Windows: Only REPL is started if package was compressed with UPX

[CherryDT]

I'm using upx to reduce file size. Normally, any executable packed with UPX will behave the same as before. However, the Windows executables created by pkg seem to be broken afterwards, in that they seem to behave like node instead of node the_file.js when run.

david@CHE-X1 MINGW64 ~/Temp/nodetest
$ pkg . --targets node6-win-x86
> pkg@3.0.6
> Fetching base Node.js binaries to: ~/.pkg-cache
  fetched-v6.10.0-win-x86      [====================] 100%

david@CHE-X1 MINGW64 ~/Temp/nodetest
$ ./nodetest.exe
Hello World!

david@CHE-X1 MINGW64 ~/Temp/nodetest
$ upx nodetest.exe
                       Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
                          Copyright (C) 1996 - 2013
UPX 3.91w       Markus Oberhumer, Laszlo Molnar & John Reiser   Sep 30th 2013

        File size         Ratio      Format      Name
   --------------------   ------   -----------   -----------
  15253504 ->   5018624   32.90%    win32/pe     nodetest.exe

Packed 1 file.

david@CHE-X1 MINGW64 ~/Temp/nodetest
$ ./nodetest.exe
>
(To exit, press ^C again or type .exit)
>

[vweevers]

Doesn't seem to be an issue with latest upx 3.94w. As long as you don't do upx --overlay=strip. The default overlay=copy option correctly preserves the JS in my testing (with node8-win-x64,node8-win-x86).

[astefanutti]

I can reproduce on Mac OS with UPX 3.94 (using --overlay=copy).

UPX reduces the executable size from 50MB to 13MB in my case, so that would be worth a fix.

Note that executing the compressed-then-decompressed executable works as expected.

[cayuu]

@vweevers so it seems things work fine on Windows? This looks to be at least a macOS specific issue - I've not tested on Linux, but can back up @astefanutti that this is happening on macOS Sierra 10.12.6, upx 3.94 and pkg 4.2.4.

[vweevers]

Looks that way, yes. A confirmation from the OP @CherryDT would be nice. Then this issue (title) can be updated accordingly.

[CherryDT]

I can confirm that with the latest pkg version in npm, it works fine with my original test case in Windows, I had version 3.0.6 when I encountered this issue, and now I successfully tested with version 4.2.2. (Only updating UPX didn't solve it, though.)

[astefanutti]

I've just re-tested with pkg version 4.2.2 and UPX 3.94 on Mac OS Sierra and it still fails with the same error. I think the issue can be renamed according to those tests.

[roccomuso]

I've tested it too with UPX 3.94 and pkg@4.2.2 on Linux Ubuntu 16.04.
I have the same issue..

PS. I'm using a node-wrapper for upx.

[aluxian]

Still failing, upx 3.94 and pkg@4.2.4 on MacOS Sierra

[cancerberoSgx]

I'm having the same problem in arch linux. Using the command :

$ upx -1 -o myexec2 --strip-relocs=0 --overlay=skip myexec

$ upx -V 
upx 3.94
UCL data compression library 1.03
zlib data compression library 1.2.11
LZMA SDK version 4.43

[cancerberoSgx]

Question to the owners @igorklopov . upx guys are asking (upx/upx#2) :

The first thing that'd be important is to figure out where pkg is actually storing that information.
(eg. Is it just concatenating it onto the end like a self-extracting archive or actually storing it within the ELF structure the way debugging information is stored?)

Do you have this info? Thanks

[vladholubiev]

Adding to the pile, error on Amazon Linux AMI 2017.03, upx 3.9.4

This happens when I try to add any arguments, like ./bin a b c d e

(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { ��ࡱ�
                                                              ^
SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
    at createScript (vm.js:56:10)
    at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:97:10)
    at Module._compile (module.js:542:28)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:604:10)
    at run (bootstrap_node.js:432:7)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:192:9)

[FallingSnow]

On Arch Linux with upx 3.95-git-e633c51b50c1. Would be a nice feature to have since it reduces file sizes quite significantly. When using upx -1 -o output-test input-test I get:

Pkg: Error reading from file.

[elderapo]

As an alternative to upx, I recommend gzexe.

gzexe ./build/uncompressed && mv ./build/uncompressed ./build/compressed && mv ./build/uncompressed~ ./build/uncompressed

[nd0164]

you may try a new toy pkgx

[jesec]

Dupe of #1370.