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uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

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artart78
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:04 pm

uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by artart78 »

Dear PSP developers, we need you!
For the most ambitious project ever on PSP: a full reverse engineering of the official PSP firmware!
That's it, we already have our own server, thanks to npt: http://uofw.psnpt.com/

The registration to the website is protected, and I have to accept new members. That's it, to be added to the website as a developer, you'll have to send me an email at (email not useful anymore - check below) containing at least a partial reverse engineering. Just check the modules that nobody picked up on the website, reverse engineer one of them at least partially and send your code to me. Otherwise, your account will not be accepted.
Anyway, the website is opened read-only, so you can check what's already done (audio.prx, init.prx, interruptman.prx, loadexec.prx, ...) and make yourself an opinion about the project. :)

There are also two side-projects: a SDK (user and kernel) documentation generated by Doxygen at http://uofw.psnpt.com/sdkdoc/ (highly uncomplete for now because of lazyness) and a full PSP documentation at http://uofw.psnpt.com/wiki/ that will be based on current documentations, and what we can find by reverse engineering the firmware.

Its objectives are:
- to better understand the PSP hardware (yes, we are very curious!)
- to better understand how the PSP firmware works
- to have an entirely open-source firmware
- to maybe have an entirely new firmware, not based on the official one but only on the documentations we could create from it.

Have fun guys! Don't hesitate to talk about this project to whoever you know that could contribute, or to post on other forums! :)

---
Recent updates: Now everything is stored on http://github.com/uofw : the three related projects (uOFW code / installer / full documentation project), and the Doxygen documentation at http://uofw.github.io/uofw . So now, you are free to send a pull request on these repositories whenever you want.
We also have a new common email address for our team: uofwteam@gmail.com .
Read Felix's posts throughout the topic for more information.
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Last edited by artart78 on Sat Apr 20, 2013 12:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
m0skit0
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Posts: 3817
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2010 6:01 pm

Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by m0skit0 »

Great but allow me a remark: why another new project for this? Why not just collaborate into Utopia Project? What's the meaning of having two different projects for the same thing? :roll:
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artart78
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:04 pm

Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by artart78 »

m0skit0 wrote:Great but allow me a remark: why another new project for this? Why not just collaborate into Utopia Project? What's the meaning of having two different projects for the same thing? :roll:
Because:
- Utopia is a dead project since a long time
- Utopia didn't have its own website
- Utopia is based on outdated firmware versions, and we want to RE the latest version. ;)
But of course, we like the Utopia project. I even use it sometimes when I want to check data structures, in example. :)
Also, documentations and non-kernel modules weren't planned in Utopia, whereas we're planning that (ok, maybe not the vsh modules for now). ;)
FrEdDy
HBL Collaborator
Posts: 243
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:08 pm
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Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by FrEdDy »

artart78 wrote:
m0skit0 wrote:Great but allow me a remark: why another new project for this? Why not just collaborate into Utopia Project? What's the meaning of having two different projects for the same thing? :roll:
Because:
- Utopia is a dead project since a long time
- Utopia didn't have its own website
- Utopia is based on outdated firmware versions, and we want to RE the latest version. ;)
But of course, we like the Utopia project. I even use it sometimes when I want to check data structures, in example. :)
Also, documentations and non-kernel modules weren't planned in Utopia, whereas we're planning that (ok, maybe not the vsh modules for now). ;)
- a lot of support could bring it to life again
- does that even count? Anyways, http://svn.lan.st/utopia/
- look point 1.
https://github.com/freddy-156
<@n00b81> FREDDY CUTTIES
m0skit0
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Posts: 3817
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2010 6:01 pm

Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by m0skit0 »

artart78 wrote:- Utopia is a dead project since a long time
Just revive it. Not a valid reason for starting over from zero.
artart78 wrote:- Utopia didn't have its own website
This is actually a point? :roll:
artart78 wrote:- Utopia is based on outdated firmware versions, and we want to RE the latest version. ;)
Older FW might not differ too much, and having old versions you just have to update them and not RE from nothing, which is pretty time consuming.
artart78 wrote:But of course, we like the Utopia project. I even use it sometimes when I want to check data structures, in example. :)
Well if you do, you're actually basing on Utopia project, so why don't just contribute to it? A lot of people already put effort on that.
artart78 wrote:Also, documentations and non-kernel modules weren't planned in Utopia, whereas we're planning that
That's just a new feature. I still see no valid arguments for starting a whole new project.

