Execute command line and return command output - linux

Currently, I am using shell command line calls from my fortran program using non-standard SYSTEM intrinsic routine (similar to Fortran 2008 EXECUTE_COMMAND_LINE intrinsic):
CALL SYSTEM(commandStr)
where commandStr is a character string containing the shell command I want to execute. At the moment, I am not aware of a direct way to return the output of commandStr, but only its return status. So, what I am doing now is writing output into a file, and then reading the file from within the Fortran program. Example:
CALL SYSTEM('sed ''s/,//g'' myFile > dummyFile')
if I want to remove commas from myFile. I then use OPEN and READ to get contents of dummyFile.
This works just fine, however I am concerned about writing/reading files from disk, especially if I was doing this within a long loop, and if commandStr output was big. Is there a way to re-direct commandStr output into a memory buffer (not hard disk) which I could access from my Fortran program directly (maybe through a specific UNIT number)?

If this is in a POSIX environment, the library function popen() might also be available.
iunit = popen ('sed ''s/,//g'' myFile', 'r')
Look at the documentation for your Fortran environment since I'm not sure of the semantics for connecting the i/o to Fortran. If it is like the C runtime library, the file connection also needs a special function to close it, pclose().

Related

Returning absolute position when file is appended in Node.js

I am using fs.writeSync(fd, buffer[, options]) to append data to a file via multiple processes, the file handle is instantiated with correct flag for opening the file in append mode.
Question is, the above api returns number of bytes written to file which is good, what i need to understand is at what address(position) they were written to in the file, either start or end will suffice Eg: 10 bytes were written at start address of 123478899 or end address of (123478899+10)
Since it is been written by multiple processes and across different computers (file is actually stored on NAS) there are workarounds but all are complicated and needs synchronisation.
So is something like this is possible?

Write unformatted (binary data) to stdout

I want to write unformatted (binary) data to STDOUT in a Fortran 90 program. I am using AIX Unix and unfortunately it won't let me open unit 6 as "unformatted". I thought I would try and open /dev/stdout instead under a different unit number, but /dev/stdout does not exist in AIX (although this method worked under Linux).
Basically, I want to pipe my programs output directly into another program, thus avoiding having an intermediate file, a bit like gzip -c does. Is there some other way I can achieve this, considering the two problems I have encountered above?
I would try to convert the data by TRANSFER() to a long character and print it with nonadvancing i/o. The problem will be your processors' limit for the record length. If it is too short you will end up having an unexpected end of record sign somewhere. Also your processor may not write the unprintable characters the way you would like.
i.e., something like
character(len=max_length) :: buffer
buffer = transfer(data,buffer)
write(*,'(a)',advance='no') trim(buffer)
The largest problem I see in the unprintable characters. See also A suprise with non-advancing I/O
---EDIT---
Another possibility, try to use file /proc/self/fd/1 or /dev/fd/1
test:
open(11,file='/proc/self/fd/1',access='stream',action='write')
write(11) 11
write(11) 1.1
close(11)
end
This is more of a comment/addition to #VladimirF than a new answer, but I can't add those yet. You can first inquire about the location of the preconnected I/O units and then open the unformatted connection:
character(1024) :: stdout
inquire(6, name = stdout)
open(11, file = stdout, access = 'stream', action = 'write')
This is probably the most convenient way, but it uses stream access, a Fortran 2003 feature. Without this, you can only use sequential access (which adds header data to each record) or direct access (which does not add headers but requires a fixed record length).

"cat" command killed when reading from a Linux device driver

I have an assignment in my Operating Systems class to make a simple pseudo-stack Linux device driver. So for an example, if I was to write "Hello" to the device driver, it would return "olleH" when I read from it. We have to construct a tester program in C to just call upon the read/write functions of the device driver to just demonstrate that it functions in a FILO manner. I have done all of this, and my tester program, in my opinion, demonstrates the purpose of the assignment; however, out of curiosity, inside BASH I execute the following commands:
echo "Test" > /dev/driver
cat /dev/driver
where /dev/driver is the special file I created using "mknod". However, when I do this, I get a black screen full of errors. After I swap back to the GUI view using CNTRL+ALT+F7, I see that BASH has returned "Killed".
Does anyone know what could be causing this to happen? I am confused since my tester program calls open(), read(), and write() with everything functioning as it should.
If I need to show some code, just ask.
The function in your device driver that writes to the buffer you are providing it is most likely causing this issue.
To debug, you can do the following:
First, make sure the read part is fine. You can printk your internal buffer after you read from input to ensure this.
Second, in your write function, printk some information instead of actually writing anything and make sure everything is fine.
Also, make sure the writer makes it clear that the write has ended. I'm not particularly sure about device drivers, but you either need to return 0 as the number of bytes written when called a second time, or set an eof variable (if that is one of the arguments to your function)

