOAD expects an integer at the top of the stack to know what byte to start loading the calldata from. For example, if you send a transaction with a 32 byte sequence as calldata and you push 08 to the top of the stack, when you execute CALLDATALOAD, all the calldata from byte 8 to byte 32 will be pushed onto the top of the stack. As an additional note, if the calldata is 64 bytes and you need to access the second 32 byes of the sequence, you can push 20 onto the stack and then use CALLDATALOAD to get the second 32 byes of the sequence.
Now back to the puzzle. We can see that there is PUSH1 00 followed by CALLDATALOAD meaning that the calldata will be loaded in starting from byte 0 and bytes 0-32 of the calldata will be pushed onto the top of the stack. We can see that the JUMP instruction needs to alter the program counter to 0a (ie. the 10th instruction). Feel free to stop here and try to solve the rest of the puzzle.
Ok let’s go over the final steps. We know that calldata is in hexadecimal, so it might seem intuitive to enter 0x0a as the calldata to complete the puzzle, but you might have noticed that this doesn’t work. This is because when calldata is sent, since the byte sequence was not 32 bytes, it is padded to the right, so what we thought was 0a, actually turns into a00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. So what we need to do is pad our 0x0a with 31 bytes to the left making it 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000a. There you go, that is our answer!
Puzzle #7
You know the drill. Give the puzzle a shot and then come back to see the full solution / explanation.
############
# Puzzle 7 #
############
00 36 CALLDATASIZE
01 6000 PUSH1 00
03 80 DUP1
04 37 CALLDATACOPY
05 36 CALLDATASIZE
06 6000 PUSH1 00
08 6000 PUSH1 00
0A F0 CREATE
0B 3B EXTCODESIZE
0C 6001 PUSH1 01
0E 14 EQ
0F 6013 PUSH1 13
11 57 JUMPI
12 FD REVERT
13 5B JUMPDEST
14 00 STOP
? Enter the calldata:
First things first, we can see CALLDATASIZE and know that we will need to enter calldata with a specific size to solve this puzzle. Let's take note of this and come back later. After the size of the calldata is pushed to the stack, there is PUSH1 00, and DUP1 making our stack at this point look like this.
[0 0 calldata_size 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next we encounter the CALLDATACOPY instruction. This instruction copies the input data from the transaction and saves it into memory. This opcode expects three elements at the top of the stack which are [destOffset offset size], in this order. destOffset is the byte offset in the memory where the result will be copied. We haven’t talked much about memory at this point and if you want to learn more you can read about it here. The abbreviated version is that there is a temporary data structure that allocates space to hold values during the execution of a function and the destOffset tells the program which slot in memory to store the data that is copied from calldata. The offset dictates where to start copying the calldata from (just like CALLDATALOAD does in the last example) and the size tells the program how much of the byte sequence to store in memory. During this process, all three of the top elements on the stack are consumed.
With all of this known, let’s revisit our current stack.
[0 0 calldata_size 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
When the CALLDATALOAD instruction executes, it will store calldata in memory slot 0, starting at byte 0, and storing the size of the entire calldata. Our resulting stack after this instruction looks like this.
[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Immediately after, CALLDATASIZE PUSH1 00 PUSH1 00 are all executed, making the stack look just like we had it before CALLDATALOAD.
[0 0 calldata_size 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next we are introduced to another new opcode, the CREATE instruction. This instruction creates a new account (ie. Contract or EOA). Let's get a little under the hood with the CREATE opcode, as this will come in handy later during the walkthrough (and is generally good to know).
When deploying a new contract with the CREATE opcode, the stack must have [value offset size] at the top of the stack, in this order. The value is the amount of wei to send the new contract that is being created, the offset is the location in memory where the bytecode starts that will run on deployment and size is the size of the bytecode that will run on deployment. When you deploy a contract with the CREATE opcode, the bytecode from the offset is not the new contract's bytecode, but rather the bytecode from the offset is executed during deployment and the return value becomes the newly created contract's bytecode.
