Description
Version and Platform (required):
- Binary Ninja Version: 5.1.7363-dev (acd6c39c)
- OS: macOS 15.4.1
- CPU Architecture: arm64
Bug Description:
There is currently no good way for a plug-in to add function activities to run in all Mach-O binaries (without Objective-C, with Objective-C, or that are loaded from the shared cache).
The core.function.objectiveC and core.function.sharedCache workflows both clone from core.function.baseAnalysis so they do not pick up any modifications a plug-in may make to core.function.metaAnalysis.
Additional Information:
There was some discussion on Slack about this. It sounds like the Objective-C and shared cache plug-ins could themselves modify core.function.metaAnalysis and make use of view type predicates to ensure their activities run only in their views.
Alternatively the workflows could instead clone core.function.metaAnalysis. It seems like there'd be an ordering issue there? That is, plug-ins would somehow need to ensure they're loaded and have modified core.function.metaAnalysis prior to the Objective-C or shared cache plug-ins creating their clones. I'm not sure there's any way to ensure that happens.
For now I work around this by explicitly registering activities in all three workflows. This requires that plug-ins declare an optional dependency on the workflow_objc and sharedcache plug-ins so that they are loaded and create their workflows before my plug-in is initialized.
Sadly registering the activity multiple times while using automatic eligibility results in some log spew about the setting name:
[Default error] Setting: bdash.arm64e-pac already registered!
[Default error] Setting: bdash.arm64e-pac already registered!