activescott
poc: Try to extract an embedded .msi file
This Proof of Concept code tries to find a .msi file embedded inside an .exe, if the .exe cannot be loaded directly as msi.
This allows to inspect the .msi file from the VMware tools setup.
It is a quick & dirty implementation.
Is this something you would be interested in moving forward? If so, please suggest changes you'd like to see.
- [ ] tests - add a e2e test (we have a precedent, but feel free to ask if you want a pointer)
For the tests, can I just drop in the vmware setup or do I have to figure out the license for that? (it is about 30 MB) I managed to use wix3 to build an exe, but that has yet another format. (It seems that a .cab file is appended)
- [ ] ideally this would be in the core dll and could somehow work with the CLI and the windows GUI. If you want to keep this smaller, I'd just say move the core detection and extraction logic into the core dll and call it from the GUI - and create an issue to follow up on for you or someone else later to add it to CLI.
Sure, I'll take a look at that
- [ ] What if there are multiple MSIs in an exe? Is that even a thing? I'm fine to ignore it too, just curious if you thought about it or know about it.
~No clue, skimming over the documentation this seems supported but I have no idea how this all would be packaged.~ I created a test .exe with 2 msi files embedded using wix3, and that adds a .cab file inside the exe instead of the raw MSI file. Considering this is a completely new path, and results in potentially having to unpack multiple msi files, that needs an api-redesign. It doesn't seem that the current ui can handle opening multiple msi files, so let's postpone that for now.
In general I'm super supportive! 💪 :shipit: I left a couple minor comments on the details. A couple other things I think need considered:
- [ ] tests - add a e2e test (we have a precedent, but feel free to ask if you want a pointer)
- [ ] ideally this would be in the core dll and could somehow work with the CLI and the windows GUI. If you want to keep this smaller, I'd just say move the core detection and extraction logic into the core dll and call it from the GUI - and create an issue to follow up on for you or someone else later to add it to CLI.
- [ ] What if there are multiple MSIs in an exe? Is that even a thing? I'm fine to ignore it too, just curious if you thought about it or know about it.
@activescott I have added a test, I'm unsure if this is the exact test you were looking for? I moved the extraction logic to the core component, so it can be reused later I did not yet implement it in the CLI, that had multiple places where msi files were loaded, and I couldnt not really thing of a clean way to add it there without modifying them all. It would probably be better to think about an api design first, that could possibly also handle multiple msi files in one 'archive' (cab or exe).
@mega5800 Could you please give this a try and let us know what you think?
Hello @learn-more.
Thank you for this PR. I left some comments about the readability of the presented logic. Please take a look and feel free to apply the ones you find helpful.
Thanks.
Hello @mega5800,
Thanks for the review!
I do believe that all comments should be resolved or answered now,
Thanks.