Move functionality from plugins to a BinDiff server process
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100
- Issue type
- Feature
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Activity status
- Stale
Research direction
Start by mapping the functionality currently duplicated across the disassembler plugins and standalone UI, then examine how BinExport data and flow graphs are handled. Define the gRPC server boundary and an incremental adoption path for the UI and plugins; done means clients can request diffs and flow graphs while BinExport data remains loaded in the server process.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
- Diffing multiple times with the same primary from a disassembler is inefficient, as the export process needs to repeated each time
- The IDA Pro plugin has a lot of functionality that has to be rewritten for each disassembler with few opportunities to share code (also C++ vs. Java in Ghidra)
- The standalone UI also reimplements a lot of functionality of the IDA plugin, leading to subtle differences.
Describe the solution you'd like
Implement a local BinDiff RPC server using gRPC that get started on demand (similar to how Gradle/Bazel start build processes). The UI and other plugins can then start diffs (and the .BinExport will stay loaded in memory) and request flow graphs for view. This would help with implementing #16 as well. It would also enable BinDiff-as-a-service style deployments.
The plugins would become simpler and could be implemented in the repective disassembler's favoured scripting language (Python and PyQt for IDA Pro and Binary Ninja, Java Swing for Ghidra).
Describe alternatives you've considered
N/A
Additional context
It should be possible to implement this and adopt it gradually.
- Dominant language
- Java
- Stars
- 3.2k
- Forks
- 243
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Getting set up
- No Dockerfile or Docker Compose file
- No pull request template
- Read the contributing guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
More from google/bindiff
-
Similarity score is capped at 0.65 for binaries with no flow graph edgesPossibly taken @zunnurawan claimed this 20 days ago. Openbug
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 78/100
-
question
Difficulty 3/5 1-2 days Newbie friendliness 42/100
-
Difficulty 4/5 3-5 days Newbie friendliness 35/100
-
Difficulty 1/5 Under an hour Newbie friendliness 55/100
-
Difficulty 5/5 Over a week Newbie friendliness 15/100
Similar issues
-
bug status: needs triage
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 66/100
LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair#7360 · 1 comment ·
Maintainers usually reply within 1 day
-
Temporal transforms put pre-epoch timestamps at `.999999` into the previous unitPossibly taken A pull request linked to this issue is open or already merged. Open
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 76/100
apache/iceberg#18371 · 1 comment ·
Maintainers usually reply within 1 day
-
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 80/100
objectionary/hone-maven-plugin#1297 ·
Maintainers usually reply within 1 day
-
bug documentation iam
Difficulty 1/5 Under an hour Newbie friendliness 90/100
Maintainers usually reply within 1 day
-
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 82/100
objectionary/lints#1541 ·
Maintainers usually reply within 1 day