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_i18n/en/_posts/2024-05-17-frida-16-2-2-released.markdown
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| --- | ||
| layout: news_item | ||
| title: 'Frida 16.2.2 Released' | ||
| date: 2024-05-17 18:26:11 +0200 | ||
| author: oleavr | ||
| version: 16.2.2 | ||
| categories: [release] | ||
| --- | ||
|
|
||
| It's release o'clock, and this one comes jam-packed with improvements! 🎉 | ||
|
|
||
| ## Build System | ||
|
|
||
| After years of being dissatisfied with our build system situation, I have | ||
| finally worked up the courage to restructure it — in a big way. | ||
|
|
||
| ### User Experience | ||
|
|
||
| One of the things that bothered me was that our build system felt very eccentric | ||
| and complex. You would invoke *make* and see a menu of things you could build. | ||
| But that menu would be different depending on the OS you're running this on. | ||
| Changing build options meant either editing config.mk or overriding them on the | ||
| command-line. And if you were on Windows you'd have to use Visual Studio (MSVS). | ||
|
|
||
| The MSVS build system is now gone, and you can build Frida the same way you'd | ||
| build many other OSS projects: | ||
|
|
||
| {% highlight bash %} | ||
| $ ./configure | ||
| $ make | ||
| {% endhighlight %} | ||
|
|
||
| The *configure* step can be skipped if you don't need to pass any options, such | ||
| as --prefix. This script is really just a thin wrapper around Meson's setup | ||
| command, and you can pass options straight to Meson by adding `--` followed by | ||
| the options. You can also run *make install* to install things, which supports | ||
| the DESTDIR environment variable to change where the output goes. | ||
|
|
||
| Cross-compilation is easy too; for example if you want to build for iOS/arm64, | ||
| invoke configure with --host=ios-arm64. If you have a toolchain for an embedded | ||
| system, pass --host=$triplet, which will look for $triplet-gcc, $triplet-g++, | ||
| etc. on your PATH. You can also add CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, etc. to the environment to | ||
| pass in extra flags, just like you'd expect from other build systems. | ||
|
|
||
| What's cool is that our different repos can now be built standalone. You can | ||
| clone the frida-gum repo and build it, just like you can do with frida-python, | ||
| frida-tools, etc. The frida repo is no longer as important, it's only kept | ||
| around to be able to version a collection of repos, and host the CI used for | ||
| rolling new releases. | ||
|
|
||
| Each repo contains any needed subprojects/*.wrap files that tell Meson where it | ||
| can find the dependencies. This means if you grab frida-core and try to build it | ||
| without already having frida-gum on your PKG_CONFIG_PATH, it will grab and build | ||
| that for you automatically. What's also neat is that our Python and Node.js | ||
| bindings now make use of this to build from source if a .whl or prebuild can't | ||
| be found or downloaded. | ||
|
|
||
| So now that our different components work well as subprojects, this also means | ||
| anyone can integrate Frida components into their own projects just as easily. | ||
| All you need to do is add a .wrap-file to subprojects/ in your project's top | ||
| source dir, and call dependency() from your meson.build. Meson then looks on | ||
| your system first, and if it fails to find the dependency it will clone the git | ||
| repo in subprojects/ and build it as part of your project. It is also possible | ||
| to tell Meson to force such a fallback without looking on your system. | ||
|
|
||
| Here's what such a .wrap-file could look like for Gum: | ||
|
|
||
| {% highlight ini %} | ||
| [wrap-git] | ||
| url = https://github.com/frida/frida-gum.git | ||
| revision = 16.2.4 | ||
| depth = 1 | ||
|
|
||
| [provide] | ||
| dependency_names = frida-gum-1.0, frida-gum-heap-1.0, frida-gum-prof-1.0, frida-gumjs-1.0, frida-gumjs-inspector-1.0 | ||
| {% endhighlight %} | ||
|
|
||
| And for frida-core: | ||
|
|
||
| {% highlight ini %} | ||
| [wrap-git] | ||
| url = https://github.com/frida/frida-core.git | ||
| revision = 16.2.4 | ||
| depth = 1 | ||
|
|
||
| [provide] | ||
| dependency_names = frida-core-1.0 | ||
| {% endhighlight %} | ||
|
|
||
| Our thin Meson wrapper is also easy to get started with, and you can read more | ||
| about it [here][]. | ||
|
|
||
| ### A bit of history | ||
|
|
||
| The reason I chose to maintain a separate build system for Windows was that I | ||
| previously worked with quite a few experienced Windows developers, and noticed | ||
| they'd be a lot more excited about an OSS project if they could work on it using | ||
| their favorite IDE. It was important to them that they could look at a crash in | ||
