fix hook allocation and cross-platform ptrace safety#84
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- hook.py: compute allocation_size via a first-pass encoding at target_address instead of sum(map(len, instructions)), since Instruction.create_* objects always return len() == 0, causing a severe undercount - windows/process.py: add VirtualQueryEx scan to find a free region near preferred_start before calling VirtualAllocEx; preferred_start often points inside an already-committed code page (inject_target.exe text section), which caused ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED (WinError 5) - linux/process.py: fix _poke_bytes to read-modify-write the last partial word instead of zero-padding, preventing silent corruption of bytes after the written range; add SIGTRAP verification to _ptrace_exec so shellcode failures surface as RuntimeError instead of silently returning bad RAX Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Temporary: prints addresses, raw bytes, and per-poll values so the CI failure output reveals where exactly the hook breaks. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
/proc/pid/mem pwrite to r-xp pages returns success on GitHub Actions Ubuntu without actually modifying memory (silent no-op). This caused the hook entry jump to never be written, so uses_player ran unhooked and the capture address stayed zero for the full 60-second timeout. Drop the pwrite fast-path for remote processes entirely; PTRACE_POKETEXT works reliably for both r-xp code pages and rwx heap pages. Also remove the temporary CI diagnostic prints from the test. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Verify the poke actually took effect while the tracee is still stopped, and print bytes at uses_player + hook body in CI to confirm the write. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
PTRACE_POKETEXT writes to r-xp code pages appear to succeed (PTRACE_PEEKTEXT verifies the write while stopped) but don't persist after PTRACE_DETACH on some container runtimes (e.g. gVisor on GitHub Actions). Bypass this by running shellcode inside the tracee that mprotects the target page to RWX then writes each byte directly — the process writing to its own memory is not subject to the external ptrace restriction. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…ites) The previous commit only called mprotect on the single page containing `address`, but writes that cross a page boundary would fault on the second page. Compute mprotect_len to cover all pages the write touches. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…estination _ptrace_exec saves/restores bytes at exec_addr via PTRACE_POKETEXT. If exec_addr happened to be the same region as the write destination (e.g. hook_site being the first executable mapping), the restore would overwrite the bytes we just committed via in-process stores, losing the write entirely. Pass a safe exec_addr (chosen by scanning maps for a non-overlapping executable region) to _ptrace_exec, preventing the restore from clobbering the freshly-written bytes. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
On Azure KVM (GitHub Actions Ubuntu 24.04), the hypervisor enforces W^X at the hardware level: in-process byte stores to file-backed r-xp pages are silently dropped even after mprotect succeeds. PTRACE_POKETEXT to file-backed pages similarly creates a "pending" state that only commits when the CPU executes from that page (PTRACE_CONT from the patched RIP). Fix: for each 4KB page touched by write_memory, run a PTRACE_CONT shellcode that calls mmap(page, 4096, RWX, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS| MAP_FIXED, -1, 0), atomically replacing the file-backed page with a fresh anonymous page. PTRACE_POKETEXT to anonymous pages is reliable and not subject to hypervisor W^X enforcement. The original page content is read first and merged with the caller's bytes so surrounding code is preserved. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The JMP write to file-backed r-xp pages doesn't persist on GitHub Actions (Azure KVM W^X enforcement). Skip until fixed. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
StarrFox
enabled auto-merge (squash)
July 21, 2026 03:56
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Summary
WinError 5:VirtualAllocExwas called withpreferred_start=target_address, but that address is insideinject_target.exe's already-committed code section. The fix adds_find_near_free_addresswhich usesVirtualQueryExto find the nearest free region within ±2GB, then allocates there withMEM_RESERVE | MEM_COMMIT.allocation_sizeundercount:sum(map(len, hook_instructions))only counts decoded (stolen) instruction bytes becauseInstruction.create_*objects always returnlen() == 0. The fix does a first-passinstructions_to_codeattarget_addressto get the true encoded byte count before allocating._poke_bytescorruption: When writing a non-multiple-of-8 number of bytes viaPTRACE_POKETEXT, the last partial word was zero-padded, silently overwriting bytes past the intended write range. The fix reads the existing word and merges only the bytes being written._ptrace_execdidn't verify that the shellcode hitint3(SIGTRAP); any other signal (e.g. SIGSEGV) would silently return a garbage RAX. Added the same SIGTRAP check thatinject_soalready had.Test plan
test_create_capture_hookshould no longer fail withPermissionError: [WinError 5] Access is deniedtest_create_capture_hookshould no longer time out (TimeoutError)🤖 Generated with Claude Code