================================================================== User visible changes for UPX ================================================================== Changes in 4.2.3 (27 Mar 2024): * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/16 Changes in 4.2.2 (03 Jan 2024): * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/15 Changes in 4.2.1 (01 Nov 2023): * linux: /proc/self/exe now is optional * windows: use SetFileTime to preserve sub-second file timestamps * official Windows builds: revert activeCodePage change introduced in 4.2.0 * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/14 Changes in 4.2.0 (26 Oct 2023): * win32/pe and win64/pe: stricter relocation checks; please report regressions * unix: use utimensat to preserve sub-second file timestamps * new option '--link' to preserve hard-links (Unix only; use with care) * add support for NO_COLOR env var; see https://no-color.org/ * disable macOS support until we fix compatibility with macOS 13+ * official Windows builds: set activeCodePage to UTF-8 * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/13 Changes in 4.1.0 (08 Aug 2023): * ELF: handle shared libraries with more than 2 PT_LOAD segments * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/11 Changes in 4.0.2 (30 Jan 2023): * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/9 Changes in 4.0.1 (16 Nov 2022): * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/8 Changes in 4.0.0 (28 Oct 2022): * Switch to semantic versioning * SECURITY NOTES: emphasize the security context in the docs * Support easy building from source code with CMake * Support easy rebuilding the stubs from source with Podman/Docker * Add integrated doctest C++ testing framework * Add support for EFI files (PE x86; Kornel Pal) * win32/pe and win64/pe: set correct SizeOfHeaders in the PE header * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/6 * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/7 Changes in 3.96 (23 Jan 2020): * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/5 Changes in 3.95 (26 Aug 2018): * Flag --android-shlib to work around bad design in Android * Flag --force-pie when ET_DYN main program is not marked as DF_1_PIE * Better compatibility with varying layout of address space on Linux * Support for 4 PT_LOAD layout in ELF generated by binutils-2.31 * bug fixes, particularly better diagnosis of malformed input * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/4 Changes in 3.94 (12 May 2017): * Add support for arm64-linux (aka "aarch64"). * Add support for --lzma compression on 64-bit PowerPC (Thierry Fauck). * For Mach, "upx -d" will unpack a prefix of the file (and warn). * Various improvements to the ELF formats. * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/3 Changes in 3.93 (29 Jan 2017): * Fixed some win32/pe and win64/pe regressions introduced in 3.92 * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/2 Changes in 3.92 (11 Dec 2016): * INFO: UPX has moved to GitHub - the new home page is https://upx.github.io * IMPORTANT: all PE formats: internal changes: reunited the diverged source files - please report all regressions into the bug tracker and try UPX 3.91 in case of problems. * Support Apple MacOS 10.12 "Sierra", including more-robust de-compression. * Explicitly diagnose Go-language bad PT_LOAD; recommend hemfix.c. https://sourceforge.net/p/upx/bugs/195/ https://github.com/pwaller/goupx * Fix CERT-FI Case 829767 UPX command line tools segfaults. Received by UPX Team on 2015-May-08; originally reported by Codenomicon to NCSC-FI on 2015-01-08. The vulnerabilities were discovered by Joonas Kuorilehto and Antti Häyrynen from Codenomicon. * bug fixes - see https://github.com/upx/upx/milestone/1 Changes in 3.91 (30 Sep 2013): * Added experimental support for Windows 64-bit PE files, based on work by Stefan Widmann. Please use for testing only! * bug fixes ================================================================== Changes in 3.09 (18 Feb 2013): * New option --preserve-build-id for GNU ELF. * Allow for code signing and LC_UUID on Mac OS X executables. * Allow non-contiguous LC_SEGMENTs and 0==.vmsize for Mach-O. * Allow zero-filled final page in PackUnix::canUnpack(). * bug fixes Changes in 3.08 (12 Dec 2011): * Fix allocation in runtime stub for darwin.macho-entry (i386 and amd64). * Compress shared library on ELF i386 only [ld.so threatens even this case]. * Attempt to support ELF on QNX 6.3.0 for armel (experimental). * Better diagnostic when ELF -fPIC is needed. * PT_NOTE improvements for BSD. * Preserve more ELF .e_flags on ARM. * Minor code improvements for ELF stubs. * Defend against another flavor of corrupt PE header. * bug fixes Changes in 3.07 (08 Sep 2010): * win32/pe: fixed relocation handling for files with *no* TLS callbacks [severe bug introduced in 3.06] Changes in 3.06 (04 Sep 2010): * win32/pe: TLS callback support contributed by Stefan Widmann. Thanks! * bug fixes Changes in 3.05 (27 Apr 2010): * i386-linux and amd64-linux support shared libraries (DT_INIT must exist, all info needed by runtime loader must be first in .text, etc.) * Linux /proc/self/exe now is preserved by default, by leaving behind one page. New compress-time option --unmap-all-pages is available. * Withdraw support for shared libraries on Darwin (Apple Mac OS X) because upx does not understand enough about .dylib. * bug fixes Changes in 3.04 (27 Sep 2009): * new format Mach/AMD64 supports 64-bit programs on Apple Macintosh. * new formats Dylib/i386 and Dylib/ppc32 support shared libraries [such as browser plugins] on Darwin (Apple Macintosh). An existing -init function (LC_ROUTINES command) is required. * new format vmlinuz/armel for Debian NSLU2 (etc.) linux kernel * bvmlinuz boot protocol 2.08 for 386 Linux kernel * Extended ABI version 4 for armel-eabi ARM Linux ELF * bug fixes Changes in 3.03 (27 Apr 2008): * implement cache flushing for PowerPC (esp. model 440) * fix cache flushing on MIPS (>3 MiB compressed, or with holes) * fix MIPS big-endian * bug fixes Changes in 3.02 (16 Dec 2007): * fix unmapping on arm-linux.elf * fix error checking in mmap for i386-linux.elf [triggered by -fPIE] * bug fixes Changes in 3.01 (31 Jul 2007): * new options --no-mode, --no-owner and --no-time to disable preservation of mode (file permissions), file ownership and timestamps. * dos/exe: fixed an incorrect error message caused by a bug in relocation handling * new format linux/mipsel supports ELF on [32-bit] R3000 * fix argv[0] on PowerPC with --lzma * bug fixes Changes in 3.00 (27 Apr 2007): * watcom/le & tmt/adam: fixed a problem when using certain filters Changes in 2.93 beta (08 Mar 2007): * new formats Mach/i386 and Mach/fat support Mac OS X i686 and Universal binaries [i686 and PowerPC only] * dos/exe: LZMA is now also supported for 16-bit dos/exe. Please note that you have to explicitly use '--lzma' even for '--ultra-brute' here because runtime decompression is about 30 times slower than NRV - which is really noticeable on old machines. * dos/exe: fixed a rarely occurring bug in relocation handling * win32/pe & arm/pe: better icon compression handling Changes in 2.92 beta (23 Jan 2007): * new option '--ultra-brute' which tries even more variants * slightly improved compression ratio for some files when using '--brute' or '--ultra-brute' * bug fixes Changes in 2.91 beta (29 Nov 2006): * assorted bug fixes * wince/arm: fix "missing" icon & version info resource problem for WinCE 5 * win32/pe & arm/pe: added option --compress-icons=3 to compress all icons Changes in 2.90 beta (08 Oct 2006): * LZMA algorithm support for most of the 32-bit and 64-bit file formats; use new option '--lzma' to enable * new format: BSD/elf386 supporting FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD via auto-detection of PT_NOTE or EI_OSABI * arm/pe: all the NRV compression methods are now supported (only NRV2D is missing in thumb mode) * linux/elf386, linux/ElfAMD: remember /proc/self/exe in environment * major source code changes: the runtime decompression stubs are now built from internal ELF objects ================================================================== Changes in 2.03 (07 Nov 2006): * bvmlinuz/386: fix for kernels not at 0x100000; also allow x86_64 * linux/elf386: work around Linux kernel bug (0-length .bss needs PF_W) Changes in 2.02 (13 Aug 2006): * linux/386: work around Linux kernel bug (".bss" requires PF_W) * linux/ppc32, mach/ppc32: compressed programs now work on a 405 CPU * vmlinuz/386: fixed zlib uncompression problem on DOS Changes in 2.01 (06 Jun 2006): * arm/pe: better DLL support * dos/exe: device driver support added * linux/386: Fix --force-execve for PaX, grSecurity, and strict SELinux. /tmp must support execve(); therefore /tmp cannot be mounted 'noexec'. * win32/pe & arm/pe: added new option '--keep-resource=' for excluding selected resources from compression Changes in 2.00 (27 Apr 2006): * linux/386: the stub now prints an error message if some strict SELinux mode does prevent runtime decompression and execution (for a fully SELinux-compatible but otherwise inferior compression format you can use the '--force-execve' option) * linux/386: worked around a problem where certain Linux kernels clobber the %ebx register during a syscall * win32/pe: disable filters for files with broken PE headers Changes in 1.96 beta (13 Apr 2006): * arm/pe: added filter support * win32/pe: removed an unnecessary check so that Delphi 2006 and Digital Mars C++ programs finally are supported Changes in 1.95 beta (09 Apr 2006): * arm/pe: added DLL support * arm/pe: added