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Tool

sniffROM

Python tool that reconstructs serial flash contents from passive bus captures: it parses SPI or I²C analyzer exports from Saleae Logic, recorded while a device reads and writes its own flash chip, and writes the observed data into a binary image at the original memory addresses. It recognizes more than 100 SPI flash commands from vendors such as Winbond, Macronix, Spansion and GigaDevice and currently parses 12 of them, reports manufacturer and device IDs seen in JEDEC ID reads, and can print a command summary, show a visual map of the captured address ranges and plot the timing of reads and writes.

Requirements & limits

  • No releases or tags; the script was last changed in July 2020. A README note added on 2023-12-07 says Saleae Logic 2 breaks the SPI analyzer export that sniffROM depends on, so it currently works only with data exported from Logic 1.x, and that it was unknown when this would be fixed.
  • A single Python 2 script (it uses print statements) that needs matplotlib for the data map and timing plot; the README's usage text calls it sniffROM_new.py. Input is a CSV export from Saleae Logic's SPI or I²C analyzer, with options for 2-, 3- or 4-byte SPI addresses, byte endianness and analyzing only read or only write commands.
  • Capturing needs a Saleae logic analyzer connected to the flash bus of a device the analyst is permitted to examine; the wiki's Getting Started page points to an external guide for the capture itself. Only data the device accessed during the capture is recovered, and unseen bytes are filled with a padding value; the wiki's boot-time SPI examples captured about 29% and 42% of the rebuilt images.
  • GPL-3.0 (COPYING). The repository also stores manufacturers' datasheet PDFs for the supported SPI and I²C chips and a commands.xlsx command table; the datasheets remain their vendors' documents. No firmware images or bus captures are committed, and nothing was run for this review.

About this entry

Type
Tool
Category
Firmware tools
Relationship
Foundation tool
Targets
Firmware · Protocol

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

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Primary sources

  1. README.md GitHub · alainiamburg/sniffROM · Revision a32be61
  2. sniffROM.py GitHub · alainiamburg/sniffROM · Revision a32be61
  3. COPYING GitHub · alainiamburg/sniffROM · Revision a32be61
  4. SPI/datasheets GitHub · alainiamburg/sniffROM · Revision a32be61
  5. https://github.com/alainiamburg/sniffROM/wiki/Home/2172a35b47fab5ee4adc5703b7c0de64857f68f0
  6. https://github.com/alainiamburg/sniffROM/wiki/Getting-Started/63cbaca6d5519a70ead845ef28a19757dd01f41a
  7. https://github.com/alainiamburg/sniffROM/wiki/Usage-Examples/1b18e9bde42895386caaf2f1c74e07a6605a2208

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