Let's run through a quick example that will make this easy to understand. If you use the CREATE opcode with deployment bytecode of 0x6160016000526002601Ef3, since the return value of this bytecode sequence is 6001, the newly created contract's bytecode will be 6001 ie. PUSH1 01. So when you call this contract, it will simply execute PUSH1 01! Make sure to take note of this concept as it will come in handy later.
When the CREATE instruction executes, all three values are consumed and the address that the account was deployed to is pushed to the top of the stack. After this opcode executes, our stack looks like this.
[address_deployed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next, we come across the EXTCODESIZE instruction which expects an address on the top of the stack and returns the size of the code at that address. The address at the top of the stack is consumed in this process. After EXTCODESIZE we see PUSH1 01 making our stack look like this.
[01 address_code_size 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Directly after, the EQ instruction is executed, checking if the top two values are equal, pushing the result on the stack. From there PUSH1 13 and JUMPI are used to get us to the JUMPDEST! So coming all the way back to the beginning of the puzzle, we will need to enter calldata such that the code size is equal to 01 byte! This is a little tricky so to understand this, we can look at the playground example from the EXTCODESIZE instruction. Here is what the example looks like.
// Creates a constructor that creates a contract with 32 FF as code
PUSH32 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
PUSH1 0
MSTORE
//Opcodes to return 32 ff
PUSH32 0xFF60005260206000F30000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
PUSH1 32
MSTORE
// Create the contract with the constructor code above
PUSH1 41
PUSH1 0
PUSH1 0
CREATE // Puts the new contract address on the stack
// The address is on the stack, we can query the size
EXTCODESIZE
Lets take a closer look at the opcodes in the constructor.
// Push a 32 byte value onto the stack
PUSH32 FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
PUSH1 00
// Store the 32 byte value at memory slot 0
MSTORE
// Return a 32 byte value starting at memory slot 0
PUSH1 20
PUSH1 00
RETURN
STOP
STOP
...
When this code is run, it returns a value of ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff which is 32 bytes. If we change the return size to 16 bytes instead of 32 bytes, the EXTCODESIZE will be 10 which is 16 bytes in hexadecimal. This indicates that EXTCODESIZE uses the size of the return value to dictate the code size.
Let’s finish the puzzle. Now we know that the EXTCODESIZE evaluates the size of the return value from the deployed bytecode. With this information, we can pass in calldata such that when it is deployed, it returns a 1 byte value! You can use any sequence of opcodes that returns 1 byte, but for this walkthrough, we will use 0x60016000526001601ff3. And with that, another puzzle solved!
Puzzle #8
Welcome to the eighth puzzle. Let’s take a look at what is in store.
############
# Puzzle 8 #
############
00 36 CALLDATASIZE
01 6000 PUSH1 00
03 80 DUP1
04 37 CALLDATACOPY
05 36 CALLDATASIZE
06 6000 PUSH1 00
08 6000 PUSH1 00
0A F0 CREATE
0B 6000 PUSH1 00
0D 80 DUP1
0E 80 DUP1
0F 80 DUP1
10 80 DUP1
11 94 SWAP5
12 5A GAS
13 F1 CALL
14 6000 PUSH1 00
16 14 EQ
17 601B PUSH1 1B
19 57 JUMPI
1A FD REVERT
1B 5B JUMPDEST
1C 00 STOP
? Enter the calldata:
This one might look more daunting but it is actually pretty simple. First we see a very similar CALLDATASIZE PUSH1 00 DUP1 CALLDATACOPY CALLDATASIZE PUSH1 00 PUSH1 00 CREATE which, just like the previous puzzle, creates a new contract from the calldata that you pass in and returns the deployment address. So right from the start, we know that we will have to enter calldata with bytecode for a contract to solve the puzzle. Lets take a quick mental note of what the stack looks like at this point. Since the CREATE instruction consumes the top three stack values and pushes the address that the account was deployed to, our stack now looks like this.
