Python CreateFile Cannot Find PhysicalMemory

Question

I am trying to access the Physical Memory of a Windows 2000 system (trying to do this without a memory dumping tool). My understanding is that I need to do this using the CreateFile function to create a handle. I have used an older version of win32dd to help me through this. Other documentation on the web points me to using either "\Device\PhysicalMemory" or "\\.\PhysicalMemory". Unfortunately, I get the same error for each.

Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "testHandles.py", line 101, in (module)
   File "testHandles.py", line 72, in createFileHandle
pywintypes.error: (3, 'CreateFile', 'The system cannot find the path specified.')

Actually, the error number returned is different for each run \\.\PhysicalMemory == 3 and \Device\PhysicalMemory == 2. Review of pywin32, win32file, createfile, pyhandle, and pywintypes did not produce information as to the different return values.

Here is my code. I am using py2exe to get this working on Windows 2000 (and yes it compiles successfully). I realize that I might also have a problem with DeviceIoControl but right now I am concentrating on CreateFile.

# testHandles.py

import ctypes
import socket
import struct
import sys
import win32file
import pywintypes

def createFileHandle():

    outLoc = pywintypes.Unicode("C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator\\My Documents\\pymemdump_dotPM.dd")
    handleLoc = pywintypes.Unicode("\\\\.\\PhysicalMemory")
    #handleLoc = pywintypes.Unicode("\\Device\\PhysicalMemory")
    placeHolder = 0
    BytesReturned = 0


    # Device =                                              CreateFile(L"\\\\.\\win32dd", GENERIC_ALL, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
    #                                                           CreateFile(fileName,                        desiredAccess ,          shareMode ,    attributes , creationDisposition ,      flagsAndAttributes ,                    hTemplateFile )
    #hMemHandle = win32file.CreateFile(handleLoc, GENERIC_ALL, SHARE_READ, None, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, None)
    hMemHandle = win32file.CreateFile(handleLoc, win32file.GENERIC_READ, win32file.FILE_SHARE_READ, None, win32file.OPEN_EXISTING, win32file.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, None)
    print "hMemHandle: %s" % hMemHandle
    if (hMemHandle == NO_ERROR):
        print "Could not build hMemHandle"
        sys.exit()

    # We send destination path to the driver.
    #if (!DeviceIoControl(hMemHandle, 0x19880922, outLoc, (ULONG)(wcslen(outLoc) + 1) * sizeof(TCHAR), NULL, 0, &BytesReturned, NULL))
    if (ctypes.windll.Kernel32.DeviceIoControl(hMemHandle, 0x19880922, outLoc, 5, NULL, 0, BytesReturned, NULL)):
        print "Error: DeviceIoControl(), Cannot send IOCTL.\n"
    else:
        print "[win32dd] Physical memory dumped. You can now check %s.\n" % outLoc

# Dump memory
createFileHandle()

Thank you, Cutaway

Answer 1

I don't believe it's possible to access the physical memory object from user mode land in Windows. As your win32dd link suggests, you will need to do it from kernel mode.