Headless IDA MCP Server

Acknowledgments

This project builds upon the work of:

• Tools code adapted from ida-pro-mcp by mrexodia
• Utilizes the headless-ida library by DennyDai

Headless IDA MCP Server

If you want to run the server directly as a cli app, rather than an IDA plugin interactively,you can chose it.

Project Description

This project uses IDA Pro's headless mode to analyze binary files and provides a suite of tools via MCP to manage and manipulate functions, variables, and more.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12 or higher
• IDA Pro with headless support (idat) https://github.com/DennyDai/headless-ida

Installation

1. Clone the project locally:
   git clone https://github.com/cnitlrt/headless-ida-mcp-server.git cd headless-ida-mcp-server
2. Install dependencies:
   uv python install 3.12 uv venv --python 3.12 uv pip install -e .

Configuration

1. Copy the example environment file:
   cp .env_example .env
2. Configure the following environment variables in .env:
   • IDA_PATH: Path to IDA Pro's headless executable (idat), e.g., /home/ubuntu/idapro/idat
   • PORT: Port number for the MCP server, e.g., 8888
   • HOST: Host address for the MCP server, e.g., 127.0.0.1
   • TRANSPORT: MCP transport mode (sse or stdio)

Usage

1. Start the server:
   uv run headless_ida_mcp_server
2. Connect to the server using an MCP client:Debug it:
   npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
   or
   { "mcpServers": { "ida": { "command": "/path/to/uv", "args": ["--directory","path/to/headless-ida-mcp-server","run","headless_ida_mcp_server"] } } }