[address_deployed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
The next 5 instructions all relate to the CALL instruction. This instruction creates a new sub context and execute the code of the given account, then resumes the current one. In plain english, the CALL instruction is used to interact with another contract. This opcode expects the stack to have a few values at the top of the stack [gas address value argsOffset argsSize retOffset retSize], in this order. Lets walk through each of the arguments one by one. gas is the amount of gas that will be sent with the message call. address is the address that the message will be sent to. value is the amount of wei that will be sent with the message. argsOffset is the location in memory within the current context (ie. the msg.sender) that will be used as calldata for the message call. argsSize is the size of the calldata to send with the message call. retOffset is the location in memory within the current context where the return value from the call will be stored. Finally, retSize is the size of the return value that will be stored in memory.
Now let's take a look at the puzzle again. The next four opcodes are PUSH1 00 DUP1 DUP1 DUP1 DUP1, which makes the stack look like this.
[0 0 0 0 0 address_deployed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Then we see the SWAP5 instruction. This instruction swap the 1st and 6th stack items. There are SWAP instructions for all positions in the stack (SWAP1-SWAP16). In this case, SWAP5 exchanges 0 with address_deployed making our stack now in the correct order to match [gas address value argsOffset argsSize retOffset retSize]. Here is what our stack looks like now.
[address_deployed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Then we execute the CALL instruction, which returns 0 if the sub context reverted and 1 if it was a success. After the CALL instruction we can see a PUSH1 00 EQ meaning that we need CALL to push a 0 onto the stack. Go ahead and give the rest of the puzzle a shot, then feel free to come back to see the rest of the solution.
Ok, so now we know that the CALL instruction needs to return 0 which means we need to enter calldata that causes CALL to fail. To get CALL to fail, there are three ways. One way it can fail is if there is not enough gas. The second way it can fail is if there are not enough values on the stack. The third way it can fail is if the current execution context is from a STATICCALL and the value in wei (stack index 2) is not 0 (since Byzantium fork). It is also important to note that CALL will always succeed as true when you CALL an account with no code (or codesize of 0).
To finish this puzzle, let's refer back to how the CREATE opcode works. We know that the return value of the bytecode that is run on deployment becomes the bytecode for the newly created contract. With that information known, we can pass in calldata with a bytecode sequence such that the return value of the sequence causes a REVERT when run.
You can pass in any that will result in a REVERT but for the walkthrough we will use 0x60016000526001601ff3 as the deployment bytecode. Since the return value of this bytecode sequence is 01, the newly created contract's code will be 01 ie. the ADD instruction. So when you call this contract, it will execute the ADD instruction, and since there are no values on the stack in the subcontext of the contract, the CALL will fail (ie. REVERT)! There you go, 0x60016000526001601ff3 is our answer!
Puzzle #9
We are in the home stretch, let's take a look at puzzle #9. This puzzle adds one more layer of complexity, requiring you to enter both a callvalue and calldata to solve the puzzle.
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# Puzzle 9 #
############
00 36 CALLDATASIZE
01 6003 PUSH1 03
03 10 LT
04 6009 PUSH1 09
06 57 JUMPI
07 FD REVERT
08 FD REVERT
09 5B JUMPDEST
0A 34 CALLVALUE
0B 36 CALLDATASIZE
0C 02 MUL
0D 6008 PUSH1 08
0F 14 EQ
10 6014 PUSH1 14
12 57 JUMPI
13 FD REVERT
14 5B JUMPDEST
15 00 STOP
? Enter the value to send: (0)
We are already familiar with the first two opcodes so we can know that after the CALLDATASIZE PUSH1 03 instructions, our stack looks like this.
