Closing Handles/Stored Handles - c++

I have some event handles and I add them to a list. I want to know if I can store these handles, close the local ones and still use the stored ones later.
Example:
std::map<std::string, HANDLE> Events;
DWORD OpenSingleEvent(std::string EventName, bool InheritHandle, DWORD dwDesiredAccess, DWORD dwMilliseconds)
{
Handle hEvent = OpenEvent(dwDesiredAccess, InheritHandle, EventName.c_str()); //Local Handle.
if (hEvent)
{
DeleteSingleEvent(EventName); //Delete the correct/old handle in the map.
Events.insert(EventName, hEvent); //Add this new handle to the map.
DWORD Result = WaitForSingleObject(hEvent, dwMilliseconds);
CloseHandle(hEvent); //Close THIS handle. Not the one in my Map.
return Result;
}
CloseHandle(hEvent); //Close this handle.
return WAIT_FAILED;
}
Will the above work? If not, is there another way to do this? It's for shared memory communication so I cannot duplicate handles since I only have the client PID not the Server's.
Also can someone explain what InheritHandle does? The function I use is OpenEvent and it has that parameter but I'm not sure what it does.

A HANDLE is simply a void *, it's a token which actually represents an object in kernel space. Calling CloseHandle actually deallocates the kernel object so the short answer to your question is no, you can't keep a list of them and then close all the local ones. All you'll have is a list of void* which don't represent anything.
What you can do is use DuplicateHandle which actually creates another kernel object on your behalf. However... why not just close the handles when you've finished with the entry in the list?

Related

If-else statements won't work

I am trying to make a communication between two simultaneously running threads
through a global variable.
char dir='w'; //global var
UINT EditDir ( LPVOID pParam);//accepts dir from user in a loop
UINT Move ( LPVOID pParam); //processes dir (its incomplete)
int main()
{
........
........
CWinThread* pThread1 = AfxBeginThread(EditDir,(LPVOID)NULL);
CWinThread* pThread2 = AfxBeginThread(Move,(LPVOID)NULL);
WaitForSingleObject(pThread1, INFINITE);
........
........
}
UINT EditDir(LPVOID pParam)
{
bool end=false;
while (!end)
{
::dir = getchar();
Sleep(10);
if (::dir=='q')end=true;//***************************************
}
return 0;
}
UINT Move ( LPVOID pParam)
{
//process dir in a loop
return 0;
}
The if statement in while loop doesn't work its like the compiler removes the line before compilation.
after I press q the loop should end but it keeps on going.
Where am I wrong ?
Lots of things can go wrong with that code.
Compiler might optimize it so that dir is stored in a register and not reflected to the other function.
Compiler or processor might reorder statements which would result in some strange behaviour.
Write aliasing (your code write to some other variable that happens to be next to dir, and the processor optimizes the write to work with a block, effectively overwriting dir).
Out of thin air results.
Hitting low level(L1) caches that hold different values.
and much more.
You need to use thread-safe constructs. Use at least std::atomic to prevent write aliasing and a couple of other compiler optimizations that are not thread-safe.
You can also add a mutex to protect access to the variable.
Probably the best set-up is if one thread reads the char from input and pushes a copy into a producer-consumer queue or communication channel that you get from a well tested and well maintained library.
Finally, I found the mistake........
CWinThread* pThread2 = AfxBeginThread(Move,(LPVOID)NULL);// #1
WaitForSingleObject(pThread1, INFINITE); // #2
pThread is an object of a class....... not a handle and
WaitForSingleObject(HANDLE hHandle,DWORD dwMilliSeconds)// needs a handle
so what we do in between line #1 and #2 is
HANDLE hThread;
hThread=pThread->m_hThread;
and pass hThread in WaitForSingleObject(...) and not pThread.

