shoff/ida-mcp-server

MCP-IDA: Reverse Engineering Helper

A modern, async MCP server and IDA Pro plugin for collaborative reverse engineering. The server communicates over the Message Control Protocol instead of HTTP.

🚀 Features

• MCP server for async, high-performance communication
• IDA Pro plugin for exposing binary analysis data over a socket
• Docker-ready for easy deployment
• Async Python client for robust communication with IDA
• MCP tools for functions, segments, and strings
• Environment variable configuration for host/port

🗂️ Project Structure

ida-mcp/
├── .env
├── docker-compose.yml
├── Dockerfile
├── ida_mcp_plugin.py         # IDA Pro plugin (copy to <IDA>/plugins)
├── mcp_server/               # MCP server code
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── main.py               # MCP server entrypoint
│   └── ida_client.py         # Async client for IDA plugin
├── requirements.txt
├── dev_logs/                 # (empty or logs)
└── project-information.md    # (custom project notes)

⚡ Quickstart

1. Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• IDA Pro (for plugin)
• Docker (optional, for containerized deployment)

2. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ida-mcp.git
cd ida-mcp

3. Install Dependencies

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # or .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Run the MCP Server

python -m mcp_server --help

To start the server with the default settings:

python -m mcp_server -v

Or with Docker:

docker-compose up --build

This compose file keeps standard input open so the server won't immediately exit.

5. Install the IDA Plugin

• Copy ida_mcp_plugin.py to your <IDA>/plugins directory.
• Restart IDA, or use Plugins > MCP Listener in the IDA UI.

🔌 Environment Variables

• IDA_HOST (default: host.docker.internal for Docker, 127.0.0.1 for local)
• IDA_PORT (default: 8888)

Set these in your .env file or as environment variables.

🧩 MCP Tools

The server exposes the following tools which can be invoked via an MCP client:

• list_functions — List all functions in the binary
• get_function — Get details for a specific function
• list_segments — List all memory segments
• list_strings — List all strings (with optional minlen argument)

🐳 Docker Usage

Build and run everything with:

docker-compose up --build

The included compose file sets stdin_open so the server keeps running.

To build and run the container manually without compose:

docker build -t mcp-server:latest .
docker run -i mcp-server:latest

This will:

• Build the MCP server image
• Use environment variables for IDA host/port

🧑‍💻 Development

• All server code is in mcp_server/
• The IDA plugin is standalone Python, compatible with IDA scripting
• Logging and troubleshooting: check dev_logs/ (if used)

🛡️ Security

• The IDA plugin listens on all interfaces by default (0.0.0.0:8888)
• For production, restrict access via firewall or set HOST to 127.0.0.1
• No authentication is enabled by default—consider a reverse proxy for public deployments

📝 Example Usage

Interact with the server using the mcp Python package:

from mcp.client import Client

client = Client()
print(client.call_tool("list_functions"))

🧪 Testing

• Manual: connect with an MCP client and invoke the tools
• Automated: Add tests in a tests/ directory (not present by default)

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork this repo
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/your-feature)
3. Commit and push (git commit -m "feat: add new feature")
4. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

MIT License. See .

🙏 Acknowledgements

• IDA Pro
• MCP

Built with ❤️ for the reverse engineering community.