12 ms·
Fai0verflow: Linux on the PS4 [video]
- hitekker 11y agoExcellent demo. Furthermore, this scene in particular (at the 3 min 45 second mark) really brings home the achievement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A7V3GLWF6U&t=225 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A7V3GLWF6U&t=225
- anthk 11y agoThe emulator? Not particularly difficult, once you have generic drivers for audio and a framebuffer support. Is the same emulator you have on Linux/Windows/OSX PC's . Just recompile and you are welcome.
- hitekker 11y agoThe achievement I was referring to was putting Linux on the PS4 so quickly after the console was jail broken. The emulator itself was a great visual demonstration of "the full linux desktop experience" as opposed to listing "Can emulate video games" as a bullet point.
- xaduha 11y agoI don't have any idea what I'm talking about, but it is mostly PC-like architecture with mostly FreeBSD running on it, right? Nothing really interesting, unlike it was with Cell processor. They are not even subsidizing the hardware anymore, as I understand it, they sell it for about the same it costs to produce.
- jeffcox 11y agoIt's more impressive as a demonstration of owning the platform than getting Linux to run on something odd/unusual. The PS4 was only recently jailbroken.
- TillE 11y agoLooking at some component prices, you could probably assemble a passable gaming PC for under $350, so at $300 for a PS4 it does seem likely that Sony isn't losing money on console sales.
- rdtsc 11y agoWas it is a loss leader when it was released, and now hardware has caught up?
- CrazedGeek 11y agoAccording to one analysis, when it launched, the console cost $381 to manufacture and was being sold for $400: http://press.ihs.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media/sony-nears-breakeven-point-playstation-4-hardware-costs http://press.ihs.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media...
- mmastrac 11y agoThere doesn't appear to be much info about this other than it's a Linux 'kexec-like' from a webkit bug that apparently triggers a kernel exploit. Awesome job!
- virtuallynathan 11y agoSome of this has been covered in other blogs: https://cturt.github.io/ps4.html https://cturt.github.io/ps4.html
- mbilker 11y agoThat blog detailed the WebKit exploit and how they used it to get information about the PS4's base system. The fail0verflow exploit takes it a step further to "kexec" the system into linux where the linux system has direct access to the hardware.
- m00dy 11y agoActually, I was expecting more technical stuff relating to how they jailbreak the system. PoC is also good though.
- balls187 11y ago(from the video) It looked like they found an exploit via whatever app renders the userguide.html Curious if they used a proxy to instead load a "malicious" page resulting in a buffer-overflow.
- guipsp 11y agowebkit, and yes, probably
- SXX 11y agoThey using normal webkit exploit there. Reason why they start it via "userguide.html" it's because in any other case browser on PS4 can only be used when you logged in on PSN. Of course PSN require latest firmware to work while they using device with Firmware 1.76. It's one of Sony measures to force people update firmware.
- Igglyboo 11y agoProbably a webkit exploit. The Wii U was hacked in a similar way.
- SSLy 11y agoOh, same attack vector as for hacking Nintendo 3DS.
- vive-la-liberte 11y agoTypo in title (also present on YouTube). Their name is fail0verflow.
- landr0id 11y ago"Hint: the NOP thing has nothing to do with exploits and everything to do with https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/0e16e4cfde70e1cf00f9fe3a8f601d10e73e0ec6 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/0e16e4cfde70e1cf00f... " https://twitter.com/fail0verflow/status/682283793831587840 https://twitter.com/fail0verflow/status/682283793831587840 So maybe the GPU firmware doesn't support the new packet?
- anthk 11y agoFramebuffer and KMS working. I wonder if the radeon driver could be patched among the Xorg one to get some 3D acceleration support.
- SXX 11y agoConsidering that tweet it's totally possible: https://twitter.com/fail0verflow https://twitter.com/fail0verflow Xorg changes not really required because AMD GPUs work just fine on top of modesetting driver.
- anthk 11y agoAlso , I forgot to say once USB support is completted , a huge array of HW could be attached to the PS4, because these drivers on Linux are cross-platform.
- hnnew 11y agoThis is what pwned sounds like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A7V3GLWF6U&t=76 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A7V3GLWF6U&t=76
- jaimehrubiks 11y agoWould it be possible to achieve the opposite in some way?, I mean, dump the kernel and build it on a pc on top of a compatible hardware? Let me know what you think
- derefr 11y agoAs consoles get more and more powerful and introduce abstractions between the game developer and the hardware (kernels, syscalls, platform runtime libraries), I've figured it would only be a matter of time before we stop trying to emulate the way that console works, and instead begin to virtualize the console by writing API-compatible wrapper libraries. Presuming developers just treat the PS4 as somewhat like we treat PCs: a generic processor that can do "math stuff", and some black-box libraries for {threading, graphics, audio, HID support, networking, ...}, then it becomes far easier to statically recompile a PS4 binary into a native PC binary: just recompile the "math stuff" for your target architecture, and then replace the linkages to libraries provided by the PS4 SDK, to libraries provided by your virtualization wrapper. In other words, basically do the equivalent of what Emscripten does to C programs that expect to use OpenGL: compile the C to asm.js, and compile the calls OpenGL into calls to WebGL.
- vvanders 11y agoTalk to some game devs sometimes, they don't think of it like a PC at all(which is why PC -> console is so hard and not vice versa). I doubt we'll ever see this for titles that extract every ounce of performance out of a platform.