Open process with debug privileges and read/write memory

Short version:
I'm trying to open a process handle with debug privileges and define a pointer which points to an object in the memory of the debuggee.
Long version
I'm a computer science university student in my final year of graduation and got tasked to build an application which should be used for educational purposes for the next generation of students.
Why am I here asking for help, you might ask? Well, the target platform is Windows and I have unfortunately no knowledge of the WinAPI whatsoever...
Okay, here is the basic requirement:
Programming language: C++
Platform: Windows (7 Professional)
Used IDE: Visual Studio 2012
No additional libraries if they aren't essential to ease the development
What will the application be used for?
Using this application the students shall learn to handle addresses, in this case static ones: the debuggee process will have some static pointers, which lead to other pointers themself to form a multi-dimensional pointer.
The students have to find these base addresses using some debugging techniques (which is not part of my work!) and try to find the values at the end of these pointers.
My application will be used by the tutors to randomly change the values and/or structures in the debuggee process.
Some search did yield the first answer: using ReadProcessMemory and WriteProcessMemory one can easily change values in the memory of another process without any need to get debug privileges.
What my tutors want, however, is to have the ability to define pointers (let's say unsigned int) which should point into the memory space of the debuggee process, effectively holding the base addresses I wrote about earlier.
They really want this and I couldn't even talk this out of them so I'm stuck to do this at the end...
And what exactly should work?
Well, I'd have accomplished my task if the following (pseudo) code works:
grantThisProcessDebugPrivileges();
openAnotherProcessWhileItsRunning("targetProcess.exe");
unsigned int * targetValue = (unsigned int*) 0xDE123F00;
// or even
myCustomClass * targetClass = (myCustomClass*) 0xDE123F00;
where the address 0xDE123F00 lies in the memory space of targetProcess.exe.
I know this is possible, else there wouldn't be debuggers which could show this information.
What I did so far (or tried...)
Okay, the thing is: I'm really confused whether I have to activate debug privileges for my application prior opening the target process, doing it after opening or rather giving the target process these privileges.
So I found an example in MSDN and tried to implement it:
BOOL SetPrivilege(
HANDLE hToken, // token handle
LPCTSTR Privilege, // Privilege to enable/disable
BOOL bEnablePrivilege // TRUE to enable. FALSE to disable
)
{
TOKEN_PRIVILEGES tp;
LUID luid;
TOKEN_PRIVILEGES tpPrevious;
DWORD cbPrevious=sizeof(TOKEN_PRIVILEGES);
if(!LookupPrivilegeValue( NULL, Privilege, &luid )) return FALSE;
//
// first pass. get current privilege setting
//
tp.PrivilegeCount = 1;
tp.Privileges[0].Luid = luid;
tp.Privileges[0].Attributes = 0;
AdjustTokenPrivileges(
hToken,
FALSE,
&tp,
sizeof(TOKEN_PRIVILEGES),
&tpPrevious,
&cbPrevious
);
if (GetLastError() != ERROR_SUCCESS) return FALSE;
//
// second pass. set privilege based on previous setting
//
tpPrevious.PrivilegeCount = 1;
tpPrevious.Privileges[0].Luid = luid;
if(bEnablePrivilege) {
tpPrevious.Privileges[0].Attributes |= (SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED);
}
else {
tpPrevious.Privileges[0].Attributes ^= (SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED &
tpPrevious.Privileges[0].Attributes);
}
AdjustTokenPrivileges(
hToken,
FALSE,
&tpPrevious,
cbPrevious,
NULL,
NULL
);
if (GetLastError() != ERROR_SUCCESS) return FALSE;
return TRUE;
};
And in my main:
HANDLE mainToken;
// I really don't know what this block of code does :<
if(!OpenThreadToken(GetCurrentThread(), TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES | TOKEN_QUERY, FALSE, &mainToken))
{
if (GetLastError() == ERROR_NO_TOKEN)
{
if (!ImpersonateSelf(SecurityImpersonation))
return 1;
if(!OpenThreadToken(GetCurrentThread(), TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES | TOKEN_QUERY, FALSE, &mainToken)){
cout << GetLastError();
return 1;
}
}
else
return 1;
}
if (!SetPrivilege(mainToken, SE_DEBUG_NAME, true))
{
CloseHandle(mainToken);
cout << "Couldn't set DEBUG MODE: " << GetLastError() << endl;
return 1;
};
unsigned int processID = getPID("targetProcess.exe");
HANDLE hproc = OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, FALSE, processID);
if (hproc == NULL)
{
cout << "Couldn't open the process" << endl;
return 1;
};
unsigned int * theValue = (unsigned int*) 0xDE123F;
Okay, this code runs without any errors, SetPrivilege returns TRUE so I guess it really did set SE_DEBUG_NAME, which I think is the flag I need to set.
But after - for example - outputting the dereferenced value of theValue, the application crashes with an access violation message, which shows that my approach didn't work. I did especially pay attention to start the VisualStudio Debugger with admin rights (SetPrivilege failed otherwise).
