I’ve been moving from Windows to Linux recently and my latest software move attempt is Roboform, a password manager that I use in offline mode. Just running it under Wine works fine for the primary software interaction, but I was unable to get it fully integrated with its chrome extension. Below is the information for my attempt to get it working, in case someone could use the information or wanted to try continuing my attempts.

To move your RoboForm profile to Linux, copy the data from C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\RoboForm\Profiles\Default Profile to ~/.wine/drive_c/users/USERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/RoboForm/Profiles/Default Profile.

The chrome extension talks to its parent, rf-chrome-nm-host.exe, through the native messaging API. To direct the extension to talk to the windows executable you have to edit ~/.config/chromium/NativeMessagingHosts/com.siber.roboform.json and change the path inside it to /home/USERNAME/chrome-robo.sh, a script file that you will create. You can’t link directly to the rf-chrome-nm-host.exe because it has to be run through Wine, and the path cannot contain arguments.

Create a file with executable permissions at ~/chrome-robo.sh and set its contents to:

cd "/home/USERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Siber Systems/AI RoboForm/9.6.1.1/";
/usr/bin/wine ./rf-chrome-nm-host.exe chrome-extension://pnlccmojcmeohlpggmfnbbiapkmbliob/ --parent-window=0

It should have worked at this point, but it still wasn’t, so I had to go further into debug mode. The full copy of the C source code can be found at the bottom of this post. Make sure to replace USERNAME in the source (and instructions in this post) with your username, as using “~” to specify your home directory often doesn’t work in this setup. You may also need to replace version numbers (9.6.1.1 for this post).

First, I created a simple C program to sit in between the chrome extension and the rf-chrome-nm-host.exe. All it did was forward the stdin/stdout between both programs (left=chromium, right=rf-chrome-nm-host.exe) and output their crosstalk to a log file (./log) that I monitored with tail -f. I pointed to the generated executable in the ~/chrome-robo.sh file.

All that was generated on the Linux config was: left=ping, right=confirm ping, left=get product info, END.

I then modified the program to specifically handle chrome native messaging packets, which are always a 4 byte number specifying the packet length, followed by the packet data (IsChrome=1). If this variable is turned off there is a place in the code where you can set a different executable with parameters to run.

Next, I ran the program in Windows with a working left+right config so I could see what packets were expected.

I then added a hack to the program (AddRoboformAnswerHacks=1) to respond to the 2nd-4th packets sent from the left (get-product-info, get-product-info, Initialize2) with what was expected from the right. rf-chrome-nm-host.exe crashed on the 5th packet, and debugging further from there would have taken too more time than I was willing to put in, so at that point I gave up.

I next decided to see if I could get the chromium extension to play nicely by talking directly to the rf-chrome-nm-host.exe on my Windows machine via an SSH tunnel. To do this, I changed the char *cmd[]= line to:

char *cmd[]={
  "/usr/bin/ssh",
  "USERNAME@HOSTNAME",
  "cd c:/Program\\ Files\\ \\(x86\\)/Siber\\ Systems/AI\\ RoboForm/9.6.1.1; ./rf-chrome-nm-host.exe chrome-extension://pnlccmojcmeohlpggmfnbbiapkmbliob/ --parent-window=0",
  NULL
};

While the first 4 packets succeeded in this setup, the following packets (rf-api-request) were all met with: pipe open error: The system cannot find the file specified. (error 2).

This was another stopping point because debugging this would also have taken too long. Though I did do some initial testing using Process Monitor and handle lookups in Process Explorer.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <string.h>

FILE *SideLog; //This logs all events to the file "log"
FILE *RecordLeft; //This logs the exact packets that the left side sends to the file "left"
int IsChrome=1; //True for roboform chrome compatibility, false to just pass through data as is
int DisplayStatus=1; //Whether to show the "Status: x" updates
int AddRoboformAnswerHacks=0; //Whether to force send fake responses that the rf-chrome server is not responding to
const char* HomePath="/home/USERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Siber Systems/AI RoboForm/9.6.1.1/"; //This must be set.
const char* ExePath="/home/USERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Siber Systems/AI RoboForm/9.6.1.1/rf-chrome-nm-host.exe"; //This must be set. You can make sure rf-chrome-nm-host.exe is running with a 'ps'

//Send back a custom packet to the left. This will show in the log file BEFORE the packet it is responding to.
void SendLeft(char *str)
{
	char Buffer[255];
	int StrSize=strlen(str);
	*(int*)Buffer=StrSize;
	strcpy(Buffer+4, str);

	write(STDOUT_FILENO, Buffer, StrSize+4);
	fprintf(SideLog, "OVERRIDE REQUEST: %s\n\n", Buffer+4);
	fflush(SideLog);
}

//Forward data from left to right or vice versa. Also saves to logs and "left" file
void ForwardSide(int InFileHandle, int OutFileHandle, fd_set* ReadFDS, int IsLeft)
{
	//Exit here if no data
	if(!FD_ISSET(InFileHandle, ReadFDS))
		return;

	//Create a static 1MB+1K buffer - Max packet with chrome is 1MB
	const int BufferLen=1024*(1024+1);
	static char* Buffer=0;
	if(!Buffer)
		Buffer=malloc(BufferLen);

