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microsoft / restler-fuzzer

RESTler is the first stateful REST API fuzzing tool for automatically testing cloud services through their REST APIs and finding security and reliability bugs in these services.
MIT License
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What is the difference between --search_strategy and fuzzing_mode? #785

Closed wilbaker closed 1 year ago

wilbaker commented 1 year ago

Description

Hi,

Does the command line argument --search_strategy:

    fuzz options:
        <The same options as 'test'>
        --time_budget <maximum duration in hours>
        --search_strategy [bfs-fast(default),bfs,bfs-cheap,random-walk]

Control the behavior of RESTler in the same way as the settings file option of fuzzing_mode?

https://github.com/microsoft/restler-fuzzer/blob/3c54a11f72808d9fd2fa0bd0710e0cb453ff9e71/docs/user-guide/SettingsFile.md?plain=1#L139

Based on the values these settings support I would expect that these settings are the same. However, support for the --search_strategy option was added after fuzzing_mode (--search_strategy was added here: https://github.com/microsoft/restler-fuzzer/pull/288 ) and that makes me think that there is (or was) a difference in what these settings control.

Thanks!

marina-p commented 1 year ago

Hello @wilbaker,

search_strategy is a shortcut to set the fuzzing mode through the command line. It passes through the string specified by the user to the fuzzing_mode in the engine. The behavior is the same as if you set fuzzing_mode in the engine settings.

Thanks,

Marina

wilbaker commented 1 year ago

Ok thanks! I will close this issue.