The client fetches the roster from the URL our own Blaze hands it,
https://winter15.gosredirector.ea.com:8081/fifa17/fut/rosterupdate.xml, and
ProtoSSL verifies that certificate by dNSName only. An IP-addressed roster host
is refused even with IP Address:10.10.0.120 in the SANs (retested on Windows
2026-08-23), so the hostname has to survive into SNI while the connection lands
on us.
The hook log showed the dial was ALREADY being intercepted:
connect_hook: call 20.51.153.159:8081 (octets logged reversed)
It simply was not rewritten, because 8081 was not in the EA port table. So this
is a table entry, not new hook surface: ea_ports::FIFA17_ROSTER makes the
existing connect/WSAConnect/ConnectEx detour rewrite the destination while
leaving the URL untouched, and the certificate still validates.
That removes the scoped DNS responder and the client NRPT rule from the normal
path. scoped-dns.py stays as the documented contingency for EA withdrawing the
public record, which is the one dependency this cannot remove: the name must
still resolve to something for connect() to be reached at all.
roster_port is accepted in openfut.cfg but written only when non-default. The
parser rejects unknown keys, so emitting it unconditionally would make every
already-deployed hook reject the file and install NO redirect, breaking the game
rather than degrading.
Also corrects two documented claims that are false on the real machine:
elevation comes from the shortcuts' RunAsAdmin bit, not from an AppCompatFlags
RUNASADMIN entry (there is none), and hook_dll_path must point at a source copy
rather than the deployed version.dll it is copied onto.
FIFA 17's ProtoSSL verifies the roster certificate by dNSName only, so the
client must reach the roster as winter15.gosredirector.ea.com. Retested on
Windows 2026-08-23: an IP-addressed roster host is refused even though the
certificate carries IP Address:10.10.0.120 as a SAN.
Public DNS points that name at EA's dead 159.153.51.20, so the client has to
resolve it to us. scoped-dns.py pins exactly that one name and forwards every
other query upstream verbatim, so a client pointed at it cannot lose general
resolution -- verified against www.microsoft.com, github.com and
www.msftconnecttest.com.
Paired with a Windows NRPT rule rather than a hosts entry: per-name, auditable
via Get-DnsClientNrptRule, and revertible in one command. A hosts edit on this
machine had previously taken its whole internet down.
Add read-only preflight verifier and Windows-client documentation for the
reimaged native-Windows FIFA17 client host (10.10.0.105). No launcher script:
the native model is _fifa17.exe run as admin (RUNASADMIN + shortcut). Covers
routing (openfut.cfg -> 10.10.0.120), rollback (version.dll swap), and the
x64dbg RVA<->VA (ASLR) attach workflow (ImageBase 0x180000000 CardsDLL/powdll).
Adds the app-centric FLE bridge direction (direction.md) replacing the
Blaze-backend route as primary plan, plus a corrected foundational test
procedure and snapshot/diff/apply tooling for reverse-engineering FLE's
Freeze Lineup write mechanism. Also picks up prior untracked research docs
(status-review, fut-integration-options, fifa23-startup-flow, track-c) and
existing capture/export tooling that hadn't been committed yet.
funman300