- derefr 11y agoMan, this is the fourth time today that someone's suggested that maybe I should talk to a real game developer about something. I am a game developer. Just not a (modern) console game developer. But I did develop SNES games, way back when! My point was not that this might be possible now; but that, as console CPU+GPU power approaches a certain threshold of "good enough; why would we need more?", console makers will eventually decide to spend some of the console's power not on fancier graphics, but on making development easier and more portable by introducing at least one full black-box abstraction layer above the hardware. When this happens, that layer can then be considered the "source ABI" for transpilation. Now, I haven't played with the XBO or PS4 SDKs, but I have played with the Wii U SDK—and it's exactly what I'm talking about. There's no hardware to think about in the Cafe toolchain—no IO ports to peek and poke, no MSRs to read off. There's just library APIs. It's nearly as abstract as Apple's tvOS SDK.
- ShaggyStardust 11y agoIs this really more interesting than Ian Murdock death?
- nothis 11y agoI have no idea about this stuff, how far towards a jailbreak/softmod is this? Could this exploit be locked out on quasi-everyone's PS4 via a simple PSN Update?
- kevinaloys 11y agoCan someone tell me why it is technically challenging to run Linux on PS4 when PS4 already runs Orbis OS which is a fork from FreeBSD?
- webkike 11y agoWait wait wait, HDD support through USB? Are you serious? Any hardware manufacturers care to explain why this might be the case?
- brynet 11y agoThe HDD is the only user-serviceable part in the PS4, perhaps USB was chosen over PCIe SATA to make theoretical DMA attacks on the system more difficult?
- magila 11y agoSATA doesn't give you direct access to the DMA engine, the host decides where the data from the drive goes. If anything USB is probably more exploitable.
- snuxoll 11y agoWell, the SATA controller has DMA access with the host. Of course, you have to find some way to trick the controller into misbehaving, but it's possible.
- Ezhik 11y agoThat would be funny, considering that the original PS3 Jailbreak exploited bugs in Sony's USB code.
- thezilch 11y agoMaybe because they support attached storage through USB and could reduce complexity by only sourcing, manufactoring, supporting and making solid one bus/controller? What would they possibly gain by supporting ATA devices?
- brynet 11y agoThe video suggests the Blu-Ray drive is attached to an AHCI SATA controller. So maybe there was some other legal or technical reason they needed to isolate it from the internal storage.
- atom_enger 11y agoHackers gonna hack. Every generation of these consoles is a new challenge to all the hackers out there. You've got to think that the engineers who designed these systems eventually get "engineering syndrome" from staring at these systems for years and eventually start to be blind about tiny problems. Corporations put millions and millions of dollars behind the design of these systems and a ragtag group of folks comes in here and owns everything you worked to protect. I guess the only thing these hackers have over Sony is time. More time than money..and a fresh pair of eyes. Is there a future with an open gaming platform like the Steam Machine? Why do developers choose a closed platform like PS4 vs the Steam Machine? What's there to protect that they work so hard to guard it? Beautiful work here. Keep on hacking.
- cryowaffle 11y ago> What's there to protect that they work so hard to guard it? A talking point is that closed systems make piracy harder which makes for a more captive group of buyers. Again, just a talking point, we don't have enough comparable data to study.
- DSMan195276 11y agoSomething to keep in mind is that it's becoming a trend that companies sell the systems at a loss (Notably, I think the only company that doesn't is Nintendo). Especially for the beginning of it's life, this is only practical if it's a closed system - Because if it wasn't, then they're essentially just offering the hardware at a huge discount to people who have no intention of buying any games, and the games is where they're going to make their revenue. I don't know if Sony every actually said anything official, but I remember that being part of the reason why the 'Other OS' feature was removed from the PS3 - Places/People were buying them up and running Linux on them because they were such a good deal for the hardware. I wouldn't want to bet money on my predictions, but I would say that if someone does build a platform like the PS4 that's open and can run Steam, it would cost a lot more for the consumer then the PS4 since it would probably be priced closer to the actual value of the hardware - And that would put off a lot of potential customers. That said, there's an obvious chicken-and-egg problem in getting people to buy the system, and getting developers to develop for it, but having a cheaper system is definitely an advantage (Obviously, already being well-known to both developers and consumers is probably even more important). Regardless, if they had set the price of the PS4 at $1,000, it probably wouldn't be doing so hot right now.
- shmerl 11y ago3D acceleration - WIP :) So will PS4 users who complain that they can't play Witcher 1 & 2, be able to play them on Linux there?-)
- ekianjo 11y agoWitcher 1 is not available for Linux. And good luck running witcher 2 on the super low end APU from AMD with mediocre Amd drivers.
- shmerl 11y ago> Witcher 1 is not available for Linux. It is playable in Wine, so running Linux on PS4 can enable tons of games both native and Wine compatible (the demo even shows an emulated game which isn't native for Linux either). No idea how good 3D acceleration there will be of course.
- ekianjo 11y agoYeah tons of games are running in WINE, but many of them have small bugs there and there (I use WINE all the time). Witcher 1 had some bugs related to the health bar not being visible at some point.
- shmerl 11y ago> Witcher 1 had some bugs related to the health bar not being visible at some point. That was fixed a while ago. The only bug that I still encounter there is this one: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/773623/linux/character-models-are-sometimes-invisible-in-the-witcher-game/post/4494381/#4494381 https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/773623/linux/charac...
- SXX 11y agoAccording to publicly available information PS4 APU is comparable to 7790 and this is how it's can perform on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf0qdt9HZCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf0qdt9HZCQ Also since this test Gallium Nine only become better for running things in Wine.
- joshschreuder 11y agoIs this using the previous firmware Webkit exploit or is it running on the latest firmware? Either way, awesome work!