CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++cwindowssystem-callswindows-kernel
user1632018
user1632018

Reputation: 2555

Can I access Windows Kernel system calls directly?

I have been doing research into Windows internals, and have just recently learned about system calls and I am wondering if it is possible to use these system calls like functions? I understand they aren't really meant to be accessed externally.

For instance: NtUserEmptyClipboard is a system call in Win32k.sys, and it's address is 0x117f

If I wanted to use this call like a function, how could I do so?

Upvotes: 6

Views: 12280

Answers (4)

Ana Betts
Ana Betts

Reputation: 74654

What you want to do depends heavily on the architecture you're interested, but the thing to know is, that ntdll.dll is the user-mode trampoline for every syscall - i.e. the only one who actually makes syscalls at the end of the day is ntdll.

So, let's disassemble one of these methods in WinDbg, by opening up any old exe (I picked notepad). First, use x ntdll!* to find the symbols exported by ntdll:

0:000> x ntdll!*
00007ff9`ed1aec20 ntdll!RtlpMuiRegCreateLanguageList (void)
00007ff9`ed1cf194 ntdll!EtwDeliverDataBlock (void)
00007ff9`ed20fed0 ntdll!shortsort_s (void)
00007ff9`ed22abbf ntdll!RtlUnicodeStringToOemString$fin$0 (void)
00007ff9`ed1e9af0 ntdll!LdrpAllocateDataTableEntry (void)
...

So, let's pick one at random, NtReadFile looks neato. Let's disassemble it:

0:000> uf ntdll!NtReadFile

ntdll!NtReadFile:
00007ff9`ed21abe0 4c8bd1          mov     r10,rcx
00007ff9`ed21abe3 b805000000      mov     eax,5
00007ff9`ed21abe8 0f05            syscall
00007ff9`ed21abea c3              ret

Here, we see that we stuff away rcx, put the syscall number into eax, then call the syscall instruction. Every syscall has a number that is assigned arbitrarily by Windows (i.e. this number is a secret handshake between ntdll and the kernel, and changes whenever Microsoft wants)

None of these instructions are "magic", you could execute them in your app directly too (but there's no practical reason to do so, of course - just for funsies)

Upvotes: 12

lordjeb
lordjeb

Reputation: 1306

The main part of the native API is exported via normal functions from ntdll.dll. You can load this dll into your process and call these functions just like any other API functions. As long as you have the right function prototypes and parameters, the calls will work just fine. What they do internally is transition from usermode to kernelmode and then they use an offset into the system service descriptor table (SSDT) to find the address of the function in kernel mode memory, and then the function is called. There is an open source project http://nativetest.codeplex.com/ that makes calls to the native api that you might refer to.

The functions in win32k.sys are not exposed in ntdll.dll. As far as I can tell they are not exposed anywhere. The address you have listed - I believe - is actually an offset into the SSDT. If you really needed to call this function, you would have to make the transition from usermode to kernelmode yourself, putting all the parameters for the function and the SSDT offset into the right places.

As others have recommended, I would suggest to find the usermode API to help accomplish what you want to do. FWIW, in user32.dll the function EmptyClipboard appears to forward directly to NtUserEmptyClipboard, according to the link /dump output.

1731   DF 0002018A EmptyClipboard = _NtUserEmptyClipboard@0

Upvotes: 0

nodakai
nodakai

Reputation: 8011

EmptyClipboard is one of so-called "Win32 API" and NtUserEmptyClipboard is a corresponding "native API".

Unlike Linux syscall(2), we are rarely supposed to directly call "native API". I heard they are in ntdll.dll rather than win32k.sys. But we should be able to invoke them just like normal functions defined in a normal DLL.

Upvotes: 2

MSalters
MSalters

Reputation: 179799

I strongly doubt that 0x117f is the address you're looking for. I suspect it might be the value which you need to pass to GetProcAddress. But I don't know for sure, since those things vary across Windows versions (that's why ordinary people use documented functions instead)

Upvotes: 0

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