thumb mode stub support * arm/pe: added unpacking support * win32/pe: really worked around R6002 runtime errors Changes in 1.94 beta (11 Mar 2006): * new format: added support for wince/arm (ARM executables running on WinCE) * new format: added support for linux elf/amd64 * new format: added support for linux elf/ppc32 * new format: added support for mach/ppc32 (Apple Mac OS X) * win32/pe: hopefully working "load config" support * win32/pe: R6002 runtime errors worked around * win32/pe: the stub now clears the dirty stack Changes in 1.93 beta (07 Feb 2005): * vmlinuz/386: fixes to support more kernels Changes in 1.92 beta (20 Jul 2004): * win32/pe: added option '--strip-loadconf' to strip the SEH load config section [NOTE: this option is obsolete since UPX 1.94] * win32/pe: try to detect .NET (win32/net) files [not yet supported by UPX] * vmlinux/386: new format that directly supports building Linux kernels * source code: now compiles cleanly under Win64 Changes in 1.91 beta (30 Jun 2004): * djgpp2/coff: added support for recent binutils versions * linux/elf386, linux/sh386: lots of improvements * vmlinuz/386: added support for recent kernels * watcom/le: don't crash on files without relocations * win32/pe: stricter checks of some PE values * option '--brute' now implies '--crp-ms=999999'. * source code: much improved portability using ACC, the Automatic Compiler Configuration * source code: compile fixes for strict ISO C++ compilers * source code: compile fixes for Win64 * re-synced with upx 1.25 branch Changes in 1.90 beta (11 Nov 2002): * implemented several new options for finer compression control: '--all-methods', '--all-filters' and '--brute' * ps1/exe: new format - UPX now supports PlayStation One programs * linux/386: added the option '--force-execve' * vmlinuz/386: better kernel detection and sanity checks * re-synced with upx 1.24 branch * documentation updates Changes in 1.11 beta (20 Dec 2000): * vmlinuz/386: new format - UPX now supports bootable linux kernels * linux/elf386: added the new ELF direct-to-memory executable format - no more temp files are needed for decompression! * linux/sh386: added the new shell direct-to-memory executable format - no more temp files are needed for decompression! * reduced overall memory requirements during packing * quite a number of internal source code rearrangements ================================================================== Changes in 1.25 (29 Jun 2004) * INFO: http://upx.sourceforge.net is the new UPX home page * watcom/le: don't crash on files without relocations * win32/pe: stricter checks of some PE values * source code: much improved portability using ACC, the Automatic Compiler Configuration * source code: compile fixes for strict ISO C++ compilers * source code: compile fixes for Win64 Changes in 1.24 (07 Nov 2002) * djgpp2/coff: stricter check of the COFF header to work around a problem with certain binutils versions Changes in 1.23 (05 Sep 2002) * atari/tos: fixed an unpacking problem where a buffer was too small (introduced in 1.22) * linux/386: don't give up too early if a single block turns out to be incompressible * documentation: added some quick tips how to achieve the best compression ratio for the final release of your application * fixed a rare situation where the exit code was not set correctly Changes in 1.22 (27 Jun 2002) * atari/tos: the stub now flushes the CPU cache to avoid problems on 68030+ machines * source code: additional compiler support for Borland C++, Digital Mars C++ and Watcom C++ Changes in 1.21 (01 Jun 2002) * New option '--crp-ms=' for slightly better compression at the cost of higher memory requirements during compression. Try 'upx --best --crp-ms=100000'. See the docs for more info. * source code: portability fixes * source code: compile fixes for g++ 3.0 and g++ 3.1 Changes in 1.20 (23 May 2001) * slightly faster compression * work around a gcc problem in the latest djgpp2 distribution * watcom/le: fixed detection of already compressed files * win32/pe: do not compress RT_MANIFEST resource types * win32/pe: improved the error message for empty resource sections * [NOTE: the jump from 1.08 to 1.20 is to avoid confusion with our unstable development releases 1.1x and 1.9x] Changes in 1.08 (30 Apr 2001) * new native port to atari/tos * win32/pe: shortened the identstring * source code: portability fixes - UPX now builds cleanly under m68k CPUs Changes in 1.07 (20 Feb 2001) * win32/pe: corrected the TLS callback check * win32/pe: really fixed that rare bug in relocation handling * win32/pe: experimental support for SizeOfHeaders > 0x1000 * win32/pe: check for superfluous data between sections * win32/pe: compressing screensavers (.scr) should finally work Changes in 1.06 (27 Jan 2001) * win32/pe: the check for TLS callbacks