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ELF Viewer

A viewer for exploring ELF binary structure, providing information equivalent to readelf.

  • Desktop app (Wails): GUI application that opens ELF files via a native file dialog
  • Web app (browser): Client-side web application that opens files via <input type="file">

Both modes run the same TypeScript ELF parser entirely on the client side.

Features

  • Graphical memory map — visualizes segment and section layout; click any region to navigate to the corresponding section or program header entry
  • Security summary — shows PIE, RELRO (partial/full), NX, stack canary, and FORTIFY_SOURCE status at a glance
  • Works without section headers — falls back to program headers and the dynamic segment to display symbol tables, relocations, and dynamic entries
  • ELF32 and ELF64, little-endian and big-endian — broad architecture coverage
  • Web version runs entirely in the browser — no installation or server required; files are processed locally and never uploaded

Memory map view

Usage

Web app

No installation required. Open the web app in your browser:

https://kariya-mitsuru.github.io/elf-viewer/

Alternatively, download the standalone HTML file (e.g. elf-viewer-v0.1.3.html) from the Releases page and open it directly in your browser — no server needed.

Desktop app

Download the latest Linux binary from the Releases page using curl:

VERSION=x.y.z  # replace with the actual version
# amd64
curl -L -o elf-viewer "https://github.com/kariya-mitsuru/elf-viewer/releases/download/v${VERSION}/elf-viewer-v${VERSION}-linux-amd64"
# arm64
curl -L -o elf-viewer "https://github.com/kariya-mitsuru/elf-viewer/releases/download/v${VERSION}/elf-viewer-v${VERSION}-linux-arm64"
chmod +x elf-viewer
./elf-viewer /path/to/binary

Limitations

  • Symbol demangling is not supported — C++ mangled names are displayed as-is
  • DWARF and other debug information is not parsed
  • Archive files (.a) are not supported
  • Compressed sections (SHF_COMPRESSED) are not supported

Runtime Requirements

Desktop app (Wails)

The built binary links against the following system libraries:

  • libgtk-3-0
  • libwebkit2gtk-4.0-0 (Ubuntu < 24.04) or libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 (Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian bookworm+)

These are typically pre-installed on desktop Linux systems. If not:

# Ubuntu / Debian (< 24.04)
sudo apt install libgtk-3-0 libwebkit2gtk-4.0-0
# Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian bookworm+
sudo apt install libgtk-3-0 libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0

Web app

No runtime requirements beyond a web browser.

Build Requirements

Desktop app (Wails)

  • Go 1.25 or later
  • Node.js 24 or later (with npm)
  • Wails CLI v2
  • System libraries: build-essential, libgtk-3-dev, and libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev (or libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev on Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian bookworm+)
go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest
# Ubuntu / Debian (< 24.04)
sudo apt install build-essential libgtk-3-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev
# Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian bookworm+
sudo apt install build-essential libgtk-3-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev

Web app (browser only)

  • Node.js 24 or later (with npm)

Building

Use make for common tasks (make help lists all targets). On Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian bookworm+, the -tags webkit2_41 flag is automatically applied via pkg-config.

make build            # Build the Wails desktop app
make dev              # Start dev mode with hot reload
make dev FILE=/usr/bin/ls  # Start dev mode with a file pre-loaded
make web              # Build the browser web app (output: frontend/dist/)
make web-dev          # Start the browser web dev server
make web-preview      # Preview the browser web build
make generate         # Regenerate wailsjs bindings after changing app.go
make lint             # Run ESLint
make fmt              # Format source files with Prettier
make release VERSION=x.y.z  # Trigger the GitHub Actions release workflow

Desktop app — production build

make build

Output: build/bin/elf-viewer

You can pass an ELF file path as a command-line argument:

./build/bin/elf-viewer /usr/bin/ls

Desktop app — dev mode

Starts with hot reload. Changes to both Go and TypeScript are reflected immediately.

make dev                       # hot reload
make dev FILE=/usr/bin/ls      # with a file pre-loaded at startup

Web app — production build

make web    # output goes to frontend/dist/

Serve the generated frontend/dist/ directory from any static file server. To preview locally:

make web-preview  # http://localhost:4173

Web app — dev server

make web-dev  # http://localhost:5173

Version & Release

To release a new version, run make release VERSION=x.y.z from the dev branch (or any non-main branch).

make release bumps the version in frontend/package.json, commits the change, pushes the branch, and opens a pull request to main. The pull request is automatically approved and merged once all CI checks pass. When the merge lands on main, a v*.*.* tag is created automatically, which triggers the release workflow to build Linux binaries (amd64 and arm64) and publish a GitHub Release.

