{"id":6095,"date":"2019-03-30T01:18:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T01:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/?p=6095"},"modified":"2019-04-29T10:22:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T10:22:18","slug":"sqirrel-packages-manager-as-a-lolbin-a-k-a-many-electron-apps-are-lolbins-by-default","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/30\/sqirrel-packages-manager-as-a-lolbin-a-k-a-many-electron-apps-are-lolbins-by-default\/","title":{"rendered":"Squirrel packages’ manager as a lolbin (a.k.a. many Electron apps are lolbins by default)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A week ago, or so I posted this Twit<\/a> that refers to Slack’s executables as lolbins… I have already posted<\/a> about it last year – the Slack’s update.exe<\/em> is a nice lolbin, because it’s actually a Squirrel packages’ manager in disguise. A side effect of using Electron<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was wondering if this is a common pattern, and if Slack is the only software producer that relies on this software paradigm. Right… yeah, I know, the paradigm <\/em> sounds very academic and serious, but it’s just about software development frameworks, file naming, their final placement on the user’s system, their behavior, and in the end… what you get from a command line when you run update.exe \/?<\/em>. Or something along these lines if the software authors relied on the same Electron framework as the one Slack did , and as my Twit shown – it was deemed to be ‘Lolbinish’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, before we go any further, here’s is a TL; DR; for you – run this on your (test\/targeted) system:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C:\\Users>dir \/a\/b\/s update.exe<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This will give you a list of potential candidates of programs that may in fact be wrappers of Squirrel packages’ manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once you run the cherry-picked update.exe<\/em> you will typically get this banner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usage: Squirrel.exe command [OPTS]
   Manages Squirrel packages
[...]<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
–   and… yup… you can use it as a Lolbin as described in my Twit and last year’s post:<\/p>\n\n\n\n