I am really clueless here, the fact that I don't know whether setting SE_DEBUG_NAME is the right approach adds to my overall confusion.
I hope you can help me out :)
My hands are tied concerning the specific requests of the application , if you have ideas to achieve my goal using an entire dfferent approach, you're free to enlight me, but I won't be able to present it to my superiors so it will only add to my knowledge :D
From you description, it appears that you have gotten to the point where you can open the process with SE_DEBUG. At this point you now have a handle to the target process.
What your code appears to be missing is the use of ReadProcessMemory.
First we need to look at the definition of ReadProcessMemory:
BOOL WINAPI ReadProcessMemory(
_In_ HANDLE hProcess,
_In_ LPCVOID lpBaseAddress,
_Out_ LPVOID lpBuffer,
_In_ SIZE_T nSize,
_Out_ SIZE_T *lpNumberOfBytesRead);
This function essentially gives you the ability to copy a block of memory from one process space into your process space. So you need to use this method to read a block of memory the size of the data structure you wish to read into your process space, then you can reinterpret the memory block as that data type.
So semi pseudocode for reading an unsigned int from your target process looks like this:
unsigned int ReadUInt(HANDLE process, const void * address)
{
// Add parameter validation
unsigned char buffer[sizeof(unsigned int)] = {};
size_t bytesRead = 0;
BOOL res = ::ReadProcessMemory(process, // The handle you opened with SE_DEBUG privs
address, // The location in the other process
buffer, // Where to transfer the memory to
sizeof(unsigned int), // The number of bytes to read
&bytesRead); // The number of bytes actually read
if (!res)
{
// Deal with the error
}
if (bytesRead != sizeof(unsigned int))
{
// Deal with error where we didn't get enough memory
}
return *reinterpret_cast<unsigned int *>(buffer);
}
Instead of using this line:
unsigned int * theValue = (unsigned int*) 0xDE123F00;
You would do this:
unsigned int theValue = ReadUInt(hproc, 0xDE123F00);
Keep in mind that this requires that you know the size and memory layout of the types you are trying to read. Simple types that are contained in contiguous memory can be retrieved in a single ReadProcessMemory call. Types that contain pointers as well as values will require you to make extra calls to ReadProcessMemory to find the values referenced by the pointers.
Each process has its own virtual address space. An address in one process only has meaning in that process. De-referencing a pointer in C++ code will access the virtual address space of the executing process.
When you de-referenced the pointer in your code you were actually attempting to access memory in your process. No amount of wishful thinking on the part of your tutors can make pointer de-reference access memory in another process.
If you wish to read and write memory from other processes then you must use ReadProcessMemory and WriteProcessMemory.
I don't think you really need to go to all those lengths with tokens and privileges. If I recall correctly you add the debug privilege, call OpenProcess and go straight to it. And I think you can typically skip adding the privilege.
Some search did yield the first answer: using ReadProcessMemory and WriteProcessMemory one can easily change values in the memory of another process without
any need to get debug privileges. What my tutors want, however, is to have the ability to define pointers (let's say unsigned int) which should point into the memory space of the debuggee process, effectively holding the base addresses I wrote about earlier. They really want this and I couldn't even talk this out of them so I'm stuck to do this at the end...
What they want is impossible. I suggest you tell them to get a better understanding of virtual memory before making impossible requirements!
#Cody Gray helpfully mentions memory mapped files. If debuggee and debugger co-operate then they can use memory mapped files to share a common region of memory. In that situation then both process can map the memory into their virtual address space and access it in the normal manner.
I rather assumed that your debuggee was an unwilling victim, but if it is prepared to co-operate then sharing memory could be an option.
Even then you'd need to be careful with any pointers in that shared memory because the memory would, in general, be mapped onto different virtual addresses in each process.
I think you are trying to access kernel land memory range and hence the exception.
The user land range is from 0x00000000 - 7FFFFFFF, so try accessing in this range, as anything above is kernel space.
I am assuming you are on a 32-bit machine.
Check User Space and System Space (Microsoft Docs).
You can create a type that behaves like a pointer by implementing the appropriate operators, just like shared_ptr does:
foreign_ptr<int> ptr{0xDE123F00};
int a = *ptr;
*ptr = 1;