Source files

Tracked (source files)

app.go                        # Go backend (OpenFileDialog, ReadFileBytes, etc.)
main.go                       # Wails entry point + Go embed
go.mod / go.sum               # Go module definition and lock
wails.json                    # Wails project configuration
Makefile
CLAUDE.md                     # Project notes for Claude Code

frontend/index.html           # HTML entry point
frontend/style.css
frontend/package.json
frontend/package-lock.json
frontend/tsconfig.json
frontend/vite.config.ts
frontend/eslint.config.js
frontend/.prettierrc
frontend/src/                 # TypeScript source
frontend/wailsjs/             # Auto-generated Wails bindings (Go API type definitions)

frontend/wailsjs/ is generated by wails generate module, but is tracked because it is required for TypeScript builds and editor type checking. Regenerate it whenever the public methods in app.go change:

make generate
# or: wails generate module

Not tracked (generated / environment-specific)

build/                        # wails build output (binaries)
frontend/dist/                # npm run build output
frontend/node_modules/        # npm dependencies
frontend/package.json.md5     # Wails internal checksum file
frontend/.vite/               # Vite dependency pre-bundling cache

Directory structure

.
├── app.go                    # Wails backend (OpenFileDialog, ReadFileBytes, etc.)
├── main.go                   # Wails entry point + Go embed
├── go.mod / go.sum
├── wails.json
├── Makefile
├── CLAUDE.md                 # Project notes for Claude Code
└── frontend/
    ├── index.html
    ├── style.css
    ├── package.json
    ├── tsconfig.json
    ├── vite.config.ts
    ├── eslint.config.js
    ├── .prettierrc
    ├── src/
    │   ├── main.ts           # Entry point
    │   ├── app.ts            # Application controller (sidebar, tabs)
    │   ├── parser/
    │   │   ├── types.ts      # ELF type definitions
    │   │   ├── reader.ts     # Binary read utilities
    │   │   ├── elf.ts        # ELF parser (DataView-based, ELF32/64, LSB/MSB)
    │   │   └── elf.test.ts   # Parser unit tests
    │   ├── views/
    │   │   ├── ElfHeaderView.ts
    │   │   ├── ProgramHeadersView.ts
    │   │   ├── SectionHeadersView.ts
    │   │   ├── SymbolsView.ts
    │   │   ├── RelocationsView.ts
    │   │   ├── DynamicView.ts
    │   │   ├── NotesView.ts
    │   │   ├── HashView.ts           # SHT_HASH view
    │   │   ├── GnuHashView.ts        # SHT_GNU_HASH view
    │   │   ├── VersionsView.ts       # GNU version info view
    │   │   ├── HexDumpView.ts        # Section hex dump view
    │   │   ├── SecurityView.ts       # Binary hardening checks (PIE, RELRO, NX, etc.)
    │   │   ├── MemoryMapView.ts
    │   │   ├── layout.ts             # ELFFile → MemoryMapView intermediate representation
    │   │   ├── viewUtils.ts          # Shared view utilities
    │   │   └── virtualScroll.ts      # Virtual scrolling for large tables
    │   ├── ui/
    │   │   ├── TabManager.ts
    │   │   ├── Sidebar.ts
    │   │   ├── SectionNav.ts         # In-view section navigation
    │   │   ├── AboutDialog.ts
    │   │   └── ContextMenu.ts
    │   └── platform/
    │       ├── wails.ts              # File loading via Wails
    │       └── web.ts                # File loading via FileReader
    └── wailsjs/                      # Generated by wails generate module
        ├── go/main/App.js
        ├── go/main/App.d.ts
        └── runtime/

License

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

Copyright (c) 2026 Mitsuru Kariya. See LICENSE for details.

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A viewer for exploring ELF binary structure

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Releases 6

ELF Viewer v0.3.0 Latest
Mar 21, 2026
+ 5 releases

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