I might be interested to honey my RE skills helping you, but only if you're going to base it on Utopia, because you simply didn't convince me to start from nothing ;)

Anyway, whatever you choose, good luck! ;)
I wanna lots of mov al,0xb
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"just not into this RA stuffz"
artart78
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:04 pm

Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by artart78 »

FrEdDy wrote:
artart78 wrote:
m0skit0 wrote:Great but allow me a remark: why another new project for this? Why not just collaborate into Utopia Project? What's the meaning of having two different projects for the same thing? :roll:
Because:
- Utopia is a dead project since a long time
- Utopia didn't have its own website
- Utopia is based on outdated firmware versions, and we want to RE the latest version. ;)
But of course, we like the Utopia project. I even use it sometimes when I want to check data structures, in example. :)
Also, documentations and non-kernel modules weren't planned in Utopia, whereas we're planning that (ok, maybe not the vsh modules for now). ;)
- a lot of support could bring it to life again
- does that even count? Anyways, http://svn.lan.st/utopia/
- look point 1.
Yes, sure, but is it easy to give a lot of support to a project that we're not the admin of? Also, this Utopia's SVN was down for a while, because Mathieulh was afraid of Sony (while geohot had legal issues with Sony). I didn't even know it was back up.
m0skit0 wrote:I might be interested to honey my RE skills helping you, but only if you're going to base it on Utopia, because you simply didn't convince me to start from nothing ;)

Anyway, whatever you choose, good luck! ;)
Does that really make a difference to continue Utopia or not? Actually, I didn't base my work on Utopia's code, because I find restarting from scratch way easier than updating modules that changed a lot. ;) I already tried updating my own RE'ing for the latest firmware updates, and it was heck, so I really didn't think I could update source code from Utopia, that sometimes wasn't even 100% complete (in example, check interruptman's REing from Utopia...).
So, since there wasn't the old Utopia devs, and since I thought restarting from scratch would be easier than updating Utopia's source code, I thought it was a better idea to restart a whole project.
So, really, if you want to update an old Utopia source, just do it, I see absolutely no problem with that. ;)

Thank you for your support, I hope you'll join us! :D
NightStar3
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Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by NightStar3 »

Davee and I were discussing about this some time ago and here's what we decided.

uOFW will be a complete reverse of Sony's official firmware
We will then use the knowledge gained from uOFW to write our own custom kernel
drivers, for Utopia.

Fair enough?
m0skit0
Guru
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Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2010 6:01 pm

Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by m0skit0 »

That sounds way better. I'll try to contact you guys so we can organize (that if I find time besides work, Android programming, Trackmania, Arma 2, rehearsals and girls (in order of importance)).
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npt
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Posts: 154
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Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by npt »

NightStar3 wrote:Davee and I were discussing about this some time ago and here's what we decided.

uOFW will be a complete reverse of Sony's official firmware
We will then use the knowledge gained from uOFW to write our own custom kernel
drivers, for Utopia.

Fair enough?
I've had discussions on this with artart78, Davee, Nightstar3, some1, and a whole lot people who have the knowledge that is needed here; to any of the people that this was discussed with and have not joined in yet, please do, this project will need all the help it can get. To any of the people I discussed it with whom I didn't mention, I was just pointing out it's been discussed with a lot of people. There are a lot of opinions, and frankly I would LOVE to hear any and all opinions, perhaps in this thread, or if there is a location on the forum just clue me in.

Regarding "Why not continue Utopia?" I will defer a bit to artart78 on this one; as simply put I have way too much going on to admin a project like this. I just don't have the time with my job, official PSP coding, Linux, PSP scene + PS3 scene, and of course the upcoming PS Vita scene... (not in any particular order other than work being #1 and official PSP stuff being #2, the rest are murky waters ie a mixture of) I understand artart78's point and m0skito's. So, artart78 and I were talking and it was decided that getting a nice server that we control, so that artart78 (who will be the guy admin'ing all the services related to uOFW on the site, the box will have other subdomains for other projects...) will have direct control over everything, would plain and simply be easier. As to Utopia and how much can or should be re-used here, that is one of the things that I believe should be open to discussion in this thread. Obviously, the more we can all talk and get on the same (hopefully somewhat realistic regarding finishing this) page, the more will come from this, and the sooner we will see more actual *results* from this, even if it isn't compelete and could take a long while. All that I ask is that everyone listen to each other, be respectful of others opionions, and I think we can accomplish something here.

No matter what your opinions on the subject of starting fresh, continuing utopia, etc - please let us know your thoughts and if you have RE'ing skills please do submit a sample to artart78 as we want to get as many people who have the knowledge working on this as possible. We really could see an open source kernel that is based off of current fw RE, and I dream of a *fully* open source fw - just imagine a fully implemented fw with drivers for everything, it makes me smile just thinking of the possibilities here.

Kind Regards to all in the PSP Scene!

npt

p.s. http://psnpt.com is probably still pointing to http://uofw.psnpt.com atm, as the design for the front of http://psnpt.com is not totally done yet, and we wanted to get things going on uOFW ASAP...

:)
AM new i guess
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Re: uOFW: a complete official firmware reverse engineering

Post by AM new i guess »

what is utopia?
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