Can't use process.binding directly

[CaledoniaProject]

I'm trying to bypass a JS sandbox and I need to invoke spawn without child_process, so I used the following to test it:

let spawn = process.binding('spawn_sync').spawn
let result = spawn('open', ['/System/Applications/Calculator.app'], { shell: true })
console.log(result)

However nodejs returns error

{ error: -22, status: null, signal: null, output: null, pid: 0 }

My questions,

1. I have passed the example same arguments as child_process does, why won't it work?
2. I can't lookup the errors in nodejs source code, I couldn't find that -22 means, does anyone know?

[theanarkh]

parameters of process.binding('spawn_sync').spawn are different from require('childl_process').spawn, you can try the code as follows.

let spawn = process.binding('spawn_sync').spawn
let result = spawn({
    file: '/bin/sh',
    args: ['-c', 'open /System/Applications/Calculator.app'],
    shell: true
})
console.log(result)

[CaledoniaProject]

@theanarkh With node v16.20.2, still the same error { error: -22, status: null, signal: null, output: null, pid: 0 }

[JimmyDaddy]

@CaledoniaProject

1.I have passed the example same arguments as child_process does, why won't it work?

It calls normalizeSpawnArguments to format the arguments before calling spawn_sync.spawn in child_process.spawnSync. the source code here

2.I can't lookup the errors in nodejs source code, I couldn't find that -22 means, does anyone know?

• -22 means invalid params
• pid = 0 means no process has been started

Maybe you should try the code as follows:

const spawn = process.binding('spawn_sync').spawn
let result = spawn({
  file: 'open',
  args: ['open', '/System/Applications/Calculator.app'],
  shell: true,
  detached: false,
  stdio: [ // the key is here, you should pass a valid stdio, if stdio is `null` or `undefined` it will returns -22
    { type: 'pipe', readable: true, writable: false }
  ]
})

console.log(result)

Hope this helps you.

[theanarkh]

Yes, JimmyDaddy is right. The parameters look like this.

[CaledoniaProject]

Awesome, I should have done a debug just like this :-)