Handling of LPWSAOVERLAPPED after WSASend

I am currently writing a winsock server-side socket in managed C++. After creating the LPWSAOVERLAPPED object and passing it to the WSASend function, I do not see where to delete it when the operation completes nonblocking (WSASend returns SOCKET_ERROR and WSAGetLastError() returns WSA_IO_PENDING). My current solution was to create a System::Threading::WaitHandle, get the unsafe pointer to the wait handle and pass that onto hEvent under the LPWSAOVERLAPPED object. However, this is causing unnessecary object creation since I do not really care about when the send operation is completed. On the other hand, I need a LPWSAOVERLAPPED object in order to make the operation complete non-blocking. Does anyone have any better solution to solve this? Here is my current code:
void Connectivity::ConnectionInformation::SendData(unsigned char data[], const int length)
{
if (isClosed || sendError)
return;
Monitor::Enter(this->sendSyncRoot);
try
{
LPWSAOVERLAPPED overlapped = OverlappedObjectPool::GetOverlapped();
WaitHandle ^ handle = gcnew ManualResetEvent(false);
IntPtr handlePointer = handle->SafeWaitHandle->DangerousGetHandle();
sendInfo->buf = (char*)data;
sendInfo->len = length;
overlapped->Internal = 0;
overlapped->InternalHigh = 0;
overlapped->Offset = 0;
overlapped->OffsetHigh = 0;
overlapped->Pointer = 0;
overlapped->hEvent = (void*)handlePointer; //Set pointer
if (WSASend(connection, sendInfo, 1, NULL, 0, overlapped, NULL) == SOCKET_ERROR)
{
if (WSAGetLastError() == WSA_IO_PENDING)
{
ThreadPool::UnsafeRegisterWaitForSingleObject(handle, sentCallback, (IntPtr)((void*)overlapped), -1, true);
}
else
{
this->sendError = true;
//The send error bool makes sure that the close function doesn't get called
//during packet processing which could lead to a lot of null reffernce exceptions.
OverlappedObjectPool::GiveObject(overlapped);
}
}
else
{
handle->Close();
sentData((IntPtr)((void*)overlapped), false);
}
}
finally
{
Monitor::Exit(this->sendSyncRoot);
}
}
For async I/O, completion is notified either by the calling of a completion routine or by the queueing of an IOCP completion message to an IOCP completion queue. In both cases, it should be noted that the OVL struct should have the lifetime of at least the entire async operation, but can be longer if convenient:)
In the case of a completion routine, the unused hEvent parameter in the OVL can be used to transfer a pointer to an 'IOrequest' class instance that contains the data buffer/s, WSABUF array and the OVL struct as members, (and surely a pointer to the socket object for which the I/O has been issued). The OVL pointer is supplied as a parameter to the completion routine and so the hEvent can be retrieved and cast to the class type, so retrieving the complete class instance - OVL, data buffer etc. When the data has been processed, (or immediately in the completion routine the case of WSASend), and this IOrequest is eventually destroyed, (or repooled), the OVL will go with it. This sounds a bit incestuous, but works fine and does not need any nasty macro or other tricks.
A similar approach can be used with full IOCP or, alternatively, the OVL passed as the lpCompletionKey 'spare' parameter.
Oh - and you do care if the operation is completed - you need to at least check for errors.

