bebrws/QBDI

Introduction

QuarkslaB Dynamic binary Instrumentation (QBDI) is a modular, cross-platform and cross-architecture DBI framework. It aims to support Linux, macOS, Android, iOS and Windows operating systems running on x86, x86-64, ARM and AArch64 architectures. Information about what is a DBI framework and how QBDI works can be found in the user documentation introduction (User Documentation).

QBDI modularity means it doesn't contain a preferred injection method and it is designed to be used in conjunction with an external injection tool. QBDI includes a tiny (LD_PRELOAD based) Linux and macOS injector for dynamic executables (QBDIPreload), which acts as the foundation for our Python bindings (pyQBDI). QBDI is also fully integrated with Frida, a reference dynamic instrumentation toolkit, allowing anybody to use their combined powers.

x86-64 support is mature (even if SIMD memory access are not yet reported). The support of x86 is new and some bug may occur. ARM architecture is a work in progress but already sufficient to execute simple CLI program like ls or cat. AArch64 is planned, but currently unsupported.

A current limitation is that QBDI doesn't handle signals, multithreading (it doesn't deal with new threads creation) and C++ exception mechanisms. However, those system-dependent features will probably not be part of the core library (KISS), and should be integrated as a new layer (to be determined how).

Status

CPU	Operating Systems	Execution	Memory Access Information
x86-64	Android, Linux, macOS, Windows	Supported	Partial (only non SIMD)
x86	Android, Linux, macOS, Windows	Supported	Partial (only non SIMD)
ARM	Linux, Android, iOS	Planned (*)	Planned (*)
AArch64	Android	Planned (*)	Planned (*)

Warning

The ARM and AArch64 instruction sets are supported but they still need to be integrated along with x86 and x86-64.

stable

dev

Installation

C/C++/Frida API

Each new version of QBDI is compiled and available on Github release page (https://github.com/QBDI/QBDI/releases).

Python API (PyQBDI)

PyQBDI is available on Pypi. The wheel package can be downloaded (https://pypi.org/project/PyQBDI/#files) or installed with pip command.:

pip install PyQBDI

PyQBDI package is independent of C/C++ package.

Compilation

To build this project the following dependencies are needed on your system: cmake, make (for Linux and macOS), ninja (for Android), Visual Studio (for Windows) and a C++11 toolchain for the platform of your choice.

The compilation is a two-step process:

• A local binary distribution of the dependencies is built.
• QBDI is built using those binaries.

The current dependencies which need to be built are LLVM and Google Test. This local built of LLVM is required because QBDI uses private APIs not exported by regular LLVM installations and because our code is only compatible with a specific version of those APIs. This first step is cached and only needs to be run once, subsequent builds only need to repeat the second step.

QBDI build system relies on CMake and requires to pass build configuration flags. To help with this step we provide shell scripts for common build configurations which follow the naming pattern config-OS-ARCH.sh. Modifying these scripts is necessary if you want to compile in debug or cross compile QBDI.

Linux

x86-64

Create a new directory at the root of the source tree, and execute the Linux configuration script:

mkdir build
cd build
../cmake/config-linux-X86_64.sh

If the build script warns you of missing dependencies for your platform (in the case of a first compilation), or if you want to rebuild them, execute the following commands:

make llvm
make gtest

This will rebuild the binary distribution of those dependencies for your platform. You can then relaunch the configuration script from above and compile:

../cmake/config-linux-X86_64.sh
make -j4

x86

The previous step can be follow but using the config-linux-X86.sh configuration script instead.

Cross-compiling for ARM

The same step as above can be used but using the config-linux-ARM.sh configuration script instead. This script however needs to be customized for your cross-compilation toolchain:

• The right binaries must be exported in the AS, CC, CXX and STRIP environment variables.
• The -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS and -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS should contain the correct default flags for your toolchain. At least the ARM_ARCH, ARM_C_INCLUDE and ARM_CXX_INCLUDE should be modified to match your toolchain but more might be needed.

macOS

Compiling QBDI on macOS requires a few things:

• A modern version of macOS (like Sierra)
• Xcode (from the App Store or Apple Developer Tools)
• the Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
• a package manager (preferably MacPorts, but HomeBrew should also be fine)
• some packages (port install cmake wget)

Once requirements are met, create a new directory at the root of the source tree, and execute the macOS configuration script:

mkdir build
cd build
../cmake/config-macOS-X86_64.sh

If the build script warns you of missing dependencies for your platform (in the case of a first compilation), or if you want to rebuild them, execute the following commands:

make llvm
make gtest

This will rebuild the binary distribution of those dependencies for your platform. You can then relaunch the build script from above and compile:

../cmake/config-macOS-X86_64.sh
make -j4

Windows

Building on Windows requires a pure Windows installation of Python 3 (from the official packages, this is mandatory) in order to build our dependencies (we really hope to improve this in the future). It also requires an up-to-date CMake.

First, the config-win-X86_64.py should be edited to use the generator (the -G flag) matching your Visual Studio installation. Then the following command should be run:

mkdir build
cd build
python ../cmake/config-win-X86_64.py

If the build script warns you of missing dependencies for your platform (in the case of a first compilation), or if you want to rebuild them, execute the following commands:

MSBuild.exe deps\llvm.vcxproj
MSBuild.exe deps\gtest.vcxproj

This will rebuild the binary distribution of those dependencies for your platform. You can then relaunch the build script from above and compile:

python ../cmake/config-win-X86_64.py
MSBuild.exe /p:Configuration=Release ALL_BUILD.vcxproj

Android

Cross-compiling for Android requires the Android NDK and has only been tested under Linux. The config-android-ARM.sh configuration script should be customized to match your NDK installation and target platform:

• NDK_PATH should point to your Android NDK

From that point on the Linux guide can be followed using this configuration script.