Rekall Memory Forensic Framework

The Rekall Framework is a completely open collection of tools, implemented in Python under the GNU General Public License, for the extraction of digital artifacts from volatile memory (RAM) samples. The extraction techniques are performed completely independent of the system being investigated but offer visibilty into the runtime state of the system. The framework is intended to introduce people to the techniques and complexities associated with extracting digital artifacts from volatile memory samples and provide a platform for further work into this exciting area of research.

The Rekall distribution is available from: http://www.rekall-forensic.com/

Rekall should run on any platform that supports Python

Rekall supports investigations of the following 32bit and 64bit memory images:

Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 and 3
Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 0 and 1
Microsoft Windows 8 and 8.1
Linux Kernels 2.6.24 to 3.10.
OSX 10.6-10.9.x.

Rekall also provides a complete memory sample acquisition capability for all major operating systems (see the tools directory).

Additionally Rekall now features a complete GUI for writing reports, and driving analysis, try it out with:

rekall webconsole --browser

Quick start

Rekall is available as a python package installable via the pip package manager. Simply type (for example on Linux):

sudo pip install rekall

You might need to specifically allow pre-release software to be included (until Rekall makes a major stable release):

sudo pip install --pre rekall

To have all the dependencies installed. You still need to have python and pip installed first.

If you want to use the yarascan plugin, install yara and yara-python.

For windows, Rekall is also available as a self contained installer package. Please check the download page for the most appropriate installer to use Rekall-Forensic.com

Mailing Lists

Mailing lists to support the users and developers of Rekall can be found at the following address:

rekall-discuss@googlegroups.com

Licensing and Copyright

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Bugs and Support

There is no support provided with Rekall. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

If you think you've found a bug, please report it at:

https://github.com/google/rekall/issues

In order to help us solve your issues as quickly as possible, please include the following information when filing a bug:

The version of rekall you're using
The operating system used to run rekall
The version of python used to run rekall
The suspected operating system of the memory image
The complete command line you used to run rekall

History

In December 2011, a new branch within the Volatility project was created to explore how to make the code base more modular, improve performance, and increase usability. The modularity allowed Volatility to be used in GRR, making memory analysis a core part of a strategy to enable remote live forensics. As a result, both GRR and Volatility would be able to use each others’ strengths.

Over time this branch has become known as the "scudette" branch or the "Technology Preview" branch. It was always a goal to try to get these changes into the main Volatility code base. But, after two years of ongoing development, the "Technology Preview" was never accepted into the Volatility trunk version.

Since it seemed unlikely these changes would be incorporated in the future, it made sense to develop the Technology Preview branch as a separate project. On December 13, 2013, the former branch was forked to create a new stand-alone project named "Rekall.” This new project incorporates changes made to streamline the codebase so that Rekall can be used as a library. Methods for memory acquisition and other outside contributions have also been included that were not in the Volatility codebase.

Rekall strives to advance the state of the art in memory analysis, implementing the best algorithms currently available and a complete memory acquisition and analysis solution for at least Windows, OSX and Linux.

he0x/rekall