c++ winapi threads

These days I'm trying to learn more things about threads in windows. I thought about making this practical application:
Let's say there are several threads started when a button "Start" is pressed. Assume these threads are intensive (they keep running / have always something to work on).
This app would also have a "Stop" button. When this button is pressed all the threads should close in a nice way: free resources and abandon work and return the state they were before the "Start" button was pressed.
Another request of the app is that the functions runned by the threads shouldn't contain any instruction checking if the "Stop" button was pressed. The function running in the thread shouldn't care about the stop button.
Language: C++
OS: Windows
Problems:
WrapperFunc(function, param)
{
// what to write here ?
// if i write this:
function(param);
// i cannot stop the function from executing
}
How should I construct the wrapper function so that I can stop the thread properly?
( without using TerminateThread or some other functions )
What if the programmer allocates some memory dynamically? How can I free it before closing
the thread?( note that when I press "Stop button" the thread is still processing data)
I though about overloading the new operator or just imposing the usage of a predefined
function to be used when allocating memory dynamically. This, however, means
that the programmer who uses this api is constrained and it's not what I want.
Thank you
Edit: Skeleton to describe the functionality I'd like to achieve.
struct wrapper_data
{
void* (*function)(LPVOID);
LPVOID *params;
};
/*
this function should make sure that the threads stop properly
( free memory allocated dynamically etc )
*/
void* WrapperFunc(LPVOID *arg)
{
wrapper_data *data = (wrapper_data*) arg;
// what to write here ?
// if i write this:
data->function(data->params);
// i cannot stop the function from executing
delete data;
}
// will have exactly the same arguments as CreateThread
MyCreateThread(..., function, params, ...)
{
// this should create a thread that runs the wrapper function
wrapper_data *data = new wrapper_data;
data->function = function;
data->params = params;
CreateThread(..., WrapperFunc, (LPVOID) wrapper_data, ...);
}
thread_function(LPVOID *data)
{
while(1)
{
//do stuff
}
}
// as you can see I want it to be completely invisible
// to the programmer who uses this
MyCreateThread(..., thread_function, (LPVOID) params,...);
One solution is to have some kind of signal that tells the threads to stop working. Often this can be a global boolean variable that is normally false but when set to true it tells the threads to stop. As for the cleaning up, do it when the threads main loop is done before returning from the thread.
I.e. something like this:
volatile bool gStopThreads = false; // Defaults to false, threads should not stop
void thread_function()
{
while (!gStopThreads)
{
// Do some stuff
}
// All processing done, clean up after my self here
}
As for the cleaning up bit, if you keep the data inside a struct or a class, you can forcibly kill them from outside the threads and just either delete the instances if you allocated them dynamically or let the system handle it if created e.g. on the stack or as global objects. Of course, all data your thread allocates (including files, sockets etc.) must be placed in this structure or class.
A way of keeping the stopping functionality in the wrapper, is to have the actual main loop in the wrapper, together with the check for the stop-signal. Then in the main loop just call a doStuff-like function that does the actual processing. However, if it contains operations that might take time, you end up with the first problem again.
See my answer to this similar question:
How do I guarantee fast shutdown of my win32 app?
Basically, you can use QueueUserAPC to queue a proc which throws an exception. The exception should bubble all the way up to a 'catch' in your thread proc.
As long as any libraries you're using are reasonably exception-aware and use RAII, this works remarkably well. I haven't successfully got this working with boost::threads however, as it's doesn't put suspended threads into an alertable wait state, so QueueUserAPC can't wake them.
If you don't want the "programmer" of the function that the thread will execute deal with the "stop" event, make the thread execute a function of "you" that deals with the "stop" event and when that event isn't signaled executes the "programmer" function...
In other words the "while(!event)" will be in a function that calls the "job" function.
Code Sample.
typedef void (*JobFunction)(LPVOID params); // The prototype of the function to execute inside the thread
struct structFunctionParams
{
int iCounter;
structFunctionParams()
{
iCounter = 0;
}
};
struct structJobParams
{
bool bStop;
JobFunction pFunction;
LPVOID pFunctionParams;
structJobParams()
{
bStop = false;
pFunction = NULL;
pFunctionParams = NULL;
}
};
DWORD WINAPI ThreadProcessJob(IN LPVOID pParams)
{
structJobParams* pJobParams = (structJobParams*)pParams;
while(!pJobParams->bStop)
{
// Execute the "programmer" function
pJobParams->pFunction(pJobParams->pFunctionParams);
}
return 0;
}
void ThreadFunction(LPVOID pParams)
{
// Do Something....
((structFunctionParams*)pParams)->iCounter ++;
}
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
structFunctionParams stFunctionParams;
structJobParams stJobParams;
stJobParams.pFunction = &ThreadFunction;
stJobParams.pFunctionParams = &stFunctionParams;
DWORD dwIdThread = 0;
HANDLE hThread = CreateThread(
NULL,
0,
ThreadProcessJob,
(LPVOID) &stJobParams, 0, &dwIdThread);
if(hThread)
{
// Give it 5 seconds to work
Sleep(5000);
stJobParams.bStop = true; // Signal to Stop
WaitForSingleObject(hThread, INFINITE); // Wait to finish
CloseHandle(hThread);
}
}

C++ Handle as HWND?

I was wondering whether you can convert a handle to a window "HWND". I need to call the "PostMessage" function using the "FindWindow" method.
I currently have to source
HANDLE mainProcess;
BOOL APIENTRY ATTACH_PROCESS(int ProcessID)
{
mainProcess = OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, true, ProcessID);
return TRUE;
}
BOOL APIENTRY SEND_INPUT(/*NOT USED FOR THIS SAMPLE*/ const char* String, bool Keydown)
{
int ToDo = WM_KEYUP;
if (Keydown)
ToDo = WM_KEYDOWN;
return PostMessage((HWND)mainProcess, ToDo, VK_TAB, NULL);
}
No. A process can create multiple windows. Since there does not exist a 1-to-1 mapping, such a function would not make sense.
On the other hand, it is certainly possible to have a function which returns a list of windows created by a process.
call GetProcessId() using the mainProcess handle to get the ProcessID.
call EnumWindows()
For Each Window, call GetWindowThreadProcessId() to get the ProcessId of the process associated with the window.
Compare the ProcessID's, if they match -- you've found the HWND you want.
This is a somewhat expensive task, so best to find the hwnd you want upfront and just store it.