A custom module which extends a built-in one ran alongside it, and both
wrote to the same results file when they shared a slug, with the run
order deciding the surviving content.
Custom modules can now name the module class they supersede in a
`replaces` attribute. When both are available to a command, the named
module is dropped from the run and the substitution is logged with the
origin of the replacement, so it is recorded in command.log. Only the
replacements which are applied are reported: a declaration from a
disabled module is ignored, so that replacing a module cannot silently
disable it, and modules which replace each other in a cycle all keep
running and replace nothing, with a warning naming every one of them.
Dependencies are remapped along with the modules themselves: a module
depending on a replaced class is ordered against, and receives the
results of, the module which took its place. Replacing a module which
others depend on therefore does not make that dependency unavailable.
The remapping applies wherever dependencies are read, so a replacement
which cannot run is skipped like any other module with an unavailable
dependency, and takes the modules depending on the module it replaced
with it. Those warnings name the dependency the author declared as well
as the module which replaces it.
A replacement does not have to keep the class name of the module it
replaces, so `--module` now falls back to the name of a replaced module
and runs its replacement. A name which matches no module at all stops
the run with a warning instead of silently analyzing nothing, as does a
selection left with nothing to run once skipped modules are dropped.
Sharing a slug outside a replacement stays possible and is now reported.
Two modules writing to the same results file is a forensic-integrity
problem rather than an error, so both still run and a warning names them,
where each came from, and the file the later one overwrites. Taking over
the slug of a replaced module is not reported, because that module is no
longer part of the run.
The custom modules page now leads with plugin packages. Loading module
files with --load-module and MVT_CUSTOM_MODULES moves to a section on
developing a module locally.
A new "Writing a module" section shows a module which subclasses
IOSExtraction. It lists each base class, the command pair it serves and the
helpers it provides. "Depending on a built-in module" says to import a
built-in class from its family package.
"Importing from MVT" says what mvt.plugin exports and what importing from
it means. The custom commands page shows a Command subclass which lists its
own modules. The sysdiagnose and plugin configuration pages import from
mvt.plugin.
Add a "plugins" command to the platform-neutral mvt command. "plugins
list" shows every installed plugin package with its version, where it was
installed from, how many forensic modules it contributes and which
commands it adds. "plugins check-updates" checks for updates immediately,
without waiting for the automatic check, and prints the command which
upgrades a plugin instead of installing anything.
It lives on mvt only. The packages it lists extend mvt-ios and mvt-android
too, but auditing them is not the job of a command which analyses one
platform, and the two platform CLIs should not carry commands which are
not about an acquisition.
The command is registered as a built-in, before any external command, so
that an installed package cannot replace this audit surface.
A module declaring a dependency its command does not provide made
_ordered_modules() give up on the whole run, so a single wrong declaration
in a module scoped to several commands turned a forensic analysis into
zero executed modules with one warning to explain it.
Drop only the modules that cannot run: the one with the unavailable
dependency, and anything depending on it. Each gets its own warning naming
the module missing a dependency and the dependency it is missing, and the
remaining modules run in the same stable topological order as before. A
cycle in the dependency graph is still a programming error and still stops
the run.
Plugin packages need somewhere to keep their own settings, but MVT
rewrites its config.yaml with only the fields it knows about, so any
foreign section is dropped. Add MVTPluginSettings, a pydantic-settings
base class that gives each plugin its own file under the MVT config
folder and its own MVT_PLUGIN_<NAME>_ environment variable namespace.
Settings resolve from constructor arguments, then the environment, then
the plugin file, then the field defaults. Saving skips the values the
environment currently supplies, so credentials passed as environment
variables are not copied to disk, and writes through a private temporary
file so a settings file is never partially written or briefly readable
by other users.
The Development section holds more than one page and will grow further,
so give it its own directory. development.md becomes development/index.md,
which keeps its published URL, and the custom CLI command page moves
alongside it.
Update the nav, the cross-link between the two pages, and the README
link to the custom command documentation, which is now published at
/development/custom_commands/.
Donncha Ó Cearbhaill