Arcane

A simple packer for Linux executables and scripts. Arcane compresses and encrypts an executable or #! script into a self-extracting binary.

Features

• Compression: Payloads are compressed using Zstandard (zstd) for a smaller footprint.
• Encryption: Payloads are encrypted using AES-256-GCM with a key derived from a user-provided password using Argon2.
• In-Memory Execution: The packed executable, when run, decrypts and decompresses its payload into an in-memory file (memfd) and executes it directly. The original executable never touches the disk. Both ELF binaries and #! scripts are supported.
• Self-Contained: The resulting packed binary is a single, static executable with no external dependencies.

Usage

Pack

To pack an executable:

arcane pack [OPTIONS] <INPUT>

Arguments

• <INPUT>: Path to the input executable to pack.

Options

• -o, --output <PATH>: Write the packed executable to <PATH>. Defaults to <INPUT>.packed.
• -p, --password <PASSWORD>: Set the password to encrypt the payload. If not provided, you will be prompted for it. This can also be set with the ARCANE_PASSWORD environment variable.
• -e, --env <VARIABLE=VALUE>: Embed an environment variable into the packed executable. The variable will be set when the packed executable runs. Can be specified multiple times.
• -h, --help: Show help output.

Unpack

To unpack a packed executable:

arcane unpack [OPTIONS] <INPUT>

Arguments

• <INPUT>: Path to the packed executable to unpack.

Options

• -o, --output <PATH>: Write the unpacked executable to <PATH>. Defaults to <INPUT>.unpacked.
• -p, --password <PASSWORD>: Set the password to decrypt the payload. If not provided, you will be prompted for it. This can also be set with the ARCANE_PASSWORD environment variable.
• -e, --env-file <PATH>: Write any embedded environment variables to <PATH> in KEY=VALUE format.
• -h, --help: Show help output.

Running a Packed Executable

A packed executable can be run directly. It will prompt for the password, then decrypt and execute the original payload entirely in memory. Any embedded environment variables are merged into the process environment.

Building

To build Arcane from source, you need the Zig compiler installed.

For a development build:

zig build

For a faster, optimized release build:

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

The executable will be located at zig-out/bin/arcane.

To run the end-to-end tests (requires Bats):

zig build test

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the license in the COPYING file.