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1 changed files with 84 additions and 5 deletions
89
README.md
89
README.md
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@ -1,13 +1,17 @@
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# Simple dd-like image writer with additional security checks.
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# WriteIMG Image Writer
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This tool verifies your image automatically. The block size is currently set to
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1 MiB, which should be enough to avoid trouble.
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WriteIMG is a simple dd-like image writer with additional security checks for
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Linux and soon FreeBSD. It tells you what you're about to do and warns you
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about potential problems before they occur. It also features automatic image
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verifications, and uses a suitable block size for fast and gentle writing.
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Say goodbye to fried flash and overwritten bootloaders, no more footguns!
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```
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writeimg v0.2.0, Rev. 5323932-dirty
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WriteIMG v0.2.3, Rev. d02fc5f
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In honor of SwePwnage - the OG disk destroyer
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Copyright (C) 2026 Imbus, BSD-2-Clause
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Build date: 2026-02-07
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Build date: 2026-02-21
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Usage:
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writeimg [-v] -d <device> <file.img>
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@ -21,8 +25,14 @@ Args:
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-V, --version Print version
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```
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We also provide a manpage, which targets OpenBSD-level quality. Incorrect or
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outdated information is a bug.
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## Testing
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For testing, there is a shell script "test.sh" included. It sets up a block dev
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and writes (and verifies) a bunch of nonsense to it. It boils down to:
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```
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dd if=/dev/zero of=./disk.img bs=1M count=1024
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losetup -fP ./disk.img
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@ -30,6 +40,75 @@ losetup -a
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losedup -d /dev/loop0
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```
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Writes to a regular files is not currently in scope, although it would simplify
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testing.
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## Design Considerations
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Most of the sanity checking is currently highly Linux specific. We should
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prefer general/posix solutions that reach **at least** FreeBSD, preferably
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OpenBSD and Solaris as well. FreeBSD did implement procfs, but its a Linux-ism
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and it has since been deprecated. I would prefer not to turn this rather simple
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code into macro-mozaic, as i've seen other similar projects do. After all, this
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is just a juiced-up dd-rewrite at its core.
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**Apple products are unsupported.** Im simply not interested in ensuring
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compatibility with a walled-garden ecosystem. If *you* are, we can change that.
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At the time of writing, my FreeBSD server is down for maintenance, which means
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all of my development and testing is focused on AMD64, AArch64 and AArch32
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Linux.
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In the setup phase of the program, we can absolutely afford to do lots of
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sanity checking via syscalls. Between each block write, we flush the disk
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buffers. These flushes are larger (1 MiB when buffer is full) than the sector
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size (often 4k or 64k) of the flash, so as far as i know, this is a gentle way
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to write flash, and should not incur any significant performance overhead. 1
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MiB is also a multiple of the most common sector sizes. We could write it all
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with no flushing, but that would mean the progress indicator will measure
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buffered writes, which is useless.
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It should be possible to induce optimal block size, but this ide has not been
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explored yet.
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Currently when verifying the written data, we read from both the input file and
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the output block device and do a byte-by-byte comparison. A CRC32 is also
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calculated in the first pass of the input file read. In the second pass (the
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verification stage), we calculate the CRC32 of the block device data and
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compare that to our previous result. **This means that we currently use two
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separate methods of verification**. The program allocates **two** separate
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buffers in the startup phase for comparisons. This will change in the coming
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releases, and we will rely only on the CRC.
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De-allocation is handled in the interrupt vector as well as in the 'sad-paths',
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but ultimately this program can be regarded as samurai-principled. We try to
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handle deallocation, but exit on failure and let the kernel handle the rest.
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The use of a crypto-grade checksumming algorithm was considered, but was
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ultimately rejected in favour of a lookup based CRC32. Its simpler, faster and
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easier to understand (See: [crc32.h](./crc32.h)). We may include a compile-time
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option to disable the lookup table to reduce size for really small targets, but
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we speculate that those targets are already satisfied with busybox-dd.
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We also considered using libudev or any of its analogues, to determine the type
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of block device (spinning or flash), but my somewhat inconclusive research
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indicates that it does not include functionality to determine the medium type
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(usb/sd/sata), which is ultimately what i would like to warn the user about.
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The libudev library is also Linux specific.
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We also need completion scripts for the most common shells. This includes csh,
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bash and zsh. Should be easy enough when we set our minds to it.
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See:
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- `grep -nE 'BLK[A-Za-z0-9]+' /usr/include/linux/fs.h`
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In particular, we're interested in BLKGETSIZE64 and BLKFLSBUF for now.
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We can read the device info from:
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- /sys/class/block/[name]/*
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Like:
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- /sys/class/block/[name]/device/model
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- /sys/class/block/[name]/size
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## Inspiration
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See:
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