| the debugger, jump to a frame belonging to an OSS library, and be able to add | ||
| some temporary logging code. And then hit the "Run" hotkey to have the IDE | ||
| incrementally compile and relink everything, for a short and sweet feedback | ||
| loop. | ||
|
|
||
| At the time, Frida's non-Windows build system was autotools. We later moved to | ||
| Meson. Although Meson has a backend for MSVS, meaning we could have it generate | ||
| MSVS project files for us, there was one issue blocking us from doing that. | ||
| Unlike MSVS, where you can mix projects targeting different machines in the same | ||
| "solution" (workspace), Meson only supports compiling for one machine at a time, | ||
| in addition to the build machine. Due to how Frida supports injecting code into | ||
| e.g. both 32- and 64-bit targets on Windows, we would introduce a usability | ||
| regression if we were to remove our MSVS build system. So because of this I | ||
| hesitated to drop the MSVS build system. | ||
|
|
||
| We also had the same challenge on non-Windows. I ended up solving it by writing | ||
| a Makefile that invokes Meson for each architecture, to glue it all together. | ||
| While this did work, I never got it to the point where incremental builds would | ||
| also work reliably. However, late March this year I finally settled on a way to | ||
| solve this locally in frida-core -- the only component where we need this kind | ||
| of multi-arch madness. By recursively invoking Meson from a custom_target() we | ||
| can build the needed components for the other architectures. | ||
|
|
||
| This took a lot of work to get working right, but once there it made things so | ||
| much more pleasant to work with in the rest of the stack. The *frida* repo's | ||
| Makefiles and shell-scripts could be dropped and replaced with Meson. The CI | ||
| became simpler and more uniform. Anyone can just clone the frida-core repo and | ||
| run *make*, and the resulting binaries would support cross-arch. (Unless | ||
| explicitly disabled through --disable-compat / -Dfrida-core:compat=disabled.) | ||
|
|
||
| Now you might be wondering why we're still running *make*, if we're now only | ||
| using Meson. I ended up writing a thin wrapper around Meson that automates the | ||
| downloading of prebuilt dependencies, choosing sensible linker flags for smaller | ||
| binaries, etc. The new *configure* and *Makefile* files in each repo take care | ||
| of invoking releng/meson_configure.py and releng/meson_make.py, which constitute | ||
| the thin wrapper around Meson. The *releng* directory is a submodule, shared by | ||
| Frida's repos. The other thing done before invoking the wrapper, is to also make | ||
| sure the releng submodule has been initialized and updated. | ||
|
|
||
| ### Maintenance | ||
|
|
||
| Before this release we were maintaining seven different build systems: | ||
|
|
||
| 1. Meson (main components, on non-Windows) | ||
| 2. Visual Studio (main components, on Windows) | ||
| 3. GNU Make (main components meta build system, on non-Windows) | ||
| 4. setuptools (Python bindings) | ||
| 5. GYP (Node.js bindings) | ||
| 6. Xcode (Swift bindings) | ||
| 7. QMake (QML bindings) | ||
|
|
||
| As of this release, I am excited to announce that we are down to just one build | ||
| system: Meson. | ||
|
|
||
| The main pain point with the previous situation was having to deal with both 1) | ||
| and 2), since they were involved in all of the main components. This meant that | ||
| something as simple as adding a source file would require knowledge of two | ||
| different build systems. Not only that, but contributors on Linux for example, | ||
| would typically have a hard time testing their Visual Studio build system | ||
| changes. | ||
|
|
||
| Another aspect was that developers would be less inclined to refactor their code | ||
| if something as simple as adding a new file involves dealing with two build | ||
| systems. The long-term consequence of this was that it fostered bad habits. | ||
| “Hmm, I should split this out into a separate file, but uhh… no, that's too | ||
| painful, I'm gonna add that code here for now.” | ||
|
|
||
| As for the remaining build systems, only used in bindings, it may not seem that | ||
| bad to maintain those -- they're typically familiar to the folks touching that | ||
| code anyway. The challenge there was the lack of pkg-config integration in all | ||
| but one of them (QMake). This meant that include paths, library paths, and | ||
| libraries to link with would end up being duplicated in multiple places. This is | ||
| particularly gnarly when linking with a static library that uses other libraries | ||
| internally, which is how our language bindings typically consume frida-core. | ||
|
|
||
| ## New Features | ||
