IPyIDA

IPyIDA is a python-only solution to add an IPython console to IDA Pro. Use <Shift-.> to open a window with an embedded Qt console. You can then benefit from IPython’s autocompletion, online help, monospaced font input field, graphs, and so on.

You can also connect to the kernel outside of IDA using ipython console --existing.

Install

IPyIDA has been tested with IDA 6.6 and up on Windows, OS X and Linux, up to 7.6.

Fast and easy install

A script is provided to install IPyIDA and its dependencies automagically from the IDA console. Simply copy the following line to the IDA console.

Python 2

import urllib2; exec urllib2.urlopen('https://github.com/eset/ipyida/raw/stable/install_from_ida.py').read()

Python 3

import urllib.request; exec(urllib.request.urlopen('https://github.com/eset/ipyida/raw/stable/install_from_ida.py').read())

On macOS, Python3.framework does not provide a trusted CA file. You can use the system-wide file /etc/ssl/cert.pem.

import urllib.request; exec(urllib.request.urlopen('https://github.com/eset/ipyida/raw/stable/install_from_ida.py', cafile="/etc/ssl/cert.pem").read())

The script will do the following:

1. Install pip if it’s not already installed

2. Install the ipyida package from PyPi

3. Copy ipyida_plugin_stub.py to the user’s plugins directory

4. Load the IPyIDA plugin

You can inspect the install_from_ida.py script if you wish to see exactly what it does.

Warning

Don’t panic. It’s normal to see Windows' command prompt window open during the installation on Windows.

Upgrading

Rerun the install script to update to the latest version and restart IDA.

Install it the IDA way

If you’d rather manage the dependencies and updates yourself, you can copy ipyida_plugin_stub.py and the ipyida directory inside IDA’s plugins directory.

This method requires that you manage dependencies on your own. IPyIDA requires the ipykernel and qtconsole package, and the qasync package if using ipykernel version 5 or newer.

Customizing the IPython console

By default, the console does not have any globals available. If you want to have module imported before the console is opened, IPyIDA will read the ipyidarc.py file from the IDA user directory (idaapi.get_user_idadir()). Anything you import in this file will be available in the IPython console.

This is similar to the idapythonrc.py file.

Dark mode

With a dark theme in IDA Pro, it’s more convenient to also have a dark theme in the IPython console. To activate the dark theme built into qtconsole, add the following in your ipyidarc.py:

import qtconsole.styles
import ipyida.ida_qtconsole
ipyida.ida_qtconsole.set_widget_options(dict(
    style_sheet = qtconsole.styles.default_dark_style_sheet,
    syntax_style = qtconsole.styles.default_dark_syntax_style
))

Caveats

Notebook not working

IPython notebook cannot attach to an existing kernel like ipython console and ipython qtconsole do. There’s some more background info here: ipython/ipython#4066.

There are workarounds to this be I didn’t include one yet. I will consider adding it if it’s not too hackish. Pull requests are welcome.

External console not responding if IDA’s window is in the background for too long

This problem is specific to OS X’s App Nap feature in OS X 10.9 and up. When running Disabling App Nap for IDA Pro seems to fix the problem, but is a a hack for now and will use more battery on a laptop, we should find a better solution.

Here is how to disable App Nap for IDA Pro:

defaults write com.hexrays.idaq   NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES
defaults write com.hexrays.idaq64 NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

Similar work

@james91b also successfully integrated a IPython kernel in IDA. Being a non-Windows IDA user, I needed something cross-platform and took a Python-only approach to implement it. Although the some of the implementation idea comes from that project, IPyIDA was written from scratch. Hat tip to @james91b and all IDA_IPython contributors. IDA_IPython is available on Github at https://github.com/james91b/ida_ipython.