If you’ve ever done Linux memory forensics, you know the frustration: without debug symbols that match the exact kernel version, you’re stuck. These symbols aren’t typically installed on production systems and must be sourced from external repositories, which quickly become outdated when systems receive updates. If you’ve ever tried to analyze a memory dump only to discover that no one has published symbols for that specific kernel build, you know the frustration. Today, we’re open-sourcing mquire, a tool that eliminates this dependency entirely. mquire analyzes Linux memory dumps without requiring any external debug information. It works by extracting everything it needs directly from the memory dump itself. This means you can analyze unknown kernels, custom builds, or any Linux distribution, without preparation and without hunting for symbol files. For forensic analysts and incident responders, this is a significant shift: mquire delivers reliable memory analysis even when traditional tools can’t. The problem with traditional memory forensics Memory forensics tools like Volatility are essential for security researchers and incident responders. However, these tools require debug symbols (or “profiles”) specific to the exact kernel version in the memory dump. Without matching symbols, analysis options are limited or impossible. In practice, this creates real obstacles. You need to either source symbols from third-party repositories that may not have your specific kernel version, generate symbols yourself (which requires access to the original system, often unavailable during incident response), or hope that someone has already created a profile for that distribution and kernel combination. mquire takes a different approach: it extracts both type information and symbol addresses directly from the memory dump, making analysis possible without any external dependencies. How mquire works mquire combines two sources of information that modern Linux kern

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