5l1v3r1 / binexport

Export disassemblies into Protocol Buffers

BinExport

Copyright 2011-2020 Google LLC.

Disclaimer: This is not an official Google product (experimental or otherwise), it is just code that happens to be owned by Google.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Usage
  • Verifying the installation version
  • Invocation
    • Via the UI
  • IDC Scripting
  • IDAPython
  • Plugin Options
• How to build
  • Preparing the build environment
  • Linux
    • Prerequisites
    • IDA SDK
    • Build BinExport
  • macOS
    • Prerequisites
    • CMake
    • IDA SDK
    • Build BinExport
  • Windows
    • CMake
    • Git
    • Perl
    • Prepare
    • IDA SDK
    • Build BinExport

Introduction

BinExport is the exporter component of BinDiff as well as BinNavi. It is a plugin for the commercial IDA Pro disassembler and exports disassemblies into the Protocol Buffer format that BinDiff requires. Exporting into a PostgreSQL databases for BinNavi is supported on a best-effort basis.

An experimental version for the open source sofware reverse engineering suite Ghidra is available in the java/BinExport directory.

This repository contains the complete source code necessary to build the IDA Pro plugin for Linux, macOS and Windows.

Installation

Download the binaries from the release page and copy them into the IDA Pro plugins directory. These are the default paths:

OS	Plugin path
Linux	/opt/idapro-7.4/plugins
macOS	/Applications/IDA Pro 7.4/idabin/plugins
Windows	%ProgramFiles(x86)%\IDA 7.4\plugins

To install just for the current user, copy the files into one of these directories instead:

OS	Plugin path
Linux/macOS	~/.idapro/plugins
Windows	%AppData%\Hex-Rays\IDA Pro\plugins

Usage

The main use case is via BinNavi. However, BinExport can also be used to export IDA Pro disassembly to files of various formats:

• Protocol Buffer based full export
• Statistics text file
• Text format for debugging
• BinNavi database export into a PostgreSQL database

Verifying the installation version

1. In IDA, select Help|About programm...

2. Click Addons...

3. If installed correctly, the following dialog box appears:

   

Invocation

Via the UI

1. Open an IDB

2. Select Edit|Plugins|BinExport 11

3. The following dialog box appears:

   

4. Select the type of the file to be exported

Note: There is no UI for the database export.

IDC Scripting

The BinExport plugin registers the IDC functions below.

IDC Function name	Exports to	Arguments
BinExportSql¹	PostgreSQL database	host, port, database, schema, user, password
BinExportDiff	Protocol Buffer	filename
BinExportText	Text file dump	filename
BinExportStatistics	Statistics text file	filename

¹Note: Exporting into PostgreSQL databases is deprecated and requires the ENABLE_POSTGRESQL define to be set.

Deprecated: BinExport also supports exporting to a database via the RunPlugin() IDC function:

static main() {
  batch(0);
  auto_wait();
  load_and_run_plugin("binexport11", 1);
  qexit(0);
}

Use the plugin options listed below to setup the database connection in that case. See also the CBinExportImporter class in BinNavi.

IDAPython

The option flags are the same as IDC (listed above).

import idaapi
idc_lang = idaapi.find_extlang_by_name("idc")
idaapi.run_statements(
    'BinExportSql("{}", {}, "{}", "{}", "{}", "{}")'.format(
        "host", 5432, "database", "public", "user", "pass"), idc_lang)

Plugin Options

BinExport defines the following plugin options, that can be specified on IDA's command line:

Option	Description
-OBinExportAutoAction:<ACTION>	Invoke a BinExport IDC function and exit
-OBinExportModule:<PARAM>	Argument for BinExportAutoAction
-OBinExportHost:<HOST>¹	Database server to connect to
-OBinExportPort:<PORT>¹	Port to connect to. PostgreSQL default is 5432.
-OBinExportUser:<USER>¹	User name
-OBinExportPassword:<PASS>¹	Password
-OBinExportDatabase:<DB>¹	Database to use
-OBinExportSchema:<SCHEMA>¹	Database schema. BinNavi only uses "public".
-OBinExportLogFile:<FILE>	Log messages to a file
-OBinExportAlsoLogToStdErr:TRUE	If specified, also log to standard error
-OBinExportX86NoReturnHeuristic:FALSE	Disable the X86-specific heuristic to identify non-returning functions

Note: These options must come before any files.

¹Note: Exporting into PostgreSQL databases is deprecated and requires the ENABLE_POSTGRESQL define to be set.

How to build

Preparing the build environment

As we support exporting into PostgreSQL databases as well as a Protocol Buffer based format, there are quite a few dependencies to satisfy:

• Boost 1.67.0 or higher (a partial copy of 1.71.0 ships in third_party/boost_parts)
• CMake 3.12 or higher
• GCC 7 or a recent version of Clang on Linux/macOS. On Windows, use the Visual Studio 2017 compiler (Update 9 or later) and the Windows SDK for Windows 10.
• Git 1.8 or higher
• IDA SDK 7.4 (unpack into third_party/idasdk)
• OpenSSL 1.0.2 or higher
• Perl 5.6 or higher (needed for OpenSSL and PostgreSQL)
• Optional: PostgreSQL client libraries 9.3 or higher
• Protocol Buffers 3.6.1 or higher

Linux

Prerequisites

The preferred build environment is Debian testing (version 10, "Buster").

