bn-loader

A profile launcher for Binary Ninja that lets you manage multiple configurations. If you work with different Binary Ninja setups (personal vs commercial licenses, different plugin sets, separate configs for development), this tool makes switching between them painless.

Installation

From crates.io

cargo install bn-loader

From source

git clone https://github.com/alecnunn/bn-loader
cd bn-loader
cargo install --path .

Pre-built binaries

Download from the releases page for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Quick Start

1. Copy example.config.toml to ~/.config/bn-loader.toml
2. Edit the file to define your profiles
3. Run bn-loader <profile-name> to launch

Configuration

bn-loader looks for its config file in these locations (in order):

1. ~/.config/bn-loader.toml (recommended)
2. Next to the executable

A basic config looks like this:

[global]
default_profile = "personal"
check_updates = true

[profiles.personal]
install_dir = "C:\\Program Files\\Binary Ninja Personal"
config_dir = "C:\\Users\\You\\AppData\\Roaming\\Binary Ninja Personal"

[profiles.commercial]
install_dir = "C:\\Program Files\\Binary Ninja"
config_dir = "C:\\Users\\You\\AppData\\Roaming\\Binary Ninja"

See example.config.toml for a full example with Linux and macOS paths.

Usage

# Launch a profile
bn-loader personal

# Launch default profile (if configured)
bn-loader

# List available profiles
bn-loader --list

# Launch with debug output
bn-loader personal --debug

# Check for updates
bn-loader --check-update

Commands

init - Create a new profile from an existing one:

bn-loader init dev --template personal --config-dir ~/bn-dev-config

This copies the license and install directory from the template but gives the new profile its own config directory.

sync - Copy settings between profiles:

# Sync from personal to all other profiles
bn-loader sync --from personal

# Sync to a specific profile
bn-loader sync --from personal --to commercial

# Preview changes without applying
bn-loader sync --from personal --dry-run

License files and other sensitive data are excluded by default. You can add more exclusions in the [sync] section of your config.

plugins - List installed plugins for a profile:

bn-loader plugins personal

diff - Compare two profiles:

bn-loader diff personal commercial

completions - Set up shell completions:

bn-loader completions bash
bn-loader completions zsh
bn-loader completions fish
bn-loader completions powershell

Shell Completions

bn-loader supports tab completion for profile names and commands. Run bn-loader completions <shell> for setup instructions specific to your shell.

Global Options

These go in the [global] section:

Profile Options

Sync Configuration

The sync command copies settings, plugins, and other configuration between profiles.

What Gets Synced

These items are synced from the source profile (if they exist):

• plugins/ - Manual plugin installations
• repositories/ - Plugin manager data
• signatures/ - Custom signatures
• themes/ - UI themes
• snippets/ - Code snippets
• types/ - Type libraries
• settings.json - Binary Ninja settings
• startup.py - Startup script
• keybindings.json - Key bindings

Exclusions

These patterns are always excluded to protect license files: license.dat, license.txt, user.id, keychain/, __pycache__/, *.pyc

Add your own exclusions in your config (these merge with the defaults):

[sync]
exclusions = ["my-custom-dir/", "*.tmp"]

Or use the --exclude flag for one-off exclusions:

bn-loader sync --from personal --exclude "temp/"

License

BSD-3-Clause. See LICENSE for details.