LFANEW(1)

💖 LFANEW(1) — like, the manual page, bestie 💖

General Commands Manual ✨ lfanew ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

lfanew — manipulate fat binary programs wrapped in MZ files 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

lfanew [-k] -o <out-stub-file> <in-stub-file>
lfanew -S [-k] [-p] -o <out-fat-file> <in-payload-file> <in-stub-file>
lfanew -U [-k] -o <out-payload-file> <in-fat-file>

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so default behaviour, no flags, nothing: lfanew adds a .e_lfanew header field to an old-style MZ executable. Why tho? So the program can be used as an MS-DOS loader stub for a NE/PE executable. It's giving "glow-up for your stub" 💅

With -S ("stubify"), lfanew creates a "fat" binary by combining an MZ stub with a NE/PE payload. Two things, one file. Iconic. 🔥

With -U ("unstubify"), lfanew extracts a NE/PE payload from a "fat" binary, removing any MZ stub. Yeet the stub, keep the payload. 😭✨

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -k — Keeps the output if an error is encountered, instead of deleting it. Like, if things go sideways, your file stays. No take-backs, no auto-cleanup. 🙈
• -p — Derives the stub size from .e_cp and .e_cblp, rather than from .e_lfanew. Different source of truth, bestie. ⭐

👑 NOTES 👑

lfanew can add a stub to a Portable Executable payload if there is enough RVA space before the PE sections to accommodate the stub and PE headers. That's the vibe check right there — no room, no stub. 💀

PE executables generally need to be unstubified before a different stub can be attached. So like, un-stub first, then re-stub. No cap. 🎀

🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

lfanew was written by TK Chia. 👑

This manual page was formatted by Stephen Kitt <skitt@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). 🫶

okay that's the whole page, mwah 💖 this was the LFANEW(1) manual page, dated 20230825, and yes the footer really does say LFANEW(1) again because it's that girl. periodt. ✨💅