SDF Flash GUI

Cross-platform GUI for optical drive firmware dump/flash. Inspired by the Windows-only SDFtool Flasher.exe

Features

• Drive enumeration — optical drives on macOS, Linux, and Windows (IOKit / sysfs / drive letters), with MakeMKV-style backend -l list when a tool is configured
• Drive properties — vendor, model, revision, firmware date, MT1959 / MT1939 detection, encrypted firmware, LibreDrive status, SDF.bin version
• Firmware dump — read drive firmware via the selected backend
• Firmware flash — multi-gate safety before write/recover:
  • MT1959 platform check (probe)
  • Typed confirmation (FLASH <device>)
  • Mutually exclusive encrypted vs boot-loader rawflash modes
  • Cross form-factor warning + explicit confirm when slim/desktop mismatch
• Firmware identification — SHA-256 lookup in a known-firmware table plus binary content scan (PCB type / embedded model); no reliance on filenames
• Recovery flash — 16-byte boot token entry or extraction from a wrong firmware dump
• SDF0 parsing — sdf.bin / firmware containers (vendor, model, version, flags)
• Dual backends — sdftool and makemkvcon (both from MakeMKV); auto-detected on PATH and common install paths
• CLI — list, info, dump, flash, sdf-info share the same planning path as the GUI

Install

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://sdf-flash-gui.blahaj.uk/install.sh | sh

Uses the Homebrew cask when brew is installed. Otherwise it downloads the .dmg (macOS), the .deb (apt/dpkg), or the AppImage (into ~/.local/bin) from the latest release and checks it against the release's SHA-256 sums. Set SDF_FLASH_GUI_APP_DIR to install the macOS app somewhere other than /Applications.

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://sdf-flash-gui.blahaj.uk/install.ps1 | iex

Downloads the .msi, checks its SHA-256, and runs the installer.

Manual

Homebrew: brew install --cask thedavidweng/tap/sdf-flash-gui. Installers are also on Releases: .dmg for macOS, .deb / .AppImage for Linux, .msi for Windows.

Requirements

• MakeMKV installed (provides sdftool and makemkvcon)
• sdf.bin from the SDFtool/MKV firmware pack (optional; improves probe/flash when present)

Platform permissions

Platform	Notes
Linux	Optical drive access often needs the cdrom group (or equivalent rights) to open /dev/sr* / /dev/sg*.
macOS	Drive access is usually available to the logged-in user.
Windows	Some raw device paths may require running as Administrator.

Build

cargo build --release

Output: target/release/sdf-flash-gui.

macOS release CI requires Developer ID signing and Apple notarization for both the App and DMG. Maintainer credentials and the release checks are documented in ADR 0014. Existing published releases are not retroactively notarized.

Run mise install to install hk hooks: a cargo fmt check runs before each commit; CI runs clippy and tests. Never bypass hooks with --no-verify or HK=0.

Local quality checks:

cargo fmt -- --check
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
cargo test
./scripts/coverage.sh gate   # project ≥99%, patch 100% on changed domain lines

Website and web demo

The project site lives in site/ and deploys to GitHub Pages from main. Its demo is the real GUI compiled to WebAssembly over a simulated backend (see docs/adr/0011-web-demo-reuses-desktop-gui.md).

rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
# Prebuilt wasm-bindgen CLI matching the wasm-bindgen version in Cargo.lock
# (https://github.com/wasm-bindgen/wasm-bindgen/releases). CI uses taiki-e/install-action.
./scripts/build-site.sh                       # → target/site
python3 -m http.server -d target/site 8000

Architecture

src/
  main.rs              CLI entry (no args → GUI)
  lib.rs               library crate for tests
  branding.rs          Product name (from Cargo.toml) and project URLs
  command.rs           Backend argv planner (no shell strings) + command display
  orchestration.rs     Shared probe / list / flash session, BackendOpError (CLI + GUI)
  process.rs           Run / stream / cancel / reap + ProcessRunner trait
  process_runner.rs    NativeRunner (OS process adapter; coverage-ignored)
  firmware_db.rs       Known-hash table, binary firmware ID, encryption policy, version compare
  platform.rs          Slim/desktop model tables, form-factor helpers
  warnings.rs          Flash-safety warnings (cross-flash, two-step, downgrade, mismatch)
  test_support.rs      Shared ProcessRunner fake (cfg(test) only)
  drive/
    parse.rs           Pure list/identity/selection parsers (covered)
    probe.rs           --info interpretation: DriveSafety + identity (covered)
    os.rs              OS enumerate + find_backend / find_sdf_bin (ignored)
  sdf.rs               SDF0 container parser + presentation helpers
  i18n/                Language keys, English + locale tables
  gui/
    state.rs           AppState (drive list apply, probe cache)
    start_gate.rs      Structured Start enablement reasons
    ops/               Lifecycle, start, firmware load, drives, nudge, labels
    workers.rs         Background probe / list / streaming
    views/             egui paint only
    validation.rs      Tool / sdf.bin path checks
    file_dialog.rs     rfd adapter (coverage-ignored)
    demo.rs            Web demo host: simulated sdftool behind ProcessRunner
web/                   wasm32 entry that mounts the GUI on a canvas
site/                  GitHub Pages site (static HTML/CSS/JS)

CLI and GUI share probe/list/flash planning through orchestration and command. GUI Start rules live in start_gate; i18n maps them at the edge.

Coverage ignore set is shared: scripts/coverage-ignore.regex ↔ codecov.yml (checked in CI).

Security

See SECURITY.md for vulnerability reporting.

Acknowledgements

• MakeMKV
• MartyMcNuts for the original Windows SDFtool Flasher: forum thread

License

GPL-2.0-or-later