C++ defining IAT manually - gcc

I just changed from (F)ASM to C and saw that I get for a MessageBox 25kb (vs 3kb). I just included windows.h, but I see that windows.h includes about 22kb that I don't need ;).
At ASM I'm able to define the IAT (Import Address Table) and this I want to do with the GCC to reduce the oversized executable.
SO does anyone know how I can do this? Is it possible?
PS: If you know a solution for an other compiler please post it too (then I'll use the other one).

OK because I can't find any way to do it, I read about shell code (which has to be small and position independend).
harmonysecurity.com wrote about this and so I would solve my problem with inline-ASM.
This is the blog.
I hope that helps.

Related

How to distinguish syslog(2) and syslog(3)?

I see that there are syslog(2) and syslog(3).
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/syslog.2.html
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/syslog.3.html
Since they have the same function time, I don't see how the linker can distinguish them at link time. Could anybody help me understand how the linker correctly resolve the object code under the hood? Thanks.
It doesn't.. syslog(2) has to be called using klogctl() wrapper or using syscall() at your own peril.. syslog(3) is the only definition present in the C library.

Rust library for inspecting .rlib binaries

I'm looking for a way to load and inspect .rlib binaries generated by rustc. I've hunted around the standard library without much luck. My assumption is that an .rlib contains all the type information necessary to statically type check programs that "extern crate" it. rustc::metadata is where my hunt ended. I can't quite figure out if the structures available at this point in the compiler are intended as entry points for users, or if they are solely intermediate abstractions depending on a chain of previously initialized data.
Alternatively, If there's a way to dump an .rlib to stdout in a parsable form then that's also fantastic. I tried /usr/bin/nm, but it seemed to be excluding function type signatures. Maybe I'm missing something.
Anyways, I'm working on an editor utility for emacs that I hope at some point will provide contextually relevant information such as available methods, module items and their types, etc. I'd really appreciate any hints anyone has.
The .rlib file is an ar archive file. You can use readelf to read its content.
Try readelf -s <your_lib>.rlib. The type name may be mingled/decorated by the compiler so it may not be exactly the same as in .rs file.

Best way to fix IAT and relocs when patching (merging) two different binaries (x86 PE)?

First of - Hello and thank you for reading this,
I have one DLL which I do not have the source code but need to add some functionalities into it.
I made up another DLL implementing all these needed functionalities in C - using Visual Studio.
Now I need to insert the generated code from this new DLL into the target DLL (it has to be done at the file level {not at runtime}).
I am probably creating a new PE section on the target DLL and put there all the code/data/rdata from the dll I made up. The problem is that I need somehow to fix the IAT and the relocs relative to this new inserted code on the target DLL.
My question is:
What is the best way to do it?
It would be nice if Visual Studio came up with an option to build using only (mostly) relative addressing - This would save me a lot when dealing with the relocs.
I guess I could encapsulate all my vars and constants into a struct, hopefully MSVC would then only need to relocate the address of this "container" struct and use relative addressing to access its members. But don't know if this is a good idea.
I could even go further and get rid of the IAT by making a function pointer which would dynamically load the needed function module (kind of the Delay Load Module). And again, put this function pointer inside the "container" struct I said before.
The last option I have is to make it all by hand, manually editing the binary in hex... which I really didn`t want to do, because it would take some good time to do it for every single IAT entry and reloc entry. I have already written a PE file encryptor some time ago so I know most of the inner workings and know it can be done, just want to know your thoughts and maybe a tool already exists to help me out?
Any suggestions is highly appreciated!
Thanks again for your time for reading this!
Since you are asking for suggestions, take a look at the very good PORTABLE EXECUTABLE FILE FORMAT – A REVERSE ENGINEER VIEW PDF Document. The Section "Adding Code to a PE File" describes some techniques (and presents Tools) to add code to an existing PE image without having the code of the target image (your scenario) by manipulation the IAT table and Sections tables.

Is there any disassembler which generates compilable assembly source code?

I would like to know, is there any Windows platform disassembler (software) can generate the assembly source code which is also compilable by an assembler?
Since disassembler can generate the assembly code based on an EXE file, is it possible the assembly code be used directly as a source code, then the source code be compiled by an assembler like NASM?
IDA can generate the source code. But in most cases you can't edit it. Assume the following code:
loc_401020:
ret
; ...
dd 0FFFFFFFFh, 0, 1, 401020h, 0
; ^^^^^^^ can you find it in big real program?
to insert any new bytes to you must either be shure that any sub_XXXX or loc_XXXX will remain at the same offset, either you must replace all its references to labels.
If you don't move any code, you don't need to recompile it - just patch and maybe extend the code section.
I think IDA is quite good at this.
Anyway, the main problem would be that the generated assembly code would be quite unreadable and very hard to mantain (no variable names, function names and signatures), so altough technically it would be ASM code, it's still better to use IDA as clever editor to deduce this information.
I'd patch the executable directly in a debugger and then save the modified executable.
Decompiling and then recompiling is a fragile process since any change of position of the reassembled code can break the program. And I think there are multiple binary representations of certain asm instructions complicating the matter ever further.
You are losing some information when disassembling an executable so you are unlikely to get a fully working executable when assembling the disassembly. If you are clever, you can extract single functions from an executable, but not the whole program.
The objconv disassembler can produce assembly code in masm, nasm, yasm and gas syntax.

Can You Use MSVC 6.0's Debugger to 'Step Into' a Macro?

I am using MSVC 6.0 to call a macro in the Win32API and I'm getting an access violation. I know that the pointers I'm passing to the macro contain valid addresses, though they're evidently not pointing to the correct data.
The macro accepts multiple pointers, and I'm not sure which pointer is erroneous, so I'd like to use MSVC's debugger to 'step into' the macro to see exactly where the problem is. When I've tried thus far, the debugger just throws the access violation error.
Is it possible to 'step into' a macro using MSVC 6.0's debugger? If not, is there anyway for me to check what the macro expands to, so I can get a better idea of what I'm not doing correctly?
If you really need to trace the macro code, the only way would be to find the definition of the macro, manually "instantiate" the macro code (substituting the parameters) in place where it is "called", and then trace it in the debugger as ordinary code.
Alternative variant would be to step through the disassembly, if your skill level is sufficient to back-associate the disassembled code with the original macro code.
You cannot step into the macro because at the point compiler does its job, the macro is already expanded. However, you can step through a macro - if you just do "step", you will actually step through all code inside the macro as if it was expanded, line by line. If you to "step into", you will step into every function call made from that macro. If the macro is small enough, and/or you know it very well, you can do a "blind step through" that way.
You can step into functions that are called from the macro but as far as I know can not really step through the macro lines themselves. And yes if you code compiles - you can find the macro definition (use MSVC function/class browser to find where it is defined, some header file probably)
I'd just step into the disassembly - usually, even if you're not an assembly expert, short runs of code (a few lines) the assembly map back to the C/C++ code pretty readily (especially in non-Release builds). Hopefully the macro isn't so hairy that that isn't the case here.
Remember that plenty of debugging occurs even without source code, so having the source and the disassembly together usually isn't too bad. And if it's something you haven't much experience with, it's great experience to get.

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