This should install all the necessary packages:

sudo apt update -qq
sudo apt install -qq --no-install-recommends build-essential cmake

The following sections assume that your current working directory is at the root of the cloned repository.

IDA SDK

Unzip the contents of the IDA SDK into third_party/idasdk. Shown commands are for IDA 7.4:

unzip PATH/TO/idasdk74.zip -d third_party/idasdk
mv third_party/idasdk/idasdk74/* third_party/idasdk
rmdir third_party/idasdk/idasdk74

Build BinExport

With all prerequisites in place, configure and build BinExport:

mkdir -p build_linux && cd build_linux
cmake ../cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_RULE_MESSAGES=OFF \
    -DIdaSdk_ROOT_DIR=$PWD/../third_party/idasdk
cmake --build .

This will download and build OpenSSL, Protocol Buffers and the PostgreSQL client libraries. If all went well, the build_linux/binexport-prefix directory should contain two IDA plugin binaries binexport11.so and binexport1164.so for use with ida and ida64, respectively.

To enable support for exporting into PostgreSQL databases, add -DBINEXPORT_ENABLE_POSTGRESQL=ON to the first CMake command.

macOS

Prerequisites

The preferred build environment is Mac OS X 10.14 "Mojave" using Xcode 9. Using macOS 10.15 "Catalina" should also work.

After installing the Developer Tools, make sure to install the command-line tools:

sudo xcode-select --install

Recent versions of the Developer Tools no longer include GNU Autotools, which is required by the PostgreSQL dependency. You can install Autotools via Homebrew (recommended) or via MacPorts. Follow the installation instructions on the respective websites.

For Homebrew:

brew install autoconf automake libtool

For MacPorts:

sudo /opt/local/bin/port install autoconf automake libtool

The following sections assume that your current working directory is at the root of the cloned repository.

CMake

Download the latest stable version of CMake from the official site and mount its disk image:

curl -L https://cmake.org/files/v3.12/cmake-3.12.4-Darwin-x86_64.dmg \
    -o $HOME/Downloads/cmake-osx.dmg
hdiutil attach $HOME/Downloads/cmake-osx.dmg

At this point you will need to review and accept CMake's license agreement. Now install CMake:

sudo cp -Rf /Volumes/cmake-3.12.4-Darwin-x86_64/CMake.app /Applications/
hdiutil detach /Volumes/cmake-3.12.4-Darwin-x86_64
sudo /Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake-gui --install

The last command makes CMake available in the system path.

IDA SDK

Unzip the contents of the IDA SDK into third_party/idasdk. Shown commands are for IDA 7.4:

unzip PATH/TO/idasdk74.zip -d third_party/idasdk
mv third_party/idasdk/idasdk74/* third_party/idasdk
rmdir third_party/idasdk/idasdk74

Build BinExport

With all prerequisites in place, configure and build BinExport:

mkdir -p build_mac && cd build_mac
cmake ../cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_RULE_MESSAGES=OFF \
    -DIdaSdk_ROOT_DIR=$PWD/../third_party/idasdk
cmake --build .

This will download and build OpenSSL, Protocol Buffers and the PostgreSQL client libraries. If all went well, the build_mac/binexport-prefix directory should contain two IDA plugin binaries binexport11.dylib and binexport1164.dylib for use with ida and ida64, respectively.

To enable support for exporting into PostgreSQL databases, add -DBINEXPORT_ENABLE_POSTGRESQL=ON to the first CMake command.

Windows

The preferred build environment is Windows 10 (64-bit Intel) using the Visual Studio 2017 compiler and the Windows SDK for Windows 10.

CMake

Download and install CMake from its download page. Make sure to select "Add CMake to the system PATH for all users".

Git

Download and install Git from its download page. Make sure to select the following options: * The installation directory should be left at the default %ProgramFiles%\Git\bin\git.exe * "Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt" - have the setup utility add Git to your system path. * "Use Windows' default console window" - to be able to use Git from the regular command prompt.

Perl

Download and install ActiveState Perl from its download page. This should add Perl to the system path.

Prepare

The following sections assume an open command prompt with the current working directory located at the root of the cloned BinExport repository:

git clone https://github.com/google/binexport.git
cd binexport

IDA SDK

Unzip the contents of the IDA SDK into third_party/idasdk. Shown commands are for IDA 7.4, assuming that Git was installed into the default directory first:

"%ProgramFiles%\Git\usr\bin\unzip" PATH\TO\idasdk74.zip -d third_party
rename third_party\idasdk74 idasdk

Build BinExport

With all prerequisites in place, configure and build BinExport:

if not exist build_msvc mkdir build_msvc
cd build_msvc
cmake ../cmake -DIdaSdk_ROOT_DIR=%cd%\..\third_party\idasdk ^
    -G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64"
cmake --build . --config Release --install -- /m /clp:NoSummary;ForceNoAlign /v:minimal

This will download and build OpenSSL, Protocol Buffers and the PostgreSQL client libraries. If all went well, the build_msvc\binexport-prefix directory should contain two IDA plugin binaries binexport11.dll and binexport1164.dll for use with ida.exe and ida64.exe, respectively.

To enable support for exporting into PostgreSQL databases, add -DBINEXPORT_ENABLE_POSTGRESQL=ON to the first CMake command.