Windows console application with gets() ROP exploit

I'm trying (for learning purposes) to take advantage of gets() function vulnerability using return-oriented programming (ROP) technique. The target program is a Windows console application that in some point asks for some input, and then uses gets() to store the input in the local 80 characters long array.
I created a file that contains 80 'a' characters in the beginning + some extra characters + 0x5da06c48 address for overwriting the old EIP pointer.
I'm opening the file in text editor and copy-pasting the content into the console as input. I've used IDA Pro (or OllyDbg) to set a breakpoint right after the return from the gets() function and noticed that the address was corrupted - it was set to 0x3fa03f48 (two 3f substitutions).
I've tried other addresses as well - part of them works well, but most of the times the address is being corrupted (sometimes characters missing or substituted, sometimes truncated).
How to get over this problem? Any suggestion will be highly appreciated!
Copy-Pasting binary data is hit-and-miss. Have you tried feeding the input into your test program directly from the file using input redirection?
First of all keep track of the Endianness of your platform. If you think your bits are in the right order but you are still getting malformed input, it might be that your shell/text editor isn't binary safe. You are better off writing an exploit for this flaw in a scripting language such as Python, using the Subprocess library which allows you to write data directly to an arbitrary process's stdin pipe.

gdb break when program opens specific file

Back story: While running a program under strace I notice that '/dev/urandom' is being open'ed. I would like to know where this call is coming from (it is not part of the program itself, it is part of the system).
So, using gdb, I am trying to break (using catch syscall open) program execution when the open call is issued, so I can see a backtrace. The problem is that open is being called alot, like several hundred times so I can't narrow down the specific call that is opening /dev/urandom. How should I go about narrowing down the specific call? Is there a way to filter by arguments, and if so how do I do it for a syscall?
Any advice would be helpful -- maybe I am going about this all wrong.
GDB is a pretty powerful tool, but has a bit of a learning curve.
Basically, you want to set up a conditional breakpoint.
First use the -i flag to strace or objdump -d to find the address of the open function or more realistically something in the chain of getting there, such as in the plt.
set a breakpoint at that address (if you have debug symbols, you can use those instead, omitting the *, but I'm assuming you don't - though you may well have them for library functions if nothing else.
break * 0x080482c8
Next you need to make it conditional
(Ideally you could compare a string argument to a desired string. I wasn't getting this to work within the first few minutes of trying)
Let's hope we can assume the string is a constant somewhere in the program or one of the libraries it loads. You could look in /proc/pid/maps to get an idea of what is loaded and where, then use grep to verify the string is actually in a file, objdump -s to find it's address, and gdb to verify that you've actually found it in memory by combining the high part of the address from maps with the low part from the file. (EDIT: it's probably easier to use ldd on the executable than look in /proc/pid/maps)
Next you will need to know something about the abi of the platform you are working on, specifically how arguments are passed. I've been working on arm's lately, and that's very nice as the first few arguments just go in registers r0, r1, r2... etc. x86 is a bit less convenient - it seems they go on the stack, ie, *($esp+4), *($esp+8), *($esp+12).
So let's assume we are on an x86, and we want to check that the first argument in esp+4 equals the address we found for the constant we are trying to catch it passing. Only, esp+4 is a pointer to a char pointer. So we need to dereference it for comparison.
cond 1 *(char **)($esp+4)==0x8048514
Then you can type run and hope for the best
If you catch your breakpoint condition, and looking around with info registers and the x command to examine memory seems right, then you can use the return command to percolate back up the call stack until you find something you recognize.
(Adapted from a question edit)
Following Chris's answer, here is the process that eventually got me what I was looking for:
(I am trying to find what functions are calling the open syscall on "/dev/urandom")
use ldd on executable to find loaded libraries
grep through each lib (shell command) looking for 'urandom'
open library file in hex editor and find address of string
find out how parameters are passed in syscalls (for open, file is first parameter. on x86_64 it is passed in rdi -- your mileage may vary
now we can set the conditional breakpoint: break open if $rdi == _addr_
run program and wait for break to hit
run bt to see backtrace
After all this I find that glib's g_random_int() and g_rand_new() use urandom. Gtk+ and ORBit were calling these functions -- if anybody was curious.
Like Andre Puel said:
break open if strcmp($rdi,"/dev/urandom") == 0
Might do the job.

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