Aira Force - an interactive reassembler

[hop]

Originally Posted by copse

I recorded a hapless user, myself, using it in case it highlighted anything useful for you. It crashed.

Hi. Thanks for the video. Sorry you are having problems with this. The tools is still WIP and has many bugs. I'll investigate this thoroughly ASAP, but here are a few pointers.

Analysis is very much pre-release WIP in 0.6.3. I've fixed a few bugs for the next release. I suspect on the version you are using the "Max address execute count" option is set low, so when you start analysis, the execution is halting in the first DBRA loop. The Options can be found in the collapsed Options node in the Analysis window. Set "Max address execute count" to zero, which means infinity.

In the absence of good quality automated analysis... you have to disassemble manually:

After preprocessing a file, I usually do a quick manual scan (eyeball) from top to bottom (use the scroll bar or Page Down key) to check for any obvious unidentified code blocks. Look for any big blue blocks of what looks like code but has not been identified. I sure sign is that the final word is $4e75 (machine code for RTS).

If you find a label containing DC.Xs that looks suspiciously like code, then click or cursor to the label and hit Return/Enter, or equivalently right click on the label and choose "Select label (return)" from the context menu. This should display any references in the Cross References window. If you see something like BSR LAB_1234 listed, then you know the label should be code. Select it and hit C (or Main Menu > Edit > Convert to CODE, or right click context menu > same).

If you hit C and it turns out not to be code, Undo to go back to the last good state.

Regarding crashes: If you run AiraForce.exe from the command line, then after a crash you will hopefully see a meaningful error message. I've managed to manually disassemble this file on my end, so hopefully the bug you have encountered has been fixed already. I'll try to get another patch out soon.

As an aside: I'm seeing a much larger reassembled file because it is adding symbols for all hunks. The Options > Reassembly > Symbols setting is getting automatically set - I'll change this behaviour. I would hope the reassembled file would run, but can't test right now.

Thanks for your patience!

[copse]

I understand it is WIP. I was only disassembling to make a video and perhaps provide some feedback and supporting the project in that way.

One concrete suggestion I would make is to perhaps have left cursor from a symbol either go to a single reference or pop up the cross references window, or something similar.

I'll try again with a new version if it is useful and use your comments.

[hop]

Originally Posted by copse

I understand it is WIP. I was only disassembling to make a video and perhaps provide some feedback and supporting the project in that way.

Your support and feedback is very much appreciated. After watching your video I have a list of improvements to make life better for the user.

Originally Posted by copse

One concrete suggestion I would make is to perhaps have left cursor from a symbol either go to a single reference or pop up the cross references window, or something similar.

I think the Enter key might do what you want here. If enter is pressed on a line containing a label or label reference, then the Cross References Window displays the list of cross references. You can then use the > and < keys to navigate through the list of cross-references.

Thanks to your feedback, I have fixed a focus issue so that when a label is selected, the Cross References window is displayed (brought to front) but the Navigation Window still has input focus.

The left cursor key is mapped to navigate backwards. The logic is that after using G to go to a reference, the user often wants to go back to where they came from.

EDIT: I'll add the Enter, < and > to the Main Menu Navigation menu.

[hop]

Originally Posted by copse

I'll try again with a new version if it is useful and use your comments.

Please find attached version 0.6.4-alpha for you to test. I hope you use Windows 64-bit - let me know if not.

I recorded a video of my disassembling Miniblaster using the latest Analysis code. This could also have been done manually, but identifying the system equates would have been a lot slower.

[ Show youtube player ]

[hooverphonique]

Hi hop,

I downloaded 0.6.3 win x64, unzipped it, ran it, and opened up our TTE 64k intro.. Didn't touch anything else but File->Open.

