SELF File Format

SELF stands for Signed Executable and Linkable Format. SPRX stands for Signed Playstation Relocatable eXecutable. They are the format used by the executables on the PS3, PS Vita and PS4. PS4 SELF files have a different structure from the PS3/PS Vita ones but contain mostly the same information. See PS3/PS Vita SELF/SPRX wiki page and PS3/PS Vita Certified File wiki page.

SELF Header Structure

Offset	Size	Description	Notes
0	4	Magic	4F 15 3D 1D
0x4	4	Unknown	Always 00 01 01 12
0x8	1	Category	1 on SELF, 4 on PUP Entry (probably SPP). See PS3/PS Vita Category.
0x9	1	Program Type	First Half denotes version, second Half denotes true type, 4 for Games, 6 for Video Apps like Netflix, 8 for System/EX Apps/Executables, 9 for SYSTEM/EX modules/dlls
0xA	2	Padding
0xC	2	Header Size
0xE	2	Signature Size	?Metadata Size?
0x10	4	File Size	Size of SELF
0x14	4	Padding
0x18	2	Number of Segments	1 Kernel, 2 SL and Secure Modules, 4 Kernel ELFs, 6 .selfs, 2 .sdll, 6 .sprx, 6 ShellCore, 6 eboot.bin, 2 sexe
0x1A	2	Unknown	Always 0x22
0x1C	4	Padding

SELF Segment Structure

Depending on the number of segments, at offset 0x20 the following structure follows and presents a size multiple of 0x20.

typedef struct {
 unsigned long long flags; // 0x130006 / 0x00040F / 0x000006 / 0x110006
 unsigned long long offset;
 unsigned long long encrypted_compressed_size;
 unsigned long long decrypted_decompressed_size;
} SEGMENT_TABLE;

Flags ID

enum SegFlags {
    SF_ORDR = 0x1,    // ordered?
    SF_ENCR = 0x2,    // encrypted
    SF_SIGN = 0x4,    // signed
    SF_DFLG = 0x8,    // deflated
    SF_BFLG = 0x800,  // block segment
};

Flags Maths

uint32_t Id() {
	return Flags >> 20; //0 or 1
}

bool IsOrdered() {
	return (Flags & 1) != 0;//0 or 1
}

bool IsEncrypted() {
	return (Flags & 2) != 0;//0 or 2
}

bool IsSigned() {
	return (Flags & 4) != 0;//0 or 4
}

bool IsCompressed() {
	return (Flags & 8) != 0;//0 or 8
}

bool IsBlocked() {
	return (Flags & 0x800) != 0;//0 or 0x800
}

ELF Segment Structure

After this, follows the ELF Header:

ELF header

Offset		Size (bytes)		Field	Purpose
32-bit	64-bit	32-bit	64-bit
0x00		4		e_ident[EI_MAG0] through e_ident[EI_MAG3]	0x7F followed by ELF(45 4c 46) in ASCII; these four bytes constitute the magic number.
0x04		1		e_ident[EI_CLASS]	This byte is set to either 1 or 2 to signify 32- or 64-bit format, respectively.
0x05		1		e_ident[EI_DATA]	This byte is set to either 1 or 2 to signify little or big endianness, respectively. This affects interpretation of multi-byte fields starting with offset 0x10.
0x06		1		e_ident[EI_VERSION]	Set to 1 for the original version of ELF.
0x07		1		e_ident[EI_OSABI]	Identifies the target operating system ABI. Value ABI 0x00 System V 0x01 HP-UX 0x02 NetBSD 0x03 Linux 0x04 GNU Hurd 0x06 Solaris 0x07 AIX 0x08 IRIX 0x09 FreeBSD 0x0A Tru64 0x0B Novell Modesto 0x0C OpenBSD 0x0D OpenVMS 0x0E NonStop Kernel 0x0F AROS 0x10 Fenix OS 0x11 CloudABI It is often set to 0 regardless of the target platform.
0x08		1		e_ident[EI_ABIVERSION]	Further specifies the ABI version. Its interpretation depends on the target ABI. Linux kernel (after at least 2.6) has no definition of it. In that case, offset and size of EI_PAD are 8.
0x09		7		e_ident[EI_PAD]	currently unused
0x10		2		e_type	Identifies object file type. Value Type 0x00 ET_NONE 0x01 ET_REL 0x02 ET_EXEC 0x03 ET_DYN 0x04 ET_CORE 0xfe00 ET_SCE_EXEC 0xfe01 ET_SCE_REPLAY_EXEC 0xfe10 ET_SCE_DYNEXEC 0xfe18 ET_SCE_DYNAMIC 0xfeff ET_HIOS 0xff00 ET_LOPROC 0xffff ET_HIPROC
0x12		2		e_machine	Specifies target instruction set architecture. Some examples are: Value ISA 0x00 No specific instruction set 0x02 SPARC 0x03 x86 0x08 MIPS 0x14 PowerPC 0x16 S390 0x28 ARM 0x2A SuperH 0x32 IA-64 0x3E x86-64 0xB7 AArch64 0xF3 RISC-V
0x14		4		e_version	Set to 1 for the original version of ELF.
0x18		4	8	e_entry	This is the memory address of the entry point from where the process starts executing. This field is either 32 or 64 bits long depending on the format defined earlier.
0x1C	0x20	4	8	e_phoff	Points to the start of the program header table. It usually follows the file header immediately, making the offset 0x34 or 0x40 for 32- and 64-bit ELF executables, respectively.
0x20	0x28	4	8	e_shoff	Points to the start of the section header table.
0x24	0x30	4		e_flags	Interpretation of this field depends on the target architecture.
0x28	0x34	2		e_ehsize	Contains the size of this header, normally 64 Bytes for 64-bit and 52 Bytes for 32-bit format.
0x2A	0x36	2		e_phentsize	Contains the size of a program header table entry.
0x2C	0x38	2		e_phnum	Contains the number of entries in the program header table.
0x2E	0x3A	2		e_shentsize	Contains the size of a section header table entry.
0x30	0x3C	2		e_shnum	Contains the number of entries in the section header table.
0x32	0x3E	2		e_shstrndx	Contains index of the section header table entry that contains the section names.

