lief-project/LIEF: LIEF - Library to Instrument Executable Formats

The purpose of this project is to provide a cross platform library which can parse, modify and abstract ELF, PE and MachO formats.

Main features:

Parsing: LIEF can parse ELF, PE, MachO, OAT, DEX, VDEX, ART and provides an user-friendly API to access to format internals.
Modify: LIEF enables to modify some parts of these formats
Abstract: Three formats have common features like sections, symbols, entry point... LIEF factors them.
API: LIEF can be used in C, C++ and Python

Downloads / Install

First, make sure to have an updated version of setuptools:

pip install setuptools --upgrade

To install the latest version (release):

To install nightlty build:

pip install [--user] --index-url  https://lief-project.github.io/packages lief

Packages

Linux	Windows - x86	Windows - x86-64	OSX

SDK	SDK	SDK	SDK
Python

Linux	Windows	OSX	Documentation

SDK	SDK - x86 SDK - x86-64	SDK	Sphinx + Doxygen
Python

Here are guides to install or integrate LIEF:

Getting started

Python

import lief

# ELF
binary = lief.parse("/usr/bin/ls")
print(binary)

# PE
binary = lief.parse("C:\\Windows\\explorer.exe")
print(binary)

# Mach-O
binary = lief.parse("/usr/bin/ls")
print(binary)

C++

#include <LIEF/LIEF.hpp>

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  // ELF
  try {
    std::unique_ptr<LIEF::ELF::Binary> elf = LIEF::ELF::Parser::parse("/bin/ls");
    std::cout << *elf << std::endl;
  } catch (const LIEF::exception& err) {
    std::cerr << err.what() << std::endl;
  }

  // PE
  try {
    std::unique_ptr<LIEF::PE::Binary> pe = LIEF::PE::Parser::parse("C:\\Windows\\explorer.exe");
    std::cout << *pe << std::endl;
  } catch (const LIEF::exception& err) {
    std::cerr << err.what() << std::endl;
  }

  // Mach-O
  try {
    std::unique_ptr<LIEF::MachO::FatBinary> macho = LIEF::MachO::Parser::parse("/bin/ls");
    std::cout << *macho << std::endl;
  } catch (const LIEF::exception& err) {
    std::cerr << err.what() << std::endl;
  }

  return 0;
}

C (Limited API)

#include <LIEF/LIEF.h>

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  Elf_Binary_t* elf = elf_parse("/usr/bin/ls");

  Elf_Section_t** sections = elf->sections;

  for (size_t i = 0; sections[i] != NULL; ++i) {
    printf("%s\n", sections[i]->name);
  }

  elf_binary_destroy(elf);
  return 0;
}

Documentation

Contact

Mail: lief at quarkslab com
Gitter: lief-project

About

Authors

Romain Thomas (@rh0main) - Quarkslab

License

LIEF is provided under the Apache 2.0 license.

Bibtex

@MISC {LIEF,
  author       = "Romain Thomas",
  title        = "LIEF - Library to Instrument Executable Formats",
  howpublished = "https://lief.quarkslab.com/",
  month        = "April",
  year         = "2017",
}