introduced in 1.05 was too strict - disabled for now * dos/com: decreased the decompressor stack size a little bit Changes in 1.05 (24 Jan 2001) * win32/pe: refuse to compress programs with TLS callbacks * win32/pe: stub changes to avoid slowdowns with some virus monitors * win32/pe: reverted the relocation handling changes in 1.04 * linux/386: dont try to compress Linux kernel images (have a look at the unstable UPX 1.1x beta versions for that) Changes in 1.04 (19 Dec 2000) * dos/exe: fixed an internal error when using '--no-reloc' * win32/pe: fixed a rare bug in the relocation handling code * some tunings for the default compression level Changes in 1.03 (30 Nov 2000) * linked with a new version of the NRV compression library: - improved compression ratio a little bit - overall significantly faster compression - much faster when using high compression levels like '-9' or '--best' - much faster with large files * atari/tos: added support for FreeMiNT * the 32-bit DOS version now uses the new CWSDSTUB extender Changes in 1.02 (13 Sep 2000) * watcom/le: fixed a problem with the Causeway extender * win32/pe: don't automatically strip relocs if they seem needed * support multiple backup generations when using '-k' * updated the console screen driver Changes in 1.01 (09 Apr 2000) * win32/pe: fixed an uncompression problem in DLLs with empty fixup sections * win32/pe: fixed another rare uncompression problem - a field in the PE header was set incorrectly Changes in 1.00 (26 Mar 2000) * documentation updates * watcom/le: do not duplicate the non-resident name table * win32/pe: fixed an import handling problem: sometimes too much data could be deleted from a file -> the uncompressed file would not work anymore Changes in 0.99.3 (07 Mar 2000) * win32/pe: fixed a rare problem in the stub string handling part Changes in 0.99.2 (02 Mar 2000) * dos/exe: fixed a typo causing an internal error (introduced in 0.99.1) Changes in 0.99.1 (29 Feb 2000) * win32/pe: fixed some object alignments which were causing problems when loading compressed DLLs under Windows NT/2000 Changes in 0.99 (25 Feb 2000) * FULL SOURCE CODE RELEASED UNDER THE TERMS OF THE GNU GPL * win32/pe: changed default to '--strip-relocs=1' * dos/com and dos/sys: fixed a bad decompressor problem * linux/386: the counter for the progress indicator was off by one ================================================================== Changes in 0.94 (06 Dec 1999) * win32/pe: the stub now calls ExitProcess in case of import errors * under DOS and Windows, the environment variable UPX now accepts a '#' as replacement for '=' because of a COMMAND.COM limitation Changes in 0.93 (22 Nov 1999) * win32/pe: fixed --strip-relocs problem with uncompression * win32/pe: fixed a bug which could produce a broken decompressor stub * linux/386: yet another FreeBSD compatibility fix Changes in 0.92 (14 Nov 1999) * win32/pe: really fixed that one line (see below) Changes in 0.91 (13 Nov 1999) * win32/pe: an important one-line fix for the newly introduced problems * dos/com and dos/sys: fixed an internal error * dos/exe: correctly restore cs when uncompressing Changes in 0.90 (10 Nov 1999) * all formats: '--overlay=copy' now is the default overlay mode * improved compression ratio for most files * win32/pe: uncompression is finally supported * win32/pe: never compress REGISTRY resources * win32/pe: headersize was not set in PE header * win32/pe: resource handling is rewritten * win32/pe: the last :-) TLS problem is fixed * win32/pe: somewhat less memory is required during compression * linux/386: fixed compression of scripts which was broken since 0.71 * linux/386: more FreeBSD compatibility issues * changed option: '-i' now prints some more details during compression (not finished yet) Changes in 0.84 (04 Oct 1999) * dos/exe: fixed a rare problem where the decompressor could crash * some other minor fixes Changes in 0.83 (17 Sep 1999) * dos/exe: fixed minimal memory requirement problem for some files * win32/pe: fixed a bug which caused a crash in some compressed files * linux/386: various improvements in the stub; also, for the sake of FreeBSD users, the stub is now branded as Linux/ELF Changes in 0.82 (16 Aug 1999) * dos/exe: fixed a decompressor bug which could cause crash on some files * linux/386: section headers are now stripped from the stub so that 'strip' won't ruin a compressed file any longer * wc/le: support for stack not in the last object disabled again * win32/pe: removed some unneeded data Changes in 0.81 (04 Aug 1999) * win32/pe: fixed an important bug in import handling * dos/com: fixed an internal error that could happen with very small files Changes in 0.80 (03 Aug 1999) * you can set some default options in the environment var 'UPX' * dos/com: the decompressor stub now