Wait for a callback and then using the result

Question

I'm using Frida to run a script on a process, and I want to wait for it to send the result back to me, as a callback.

My current code looks like this:

def check(target):
    global msg

    script_to_run = '''
    (omitted for brevity)
    '''
    
    # callback to handle the output of the script
    def on_message(message, data):
        global msg
        if message['type'] == 'send':
            msg = message['payload']

    session = device.attach(target.pid)
    
    script = session.create_script(script_to_run)
    script.on('message', on_message)
    script.load()
    
    # Wait for the script to send us a message
    while msg == None:
        pass

    return msg == 'true'

The while loop in particular looks a bit unoptimized, and I'm also worried about how I used that global variable... it will pollute the global scope.

EDIT: As it turns out, I was approaching this in the wrong direction. See my answer below for details.

Answer 1

So, as it turns out, I was approaching this problem in the wrong direction.

Instead of trying to wait on an asynchronous message, I discovered that Frida has an RPC API.

Here's how I re-wrote my code:

import frida

# --snip--

def check(target):
    session = frida.attach(target.pid)

    script = session.create_script('''
        rpc.exports = {
            check: function () {
                // --snip--
                return true;
            }
        };
    ''')
    script.load()

    return script.exports.check()

Much more succinct, doesn't use globals, and doesn't use a while loop to block.

Answer 2

I am not familiar with Frida, but looking at the examples found at https://frida.re/docs/messages/ I think you should do your processing in the callback "on_message", instead of passing it to the main thread.

The Frida examples end with sys.stdin.read() which acts like a wait-forever loop. The callback is probably executing in a different thread.

So change your last lines to

# Wait for the script to send us a message
sys.stdin.read()

And change the callback to

def on_message(message, data):
    if message['type'] == 'send':
        print(message['payload'] == 'true')

Don't worry about poluting the global namespace. You are the only one using it :-)