Reassembling fails with "fatal error 13: could not open <C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final> for input":

Reassembling with VASM

Creating process: C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\aira-force-win64\AiraForce-win64\vasmm68k_mot.exe -Fhunkexe -kick1hunks -databss -nosym -no-opt -wfail -o C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final\TTE-Circumvent.reassembled C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final

vasm 2.0beta (c) in 2002-2024 Volker Barthelmann

vasm M68k/CPU32/ColdFire cpu backend 2.6c (c) 2002-2023 Frank Wille

vasm motorola syntax module 3.18 (c) 2002-2023 Frank Wille

vasm hunk format output module 2.14c (c) 2002-2022 Frank Wille

fatal error 13: could not open <C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final> for input

which seems odd to me as the path mentioned is a directory - or is that intended behavior?

in the directory next to the intro executable is also TTE-Circumvent.{asm|bin|cnf} which was created when I opened the exe in Aira.

[hop]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

Hi hop,

I downloaded 0.6.3 win x64, unzipped it, ran it, and opened up our TTE 64k intro.. Didn't touch anything else but File->Open.

Reassembling fails with "fatal error 13: could not open <C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final> for input":

Reassembling with VASM

Creating process: C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\aira-force-win64\AiraForce-win64\vasmm68k_mot.exe -Fhunkexe -kick1hunks -databss -nosym -no-opt -wfail -o C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final\TTE-Circumvent.reassembled C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final

vasm 2.0beta (c) in 2002-2024 Volker Barthelmann

vasm M68k/CPU32/ColdFire cpu backend 2.6c (c) 2002-2023 Frank Wille

vasm motorola syntax module 3.18 (c) 2002-2023 Frank Wille

vasm hunk format output module 2.14c (c) 2002-2022 Frank Wille

fatal error 13: could not open <C:\Users\xyz\Downloads\tte-circumvent-final> for input

which seems odd to me as the path mentioned is a directory - or is that intended behavior?

in the directory next to the intro executable is also TTE-Circumvent.{asm|bin|cnf} which was created when I opened the exe in Aira.

Hi! I have never tried this exe, but this seems strange. Is "xyz" a find and replace? Does your username contain a unicode letter with accent? If so, try the 0.6.4-alpha from the previous post, which contains Windows wchar path fixes.

If not, I'll have to debug locally, but away from keyboard for 24 hours sorry.

EDIT: I would expect the disassembly passed to vasm to have the .asm suffix. Not sure why it is missing. Usually source file is .exe or no suffix. Disassembled file is .asm. not sure why a directory rather than file path is generated in your case.

What is the source file (executable) filename, including extension?

[kamelito]

@hop dunno if already posted but might be interesting.
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4

[hop]

Originally Posted by kamelito

@hop dunno if already posted but might be interesting.
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4

Thanks. I'll give it a whirl.

[hop]

Originally Posted by Honitos

@hop:
Your tool has the potential to be *very* useful!

One think I discovered: AiraForce - or one of the tools it uses - is not able to handle path names with spaces.
The path "TTE" in the screenshot *does* exist.

If you have time, could you please try the pre-release build 0.6.4-alpha attached to https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...2&postcount=84 ?

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by hop

Hi! I have never tried this exe, but this seems strange. Is "xyz" a find and replace? Does your username contain a unicode letter with accent? If so, try the 0.6.4-alpha from the previous post, which contains Windows wchar path fixes.

Username is find/replace, yes, but the original only contains 7 ascii letters.Using 0.6.4 gave slightly different results.. I put this version of Aira in a different (shorter) path, and the "creating process" for vasm now includes more of the correct source filename (.asm), so it seems the buffer for creating the arguments for vasm is too small or something like that.

[Honitos]

Originally Posted by hop

If you have time, could you please try the pre-release build 0.6.4-alpha attached to https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...2&postcount=84 ?

Well done! With the 0.6.4-alpha most of the error messages, except one are gone.
It still complains about a fail to open options file "AiraForceOptions.ini" in the AppData-path at startup, but the rest works now, thanks!

[hop]

Originally Posted by Honitos

Well done! With the 0.6.4-alpha most of the error messages, except one are gone.
It still complains about a fail to open options file "AiraForceOptions.ini" in the AppData-path at startup, but the rest works now, thanks!

Excellent. Hopefully the remaining error message is just because the ini file is not available on first boot. I'll check on that though.

[hop]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

it seems the buffer for creating the arguments for vasm is too small or something like that.

Yes you were right thanks. I wasn't checking the return code from strlcat. Fixed locally and will add to next release/patch thanks.