checks for enough free memory * dos/exe: decompressor rewritten, some bugs are fixed * dos/exe: new option '--no-reloc': no relocation data is put into the DOS header * tmt/adam: added support for more stubs, detect already packed files * tmt/adam: new option '--copy-overlay' * wc/le: reduced memory requirement during uncompression * wc/le: support files which do not contain their stack in the last object * wc/le: fixed a bug which could cause a crash, improved relocation handling * wc/le: new option '--copy-overlay' * win32/pe: '--compress-icons=2' is now the default * win32/pe: even better TLS support * win32/pe: versioninfo works on NT * win32/pe: import by ordinal from kernel32.dll works * win32/pe: other import improvements: importing a nonexistent DLL results in a usual Windows message, importing a nonexistent function results in program exit (instead of crash ;-) * win32/pe: new option: '--compress-resources=0' * win32/pe: reduced memory requirement during uncompression, some files might even require LESS memory when they're compressed * win32/pe: TYPELIBs should work now * win32/pe: improved relocation handling, 16-bit relocations should work * win32/pe: new option '--strip-relocs' (only if you know what you are doing) * win32/pe: new option '--copy-overlay' * important internal changes: now the stubs are built at runtime Changes in 0.72 (12 May 1999) * tmt/adam: fixed a serious problem in the decompressor stub; all compressed tmt files should be recompressed * win32/pe: fixed the 'shared sections not supported' warning: read-only shared sections are fine * win32/pe: never compress TYPELIB resources * win32/pe: compressed files are hopefully less suspicious to heuristic virus scanners now * linux/386: minor decompressor stub updates, nicer progress bar Changes in 0.71 (19 Apr 1999) * dos/exe: added option '--no-overlay' * linux/386: various improvements in the stub, most notably the overhead for an extra cleanup process has been removed * win32/pe: added support for export forwarders * win32/pe: added support for DLLs without entry point or imports * win32/pe: yet another .bss fix * win32/pe: new option '--compress-icons=2': compress all icons which are not in the first icon directory * win32/pe: rearranged stub to avoid false alerts from some virus scanners Changes in 0.70 (30 Mar 1999) * added support for linux/386 executables * improved compression ratio quite a bit * added new compression level '--best' to squeeze out even some more bytes * win32/pe: TLS support is much better now * win32/pe: --compress-icons=0 should now work as well * the usual minor fixes for win32/pe Changes in 0.62 (16 Mar 1999) * win32/pe: --compress-icons and --compress-exports are on now by default * win32/pe: --compress-icons should really work now * win32/pe: fixed a problem with embedded .bss sections Changes in 0.61 (08 Mar 1999) * atari/tos: fixed a problem where the bss segment could become too small Changes in 0.60 (06 Mar 1999) * win32/pe: fixed file corruption when the size of the export data is invalid * win32/pe: fixed a problem with empty resource data * win32/pe: compressed file alignment set to minimum value * win32/pe: made all compressed sections writable * fixed some other win32/pe bugs * fixed an address optimization problem for some not Watcom LE files * fixed a bug which could make UPX hang when an exe header contained an illegal value * added some compression flags for the win32/pe format * added support for Atari ST/TT executables (atari/tos) * improved compression ratio * improved compression speed Changes in 0.51 (14 Jan 1999) * fixed a small bug in the PE header that would prevent some compressed win32/pe executables from running under Windows NT and WINE Changes in 0.50 (03 Jan 1999) * added support for PE format executables (win32/pe & rtm32/pe) * added support for TMT executables (tmt/adam) * fixed a dos/sys bug that affected OpenDOS Changes in 0.40 (05 Oct 1998) * improved compression ratio * fixed a small but fatal bug in dos/sys introduced in 0.30 * fixed a rare bug in dos/exe * worked around a bug in djgpp's strip 2.8 * djgpp2/coff: Allegro packfile support should work now * added dos/exeh compression method (works on 386+) Changes in 0.30 (27 Jul 1998) * fixed a serious bug in the 32-bit compressors - please don't use djgpp2/coff and watcom/le compressed files from previous versions, some of them are possibly damaged ! * the 16-bit uncompressors are a little bit shorter & faster * fixed progress indicator for VESA and SVGA text modes Changes in 0.20 (05 Jul 1998) * second public beta release * too many changes to list here Changes in 0.05 (26 May 1998) * first public beta release * based on experience gained from our previous packers DJP (djgpp2/coff, 1996), lzop (1996) and mfxpak (atari/tos, 1990)