PE Bliss 2

The most advanced and thorough library to read and write Portable executable files

The Portable executable is a popular executable file format, which is extensively used in Windows family operating systems. It is as well utilized by the X-Box, EFI and some other environments. The PE Bliss 2 library is a successor of the old and unsupported PE Bliss library.

The library is aimed at being able to provide as much information about the PE file as possible, while being robust and keeping track of possible parsing or format errors and irregularities.

Compatibility

The library compiles and passes tests with the following compilers:

• MSVC 2022
• Clang 14.0.0
• GCC 11.3.0

Features

• Reading PE/PE+ binaries (unit-tested)
  • Reading/modifying binaries either from a file, or from a memory buffer
  • Reading/modifying binaries, which are already loaded into memory by the Windows loader
  • Supports copying the full binary sections memory or referencing the existing memory buffer (read-only mode)
  • Thread-safe when working with stateless buffers (i.e. an image does not reference a file) with the same image from different threads (read-only mode)
  • Reading either physical only or physical and virtual data from PE files with bounds checking
• Rebuilding PE/PE+ binaries to a file or a memory buffer (unit-tested)
• DOS, File, Optional header parsing (unit-tested)
• Data directories parsing (unit-tested)
• DOS Stub, Rich header parsing (unit-tested)
  • Rich COMPID database (unit-tested)
• Section table parsing (unit-tested)
• PE checksum calculation for aligned executables (unit-tested)
• Shannon entropy calculation (unit-tested)
• Directory support:
  • Bound import:
    • Read (unit-tested)
    • Modify (untested)
  • Exception (read-only, unit-tested)
    • x64
    • ARM
    • ARM64
    • ARM64 + x64 combined
  • Exports:
    • Read (unit-tested)
    • Modify (untested)
  • Imports (or same style delay imports):
    • Read (unit-tested)
    • Modify (untested)
  • Delay load imports (including unload IAT)
    • Read (partially tested)
  • Load configuration (including recent versions up to Windows 10 22H1, read-only, unit-tested):
    • Lock prefix table
    • Global flags
    • Process heap flags
    • Dependent load flags
    • SafeSEH handler table
    • Guard flags
    • CF Guard (stride, function table, address taken IAT entry table, long jump target table)
    • CHPE (hybrid portable executable: ARM, ARM64X, ARM64EC)
      • Range entries, metadata
    • Dynamic relocation tables (as full support as possible, many of them are undocumented)
      • v1, v2 tables
      • IMPORT_CONTROL_TRANSFER_DYNAMIC_RELOCATION
      • INDIR_CONTROL_TRANSFER_DYNAMIC_RELOCATION
      • SWITCHTABLE_BRANCH_DYNAMIC_RELOCATION
      • ARM64X_DYNAMIC_RELOCATION (zero fill, copy data, add delta)
      • FUNCTION_OVERRIDE_DYNAMIC_RELOCATION
      • Prologue, epilogue dynamic relocations
    • Enclave descriptors
    • Volatile metadata (descriptors, access RVA tables, range tables)
    • Exception handling (EH) continuation targets
    • Extended flow guard
    • CastGuard
    • memcpy guard
  • Relocations:
    • Relocation types: ABSOLUTE, HIGHLOW, DIR64, HIGH, LOW, HIGHADJ, THUMB_MOV32
    • Read (unit-tested)
    • Modify (untested)
    • Image rebase (unit-tested)
  • TLS:
    • Read (unit-tested)
    • Modify (untested)
  • Resources:
    • Read (unit-tested)
    • Supported resource types:
      • Accelerators (read-only, unit-tested)
      • Bitmap (read-write, unit-tested)
      • String tables (read-write, unit-tested)
      • Manifests (read-only, unit-tested)
        • Assembly and Application
          • Assembly identity
          • noInherit/noInheritable
          • Supported OS list
          • Dependencies
          • Windows settings
          • MSIX identity
          • Requested execution level
          • Files, COM classes, typelibs, COM interface proxy stubs, window classes
      • Message tables (read-only, unit-tested)
      • Version info (read-only, unit-tested)
      • Icon, cursor groups (read, write to file, unit-tested)
  • Debug directory support (read-only, unit-tested)
    • MISC
    • Repro (PE determinism or reproducibility)
    • SPGO (sample profile-guided optimization info)
    • CodeView
      • PDB2.0
      • PDB7.0
      • Generic support for other signatures
    • OMAP to SRC
    • SRC to OMAP
    • FPO (Frame pointer omission info)
    • POGO (profile-guided optimization info)
    • COFF (no line numbers and aux symbols support)
    • VC Feature
    • Intel MPX
    • EX DLL Characteristics (CET Shadow Stack flags)
    • ILTCG (Incremental link-time code generation flag)
    • PDB Hash
    • MPDB (Embedded Portable PDB)
  • .NET
    • Basic headers support (read-only, unit-tested)
  • Security directory (Authenticode)
    • Raw descriptors and certificate data (read-only, unit-tested)
    • Authenticode signature (unit-tested)
      • Loading the signature
      • Image hash verification
      • Message digest verification
      • Authenticode signature verification
      • Double-signing support
      • Image page hashes verification
      • Loading timestamp counter-signature (all formats)
      • Timestamp signature verification
      • Authenticode program info
      • Hash algorithms supported: MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512
      • Signature algorithms supported: RSA, ECDSA (SHA1 and SHA256, all curves)
• Address conversions (RVA/VA/file offsets, unit-tested)
• Overlay at the end of file parsing (unit-tested)
• Simple console dumper of PE/PE+ files (no extended configuration yet)

