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.

Related MCP server: IDA Auto MCP

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"]
      }
   }
   }