vita-toolchain

These are a set of tools that, along with an ARM compiler and linker, provides a build system for PlayStation Vita(TM). Look at buildscripts for more information on building the complete toolchain with binutils/gcc/newlib. As such, this repo only contains Vita specific host tools. Check out the specifications for more details on the Vita executable format, these tools, and their inputs/outputs (including the YAML configuration format).

vita-elf-create

usage: vita-elf-create [-v|vv|vvv] [-n] [-e config.yml] input.elf output.velf
    -v,-vv,-vvv:    logging verbosity (more v is more verbose)
    -n         :    allow empty imports
    -e yml     :    optional config options
    input.elf  :    input ARM ET_EXEC type ELF
    output.velf:    output ET_SCE_RELEXEC type ELF

Converts a standard ET_EXEC ELF (outputted by arm-vita-eabi-gcc for example) to the Sony ELF format.

vita-elf-export

usage: vita-elf-export mod-type elf exports imports
    mod-type: valid values: 'u'/'user' for user mode, else 'k'/'kernel' for kernel mode
    elf: path to the elf produced by the toolchain to be used by vita-elf-create
    exports: path to the config yaml file specifying the module information and exports
    imports: path to write the import yaml generated by this tool

Creates an import database YAML from a Sony ELF and config YAML. This import database is a YAML file (not to be confused with the config YAML file) which defines the NID mappings for a given module. This can be used by other tools for debugging and reversing purposes.

vita-libs-gen

usage: vita-libs-gen nids.yml [extra.yml ...] output-dir
    -c: Generate CMakeLists.txt instead of a Makefile

Given a list of import database YAML files (either from vita-elf-create or manually written by hackers for Sony owned modules), this will generate stub libraries that can be linked to such that vita-elf-create can properly generate a Sony ELF. After calling vita-libs-gen you need to run make or cmake in the output directory to build the stubs.

vita-make-fself

usage: vita-make-fself [-s|-ss] [-c] input.velf output-eboot.bin
    -s : Generate a safe eboot.bin. A safe eboot.bin does not have access
    to restricted APIs and important parts of the filesystem.
    -ss: Generate a secret-safe eboot.bin. Do not use this option if you don't know what it does.
    -c : Enable compression.

Generates a FSELF (the format expected of eboot.bin loaded by Vita) which wraps around the Sony ELF file. Optionally supports compression of the input ELF. Also allows marking a homebrew as "safe", which prevents it from harming the system.

vita-mksfoex

usage: mksfoex [options] TITLE output.sfo
    -d NAME=VALUE   Add a new DWORD value
    -s NAME=STR     Add a new string value

Generates a param.sfo file for a given title. param.sfo is required to launch a homebrew from LiveArea. The TITLE id can be anything but it is recommended that you use XXXXYYYYY where XXXX is an author specific identifier and YYYYY is a unique number identifying your homebrew. For example, molecularShell uses MLCL00001.

vita-pack-vpk

Usage:
    vita-pack-vpk [OPTIONS] output.vpk

  -s, --sfo=param.sfo     sets the param.sfo file
  -b, --eboot=eboot.bin   sets the eboot.bin file
  -a, --add src=dst       adds the file src to the vpk as dst
  -h, --help              displays this help and exit

Generates a VPK homebrew package. eboot.bin and param.sfo are required.

Development

Required libraries are libelf, zlib, libzip, and libyaml. Please note that there are some compatibility problems with built-in libelf so it is recommended that you download it from the provided link.

After getting the dependencies, build with

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

Note on Naming

Early in the development, there was a confusion on the meaning of "module" and "library" in context of the Vita. After the tools were written initially, we decided to reverse the meaning of those two words. All user-facing usage of those words have been changed (console outputs, messages, etc) but it is too much word to change all internal usage of those words (function/variable names, etc). Therefore you may be confused when reading the source since the meaning of "module" and "library" is used inconsistently. It would be great if someone could take the time to correct all the usages ("module" exports one or more "libraries" and imports zero or more "libraries"; eboot.bin is a module).

Ghabry/vita-toolchain