Approximate roadmap

• High priority
  • MUI resource support
  • Full security directory support (authenticode)
    • X.509 chain verification
    • Special signers
  • Import redirects (apisetschema.dll)
• Medium priority
  • Menu resource support
  • Dialogs resource support
  • CMake project and cross-platform compilation support
  • More features to console_dumper
  • .NET streams and tables support (read-only)
  • .NET resources support (read-only)
  • .NET strong name signatures (read-only)
  • Trustlets
  • App Manifest tokens verification
• Low proirity
  • Unit tests for exports modification code
  • Unit tests for imports modification code
  • Unit tests for bound import modification code
  • Relocations modification code and unit tests
  • TLS modification code and unit tests
  • Support of adding new sections/modification of existing sections and unit tests
  • Usage examples
  • Full documentation
• Very low priority
  • Toolbar resource support
  • Ribbon resource support
  • COFF debug aux symbols support
  • COFF debug line numbers support
  • VB5/VB6 structures (project info, DLLCall imports, modules, object table)
  • NGEN .NET files

Library requirements

• C++20 or newer.
• Boost libraries (1.78.0 or newer, header-only): endian, pfr.
• Several external libraries are embedded (external directory): googletest, pugixml, CryptoPP, simple_asn1.

Building

Windows Solution

Use the supplied pe_bliss.sln Visual Studio 2022 solution to build the project. You will need to edit the common.props file and set the right path to the Boost library.

Windows CMake

Alternatively, CMake build is also supported. Example build:

:: Set path to your boost library
set BOOST_INCLUDEDIR=C:\Libs\boost_1_82_0
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../
cmake --build .
:: Alternatively, build release
cmake --build . --config Release
:: Optionally, run tests
ctest

Linux CMake

Linux CMake build is supported. Example build:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../
# Alternatively, build release
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

cmake --build .
# Optionally, run tests
ctest

CMake options

• PE_BLISS_ENABLE_TESTING: build and enable tests. ON by default.
• PE_BLISS_BUILD_CONSOLE_DUMPER: build portable executable console dumper. ON by default.
• PE_BLISS_STATIC_MSVC_RUNTIME: build all libraries with statically linked MSVC runtime. OFF by default, MSVC-specific.
• BUILD_SHARED_LIBS: build all libraries as shared (dll or so). OFF by default.