[03 calldata_size 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
The LT instruction runs a comparison on the first two stack values to see if the first stack element is less than the second stack element. If LT evaluates to true, 1 is pushed on the stack, otherwise 0 is pushed instead. The two values used in the comparison are consumed in this process. For the sake of the example, let's say that the CALLDATASIZE is 4 bytes, so LT will push 1 as a result.
Since LT evaluated to true, the code then jumps to the JUMPDEST at instruction 09. Following the jump, CALLVALUE and CALLDATASIZE are pushed onto the stack and MUL multiplies them together, consuming the top two stack values in the process. PUSH1 08 pushes 08 to the stack and then EQ checks if the result of MUL equals 08, consuming the values in the process. EQ needs to push a 1 to the stack to enable JUMPI to get us to the end of the puzzle.
With all this information, we now know that we need to enter calldata such that the CALLDATASIZE is greater than 3 bytes, and the product of CALLDATASIZE * CALLVALUE is 08.
With some quick math, we can use any combination of values that evaluate to 8 when multiplied together that satisfy the conditions above. For the walkthrough, we will enter 0x00000001 as the calldata and 2 as the callvalue. One more puzzle to go!
Puzzle #10
Here it is, the final puzzle. Let's jump in.
#############
# Puzzle 10 #
#############
00 38 CODESIZE
01 34 CALLVALUE
02 90 SWAP1
03 11 GT
04 6008 PUSH1 08
06 57 JUMPI
07 FD REVERT
08 5B JUMPDEST
09 36 CALLDATASIZE
0A 610003 PUSH2 0003
0D 90 SWAP1
0E 06 MOD
0F 15 ISZERO
10 34 CALLVALUE
11 600A PUSH1 0A
13 01 ADD
14 57 JUMPI
15 FD REVERT
16 FD REVERT
17 FD REVERT
18 FD REVERT
19 5B JUMPDEST
1A 00 STOP
? Enter the value to send: (0)
In this puzzle, you will need to enter a callvalue as well as calldata. Let's take a look at the first few instructions. First we see CODESIZE CALLVALUE SWAP1 which pushes the size of the code, followed by the callvalue you passed in and then swaps their positions. At this point our stack looks like this.
[1b callvalue 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next we se the GT instruction which operates exactly like LT, but evaluates greater than instead of less than. For this puzzle, we need GT to push 1 on the stack, so we know that our callvalue must be less than 1b (ie. 27 in decimal notation). This will allow the program to jump down to the first JUMPDEST at instruction 08.
Now we see CALLDATASIZE PUSH2 0003 SWAP1 which pushes the calldata size as well as 0003 onto the stack, and swaps their positions. Now our stack looks like this.
[calldata_size 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
Next we see the MOD instruction. This instruction runs a modulo of the first stack element and the second stack element, pushing the remainder onto the stack. Following the MOD instruction we see the ISZERO instruction, which pushes 1 onto the stack if the top value on the stack is 0. If any other number is on the top of the stack, 0 is pushed to the stack instead. In our case, we need ISZERO to push 1 to the stack (we will come back to this). We then see CALLVALUE PUSH1 0A ADD. The ADD instruction simply adds the first two values on the stack and pushes the result to the stack. Following this sequence, there is a JUMPI, meaning that CALLVALUE PUSH1 0A ADD needs to push the position of the JUMPDEST onto the stack. Feel free to give the rest of the puzzle a shot from here.
With all this information, we now know a few things. First, we need to enter calldata such that the size of the calldata is divisible by 3 bytes, enabling the CALLDATASIZE PUSH2 0003 SWAP1 MOD sequence to push 0 onto the stack. This allows ISZERO to push a 1 to the stack, where the program can then jump to the second JUMPDEST. Second, we need to enter a callvalue such that the value is less than 26 and callvalue + 0a equals 0x19. With these factors known, we can enter 0x000001 as calldata and 15 (in decimal) as the callvalue. Just like that, we have completed the final puzzle!
L O A D I N G
. . . comments & more!
. . . comments & more!