	//If not chrome, just pass the data as is
	char* Side=(IsLeft ? "left" : "right");
	if(!IsChrome) {
		int ReadSize=read(InFileHandle, Buffer, BufferLen);
		write(OutFileHandle, Buffer, ReadSize);
		if(IsLeft)
			fwrite(Buffer, ReadSize, 1, RecordLeft);
		Buffer[ReadSize]=0;
		fprintf(SideLog, "%s (%d): %s\n\n", Side, ReadSize, Buffer);
		fflush(SideLog);
		return;
	}

	//Read the 4 byte packet size and store it at the beginning of the buffer
	unsigned int PacketSize;
	read(InFileHandle, &PacketSize, 4);
	*(unsigned int*)Buffer=PacketSize;

	//Read in the packet and zero it out at the end for the string functions
	read(InFileHandle, Buffer+4, PacketSize);
	Buffer[PacketSize+4]=0;

	//Send fake product-info packet since rf-chrome-nm-host.exe was not responding to it
	if(AddRoboformAnswerHacks && IsLeft && strstr(Buffer+4, "\"name\":\"getProp\"") && strstr(Buffer+4, "\"args\":\"product-info\"")) {
		//The return packet with header at the front
		char VersionInfo[]="{\"callbackId\":\"2\",\"result\":\"{\\\"version\\\":\\\"9-6-1-1\\\",\\\"haveReportAnIssue\\\":true,\\\"haveBreachMon\\\":true,\\\"haveLoginIntoAccount\\\":true}\"}";

		//Simplistic version counter hack since chrome always sends 2 version info requests at the beginning
		static int VersionCount=2;
		VersionInfo[15]='0'+VersionCount;
		VersionCount++;

		SendLeft(VersionInfo);
	//Send fake initialization info packet since rf-chrome-nm-host.exe was not responding to it
	} else if(AddRoboformAnswerHacks && IsLeft && strstr(Buffer+4, "\"name\":\"Initialize2\"")) {
		SendLeft("{\"callbackId\":\"4\",\"result\":\"rf-api\"}");
	//Forward the packet to the other side and store in the "left" file if left side
	} else {
		write(OutFileHandle, Buffer, PacketSize+4);
		if(IsLeft)
			fwrite(Buffer, PacketSize+4, 1, RecordLeft);
	}

	//Output the packet to the log
	fprintf(SideLog, "%s (%d): %s\n\n", Side, PacketSize, Buffer+4);
	fflush(SideLog);
}

int main(void) {
	//Create pipes
	int pipe1[2]; //Parent writes to child
	int pipe2[2]; //Child writes to parent
	if(pipe(pipe1)==-1 || pipe(pipe2)==-1) {
		perror("pipe");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	//Fork the current process
	pid_t pid = fork();
	if(pid==-1) {
		perror("fork");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	//New (child) process
	if(pid == 0) {
		//Close unused ends of the pipes
		close(pipe1[1]); // Close write end of pipe1
		close(pipe2[0]); // Close read end of pipe2

		//Redirect stdin to the read end of pipe1
		dup2(pipe1[0], STDIN_FILENO);
		close(pipe1[0]);

		//Redirect stdout to the write end of pipe2
		dup2(pipe2[1], STDOUT_FILENO);
		close(pipe2[1]);

		//Move to the roboform home directory
		if(IsChrome) {
			if(chdir(HomePath) == -1) {
				perror("chdir");
				exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
			}
		}

		//Execute a command that reads from stdin and writes to stdout. The default is the chrome command. If not in chrome, you can fill in the exe and parameter you wish to use
		char *cmd[] = {"/usr/bin/wine", (char*)ExePath, "chrome-extension://pnlccmojcmeohlpggmfnbbiapkmbliob/", "--parent-window=0", NULL};
		if(!IsChrome) {
			cmd[0]="/usr/bin/php";
			cmd[1]="echo.php";
		}
		execvp(cmd[0], cmd);
		perror("execlp");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	//---Parent process - forwards both sides---
	//Close unused ends of the pipes
	close(pipe1[0]); // Close read end of pipe1
	close(pipe2[1]); // Close write end of pipe2

	//Open the log files
	SideLog = fopen("./log", "w+");
	RecordLeft = fopen("./left", "w+");

	//Run the main loop
	int max_fd=pipe2[0]+1; //Other pipe is STDIN which is 0
	while(1) {
		//Create the structures needed for select
		fd_set read_fds;
		FD_ZERO(&read_fds);
		FD_SET(STDIN_FILENO, &read_fds);
		FD_SET(pipe2[0], &read_fds);

		struct timeval timeout;
		timeout.tv_sec = 10;
		timeout.tv_usec = 0;
	
		//Listen for an update
		int status = select(max_fd, &read_fds, NULL, NULL, &timeout);

		//Display "Status: x" if its setting is true
		if(DisplayStatus) {
			fprintf(SideLog, "Status: %d\n", status);
			if(status==0)
				fflush(SideLog);
		}

		//Exit on bad status
		if (status==-1) {
			perror("select");
			break;
		}

		//Check both sides to see if they need to forward a packet
		ForwardSide(STDIN_FILENO, pipe1[1], &read_fds, 1);
		ForwardSide(pipe2[0], STDOUT_FILENO, &read_fds, 0);
	}

	//Close pipes
	close(pipe1[1]);
	close(pipe2[0]);

	//Wait for the child process to finish
	wait(NULL);

	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}