Hacking PegaSwitch 3.0, libtransistor, and more

[Daeken]

ReSwitched is proud to announce that a large portion of our development, previously done behind closed doors, is moving to the open. From the beginning, we have strived to be as transparent as is possible; today’s shift follows through on that commitment.

PegaSwitch 3.0 is an extensive exploitation toolkit for Switch OS 2.0.0-3.0.0. With complete support for IPC, a brand new API, and automatic gadget hunting, it gives us a new window into the Switch platform. https://github.com/reswitched/Pegaswitch

libtransistor is our open-source SDK for the Switch. Designed from the ground-up to make use of the LLVM+Clang stack, we intend for it to be a highly-accessible, community-driven platform for homebrew development. https://github.com/reswitched/libtransistor

Mephisto is a high-performance emulator for non-game Switch binaries. Mephisto features a high degree of determinism, GDB debugging support (even allowing source-level debugging of sysmodules in IDA), and compatibility with a large number of Switch OS features. To clarify again: Mephisto is not for and will never be for games. But it is an invaluable tool for development. https://github.com/reswitched/Mephisto

SwIPC is our project to define a canonical specification for IPC messages. Covering the majority of the system, we are able to automatically generate both client and server code. This means that improvements to SwIPC automatically improve all our other projects.https://github.com/reswitched/SwIPC

The development of all of these projects will now be happening 100% in public, with the entire community encouraged to contribute. While private development has its place, there are a lot of very capable individuals in our community – we want to work with all of you.

To that end, we’re also announcing that we have a mechanism, which we are calling ROhan, for userland arbitrary code execution on Switch OS3.0.0. The development of the requisite exploit is not complete and will now be shifting into public. For the nitty-gritty technical details, please see ROhan.

None of what we’re releasing today is ready for anyone but the most dedicated hackers. However, we know that by shifting development into the public where anyone can contribute, this will be ready for end users far faster than if we were to continue our work in private.

Thank you for your continued support and we can’t wait to work with all of you.
- Team ReSwitched

 

[ut2k4master]

sweet

 

[TheCyberQuake]

Love to see the scene moving forward. Can't wait to see what comes later for the standard users!

 

[guyman70718]

Yay! Makes me even more excited and assured that we will get hax soon!

 

[ploggy]

@Daeken forgive my noobness but I thought SMHAX (which ROhan is?) gave full access to the switch, not just userland?

Either way, good to see the Switch Scene start to advance

 

[Daeken]

@Daeken forgive my noobness but I thought SMHAX (which ROhan is?) gave full access to the switch, not just userland?

Either way, good to see the Switch Scene start to advance

sm:h only allows service access/registration/unregistration. It doesn't allow for any kind of code execution, which ROhan does.

 

[alepman90]

Hell yeah the flood is coming,can't wait for GC emulator

 

[ploggy]

sm:h only allows service access/registration/unregistration. It doesn't allow for any kind of code execution, which ROhan does.

Ahh ok, Thanks. Exciting times ahead and thank you for making this a public project. I'll be keeping an eye on developments for sure. :-)

 

[Kilim]

i noticed that there's really nothing for 1.0.0, which is what my switch is currently on (2.0.0 - 3.0.0 is where the meat of everything is)

would you recommend i cart update to 2.x now? i just want to know now before (or if they ever) decide to reprint carts with higher FWs shipped

 

[Beerus]

inb4 does this get us free games, can i get free games on 3.1+

 

[ploggy]

I know people will call bullshit but I'm interested in the Emulation possibilities. But I'm getting ahead of myself I think

 

[SarCATstic]

inb4 does this get us free games, can i get free games on 3.1+

There's more to hacking than just piracy, ya know....

 

[BurningDesire]

By 3.0.0 do you also mean 3.0.2?

 

[Daeken]

i noticed that there's really nothing for 1.0.0, which is what my switch is currently on (2.0.0 - 3.0.0 is where the meat of everything is)

would you recommend i cart update to 2.x now? i just want to know now before (or if they ever) decide to reprint carts with higher FWs shipped

Get Pokken, upgrade to 3.0. There's really no reason to be on any other fw, IMO.

 

[ut2k4master]

By 3.0.0 do you also mean 3.0.2?

no

 

[Kilim]

Get Pokken, upgrade to 3.0. There's really no reason to be on any other fw, IMO.

gotcha man, thanks so much for all your work and the fact that you communicate with all of us, it's always super awesome when one of the devs gives us some closure

wish you all the best and most importantly, have fun with the hacks!!

 

[Daeken]

By 3.0.0 do you also mean 3.0.2?

No. 3.0.1 fixed the biggest flaw in the Switch, and it'll be a loooooong time before there are any hacks for it or anything after.

 

[catlover007]

I really hope the Switch homebrew development community doesn't break in half(or is already). Beside the reswitched team, there are also some people, who were already active in the 3ds homebrew scene(and to some parts the Wii and DS the, as far as I know), which are related to the devkitPro working on documenting the hardware and building a toolkit.
There already is the switchbrew wiki(http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Main_Page) and there the reswitched wiki(https://reswitched.tech/start). There's libtransistor(https://github.com/reswitched/libtransistor) and there's libnx(https://github.com/switchbrew/libnx).
It isn't the end of the world and because everything is made open source, everybody will benefit from each others progress. Nevertheless, this does mean that future homebrew developers will eventually have to decide which toolkit they should use. Homebrew applications, libraries and launchers might be less compatible and there's less(theoretical) man power behind a more complete documentation and toolkit.

But what can I say, I don't know the full backgrounds behind these decisions and it are and will be the decision other people have to make.

Anyway, I hope you continue to make such progress. One question from me, about Switches hardware: Direct screenbuffer access isn't possible like one the 3ds, so to draw something you have to have atleast a basic gpu interface, right?

 

[V-Temp]

Excellent. Thanks for the public ( ) release.

I really hope the Switch homebrew development community doesn't break in half(or is already). Beside the reswitched team, there are also some people, who were already active in the 3ds homebrew scene(and to some parts the Wii and DS the, as far as I know), which are related to the devkitPro working on documenting the hardware and building a toolkit.
There already is the switchbrew wiki(http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Main_Page) and there the reswitched wiki(https://reswitched.tech/start). There's libtransistor(https://github.com/reswitched/libtransistor) and there's libnx(https://github.com/switchbrew/libnx).
It isn't the end of the world and because everything is made open source, everybody will benefit from each others progress. Nevertheless, this does mean that future homebrew developers will eventually have to decide which toolkit they should use. Homebrew applications, libraries and launchers might be less compatible and there's less(theoretical) man power behind a more complete documentation and toolkit.

But what can I say, I don't know the full backgrounds behind these decisions and it are and will be the decision other people have to make.

Anyway, I hope you continue to make such progress. One question from me, about Switches hardware: Direct screenbuffer access isn't possible like one the 3ds, so to draw something you have to have atleast a basic gpu interface, right?

This was inevitable with such a hot scene. I don't think that will be too big of an issue unless it starts spats, the bigger problem is that there's a hardbreak on interest due to 3.0.1. A lot people have moved on and we're going to be short on newblood from this point forward. Either you already had a compliant switch and are in the scene, or you didn't and aren't.

 

[the_randomizer]

Good for those who are on 3.0.0 but those on 3.0.1+ are permanently out of luck.

Edit: Trimmed the post