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DSCLoadDepsExternal

Description

Pick a Mach-O file on disk and load all the cache images it depends on. Useful when reverse-engineering a third-party binary that was originally linked against the system frameworks: rather than guessing which dylibs to bring in, point IDA at the binary and let it match.

Available from the DSC Index context menu, under Load.

Load > From external Mach-O...
The "Load > From external Mach-O..." entry in the DSC Index context menu

Workflow

  1. Pick the Mach-O. A file-chooser opens; select the off-cache Mach-O (an executable, dylib or framework binary).

  2. Match against the cache. IDA parses the file's LC_LOAD_DYLIB (and friends) load commands, then resolves each listed install-name to an image in the current DSC. Mismatches (CPU architecture, platform, paths the cache doesn't know about) are flagged.

  3. Pick what to load. The dependencies picker dialog is presented, pre-populated with the matched images. Tweak the dependency depth and uncheck individual entries as needed.

Load deps from external Mach-O
The picker dialog, here populated from the load commands of an (admittedly simple) test program

See DSC Workflow.

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