|
|
||
| Quite a few new things to be excited about in this release: | ||
|
|
||
| - gumjs: Add Process.runOnThread(), to make it easy to run arbitrary code on a | ||
| specific thread. Must be used with care to avoid deadlocks/reentrancy issues. | ||
| - gumjs: Add *limit* option to Thread.backtrace(). Thanks [@davinci-tech][]! | ||
| - gumjs: Expand CModule glib.h with alternatives to deprecated APIs. | ||
| - stalker: Add StalkerIterator.put_chaining_return(). Thanks [@s1341][]! | ||
| - stalker: Add run_on_thread() and run_on_thread_sync(). | ||
| - interceptor: Add support for shadow stacks on x86. Thanks [@yjugl][]! | ||
| - cpu-features: Add CET_SS flag and detection logic. Thanks [@yjugl][]! | ||
| - x86-writer: Add cpu_features field. Thanks [@yjugl][]! | ||
| - spinlock: Add try_acquire(). Thanks [@mrmacete][]! | ||
| - cloak: Add with_lock_held() and is_locked(). Thanks [@mrmacete][]! | ||
| - interceptor: Add with_lock_held() and is_locked(). Thanks [@mrmacete][]! | ||
| - darwin: Hint at macOS boot arguments when helper crashes. | ||
| - java: Support instantiating classes without constructors. Thanks | ||
| [@AeonLucid][]! | ||
| - java: Add support for arrays of array. Thanks [@histausse][]! | ||
| - python: Make the source distribution buildable fully from source, instead of | ||
| only supporting building using a devkit. | ||
| - python: Drop the MSVS build system. | ||
| - node: Add Meson build system, drop prebuild and node-gyp bits. | ||
| - node: Support building fully from source when a prebuilt can't be found. | ||
| - clr: Add Meson build system, drop the MSVS build system. | ||
| - qml: Add Meson build system, drop the qmake build system. | ||
| - qml: Add support for Qt 6. Thanks [@zaxo7][]! | ||
| - qml: Drop support for Qt 5. | ||
|
|
||
| ## Bugfixes | ||
|
|
||
| Last but not least, we're also bringing you a long list of quality improvements: | ||
|
|
||
| - gumjs: Preserve thread's system error over NativeCallback invocations. Thanks | ||
| [@HexKitchen][]! | ||
| - gumjs: Always expose thread's system error to NativeCallback. | ||
| - gumjs: Plug leak of Stalker instance. | ||
| - stalker: Fix block events disrupting exclusive access on arm64. Thanks | ||
| [@saicao][]! | ||
| - memory: Fix patch_code() protection flipping on RWX systems. | ||
| - swift-api-resolver: Fix handling of indirect type entries. | ||
| - swift: Work around Module.load() issue on iOS Simulator. Thanks [@zydeco][]! | ||
| - base: Fix racy crash in custom GSource implementations. | ||
| - base: Fix the p2p AgentSession registration logic. | ||
| - buffer: Fix the read_string() size logic. Thanks [@hsorbo][]! | ||
| - linux: Fix early instrumentation on certain 32-bit systems. | ||
| - linux: Fix inject_library_blob() on modern Android. | ||
| - linux: Fix unreliable exec transition logic. | ||
| - linux: Fix unreliable injection when libc is absent. | ||
| - agent: Fix hang in child-gating fork() scenarios. Reproducible in situations | ||
| where pidfd_getfd() is available but not permitted, such as inside Docker | ||
| containers. | ||
| - windows: Use RW/RX permissions for injection. This makes Frida injection | ||
| compatible with more software. In particular, Mozilla Firefox rejects thread | ||
| startup if the start address is RWX. Thanks [@yjugl][]! | ||
| - darwin: Massage libunwind around Frida hooks, to avoid breaking code making | ||
| use of exceptions, such as through @try/@catch in Objective-C. Thanks | ||
| [@mrmacete][]! | ||
| - darwin: Take Interceptor and Cloak locks in ThreadSuspendMonitor, to extend | ||
| its scope to prevent deadlock scenarios where threads holding the Cloak or | ||
| Interceptor lock get suspended. Thanks [@mrmacete][]! | ||
| - darwin: Fix racy teardown of InjectInstance dispatch source. | ||
| - darwin: Fix racy teardown of SpawnInstance dispatch source. | ||
| - android: Fix child-gating of execl() and friends. | ||
| - compiler: Bump @types/frida-gum. Thanks [@s1341][]! | ||
| - modulate: Gracefully handle missing symbols. Thanks [@hsorbo][]! | ||
| - python: Move _frida package inside the frida package. | ||
|
|
||
| ## EOF | ||
|
|
||
| And that pretty much sums it up. Enjoy! | ||
|
|
||
|
|
||
| [here]: https://github.com/frida/releng?tab=readme-ov-file#setting-up-a-new-project | ||
| [@davinci-tech]: https://github.com/davinci-tech | ||
| [@s1341]: https://github.com/s1341 | ||
| [@yjugl]: https://github.com/yjugl | ||
| [@mrmacete]: https://twitter.com/bezjaje | ||
| [@AeonLucid]: https://twitter.com/AeonLucid | ||
| [@histausse]: https://github.com/histausse | ||
| [@zaxo7]: https://github.com/zaxo7 | ||
| [@HexKitchen]: https://github.com/HexKitchen | ||
| [@saicao]: https://github.com/saicao | ||
| [@zydeco]: https://github.com/zydeco | ||
| [@hsorbo]: https://twitter.com/hsorbo |