Followed by the program header

Program header

Offset		Size (bytes)		Field	Purpose
32-bit	64-bit	32-bit	64-bit
0x00		4		p_type	Identifies the type of the segment. Value Name Meaning 0x00000000 PT_NULL Program header table entry unused 0x00000001 PT_LOAD Loadable segment 0x00000002 PT_DYNAMIC Dynamic linking information 0x00000003 PT_INTERP Interpreter information 0x00000004 PT_NOTE Auxiliary information 0x00000005 PT_SHLIB reserved 0x00000006 PT_PHDR segment containing program header table itself 0x60000000 PT_LOOS see below 0x6FFFFFFF PT_HIOS 0x70000000 PT_LOPROC 0x7FFFFFFF PT_HIPROC PT_LOOS to PT_HIOS (PT_LOPROC to PT_HIPROC) is an inclusive reserved ranges for operating system (processor) specific semantics.
	0x04		4	p_flags	Segment-dependent flags (position for 64-bit structure).
0x04	0x08	4	8	p_offset	Offset of the segment in the file image.
0x08	0x10	4	8	p_vaddr	Virtual address of the segment in memory.
0x0C	0x18	4	8	p_paddr	On systems where physical address is relevant, reserved for segment's physical address.
0x10	0x20	4	8	p_filesz	Size in bytes of the segment in the file image. May be 0.
0x14	0x28	4	8	p_memsz	Size in bytes of the segment in memory. May be 0.
0x18		4		p_flags	Segment-dependent flags (position for 32-bit structure).
0x1C	0x30	4	8	p_align	0 and 1 specify no alignment. Otherwise should be a positive, integral power of 2, with p_vaddr equating p_offset modulus p_align.
0x20	0x38				End of Program Header (size)

Program Identification Header

Program Identification Header is located just before the SELF segments certifications.

Offset	Size	Description	Notes
0	0x8	Program Authority ID
0x8	0x8	Program Type
0x10	0x8	Program Version
0x18	0x8	System Software Version	Requested minimum version.
N.A/0x20	0x20	Content ID	Only exists if the SELF is protected by NPDRM.
0x20/0x40	0x20	Digest	SHA-256 of the decrypted elf (for example, on 7.55 retail decrypted/mmapped elf libc.sprx hash is 67c19a2b053ee386819dcd316d21c4381b35bd3de283ce7ca2e143c86b34f79a)

Segment Certification

From leaked decrypted PS4 6.00b1 Kernel (containing only one segment) the following information can be deduced:

Offset	Size	Description	Notes
0	0x10	AES Key	AES128CBC Key for Segment 1
0x10	0x10	AES IV	AES128CBC IV for Segment 1
0x20	0x20	HMAC Hash	SHA256HMAC Hash for Segment 1 (decrypted but compressed in this case) (without extra at footer)
0x40	0x10	HMAC Key	SHA256HMAC Key for Segment 1
0x50	0x40	License + BMP Header	???
0x90	0x20	BMP Entries	2 (0x10) Entries (first entry is NULL)
0xB0	0x100	RSA Signature	RSA Signature of the Segment Certification

Footer Signature

Additionally, at the bottom of a SELF, there is likely a footer RSA signature as well as some extra data (relative size).

Tools

Official tools

To document.

Unofficial tools

SELF Decrypter on PS4

PS4 SELF Decrypter on PS4 by AlexAltea

As PS4 SELF decryption keys are not publicly known, to decrypt SELFs, one can use his PS4 as a blackbox. There are some conditions: the SELF must have valid signatures, it must have a required FW version lower than the FW version of the PS4 being used, and for System SELFs the SELF key_revision must be according to the PS4 FW version. There are exceptions like in first PS4 firmwares where some SELF checks were missing and allowed to decrypt SELFs that did not meet such requirements.

make_fself by flatz

To document.

SELF backport tools

To document.