WiiConnect24
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According to Nintendo, "WiiConnect24 allows the console to receive downloads even when the console isn't in active use, as long as it has a working connection to the Internet." However, this is an incomplete description, as it fails to explain why there exists a configuration option to enable WC24, but disable "Standby Connect".
WC24 is actually a codename for the /dev/kd driver in IOS that allows the Starlet core to perform network-related tasks when the main CPU (Broadway) is powered off. Only a small fractional of the full functionality of this software is being used -- generally to either download large chunks of data in the background (system updates?) or keep small amounts of data continuously updated (news, weather, friend data in games, etc.)
The kd driver is large -- about 360k -- and makes heavy use of the SSL, SO (socket) and WL / ETH (wireless / Ethernet) drivers; together, this functionality comprises about 75% of the firmware.
Static analysis reveals the following main categories of functionality:
- Sophisticated task scheduler, including periodic wakeup of either processor for maintenance tasks, and tracking max duty cycle ("Too much wakeup executed recently. Need to wait."), probably used for thermal management
- SMTP engine, for sending and receiving email
- Real-time clock, with synchronization to a Nintendo-run server (over SSL)
- Virtual Machine for running channel scripts ("CHANS"), which are apparently a variant of Javascript. This is used for handling mail meant for certain titles, like handling data sent from a game on a friend's Wii
- This feature isn't used currently: booting a title on NAND via sysmenu with the NANDBOOTINFO file attachment from certain mail, when in idle mode.
- Logging / debug capability, e.g.
13DFA93C DCB "This report was sent from Wii to debug your scripts.",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C ; DATA XREF: NWC24WriteLogFile:off_13DB619C�o 13DFA93C DCB "The result summary is in the following:",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB 0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB "- General information",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " WiiConnect24 result code : %d",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Number of committed mail : %d",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " VF archive : %s",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB 0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB "- Trigger mail information",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Application ID : 0x%08x [%c%c%c%c]",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Group ID : 0x%04x [%c%c]",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Script parameter : 0x%02x",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Time to live : %d",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Number of attached file : %d",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB 0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB "- Virtual machine specific information",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Result code of the VM : %d [%s]",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Return value of the script : 0x%016llx",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Last PC : 0x%08x",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Last line : %u",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Initial free work size : %u",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB " Minimum free work size : %u",0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB 0xD,0xA 13DFA93C DCB "For more information, please see the attached log file.",0xD,0xA
- Friend list management
Message Board
The message board is a place where you can send and receive messages with other Wiis and email addresses. Games can also put messages here for accomplishments and the like. Channels can also send you updates and Nintendo can alert you when your firmware is ready to be updated. This is handled using SMTP. Announcements from Nintendo and channels are downloaded with HTTP(S).
WC24 title booting
WC24 can boot titles specified in a NANDBOOTINFO E-Mail attachment. When a message is received with the correct headers, the NANDBOOTINFO attachment is written to NAND. The next time STM_Wakeup is called, the sysmenu is booted to boot the specified title. NANDBOOTINFO.titletype must be 8, and the argbuf is processed in some unclear way. Below are the headers needed to trigger writing the attachment to NANDBOOTINFO:
X-Wii-AppId: 0-00000001-0001 X-Wii-Cmd: 00020002
Mail headers
These Wii mail headers make the msg board or WC24 enable various GUI features and WC24 tasks. This headers can only be used with mail downloaded with WC24, not directly with E-Mail from a computer.
| Header | Example value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X-Wii-AltName | AE4AaQBuAHQAZQBuAGQAbw== | When used, the decoded Base64 UTF-16 is used for the sender name on the msg board.(The example value decodes to "Nintendo", without the quotes.) |
| X-Wii-MB-NoReply | 1 | Hides the reply button on the msg board. |
| X-Wii-MB-UpdateSW | 1 | Enables the "Update" msg board button, which launches the system update from the sysmenu options. |
| X-Wii-MB-OptOut | 1 | Enables the "Opt Out" msg board button, which probably deletes all nwc24dl.bin entries and records for the title specified by X-Wii-AppID with type WC24_TYPE_MSGBOARD. |
| X-Wii-MB-IconNew | 524D4345 | Enables the "Launch" msg board button, which launches the title specified by this header value. |
| X-Wii-AppID | 3-48414541-3031 | First field is parameter of some sort, middle field is titleid low, last field is title group id. |
| X-Wii-Cmd | 00048001 | Some cmd header that basically determines what to do this this mail. This can be 00048001 for msg board mail. Other values like 00042019 mean this mail can be processed by CHANS, the title script to use is specified by X-Wii-AppId. |
| X-Wii-Tag | 00001000 | Probably some kind of CHANS parameter? |
CHANS Usage
The CHANS onrecv.kwb script stored in the title's wc24scr.vff under the data directory is used for processing certain mail, which have the X-Wii-Cmd header value set to 00042019. There can also be "private" mail: "private" mail is processed by the onrecvpm.kwb CHANS script in the title's wc24scr.vff. It's unknown what header value makes mail "private", and it's unknown if "private" mail appears on the msg board or not. Mail can probably only be processed with CHANS with mail downloaded via WC24 HTTP(S), not directly with the E-Mail engine from E-Mail from computers.
Game List
Wii games using WC24:
- Animal Crossing: City Folk
- Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
- Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy
- Boom Blox
- Dewy's Adventure
- Elebits/Eledees
- Jissen Pachi-Slot Pachinko Hisshôhô! Hokuto no Ken Wii
- Mario Kart Wii
- Marble Saga: Kororinpa
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- Metroid Prime Trilogy
- Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- SimCity Creator
- Wii Music
WiiWare games using WC24:
- Dr. Mario Online Rx
- MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade
- My Aquarium
- My Pokémon Ranch
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free
Channel List
Channels using WC24:
- Mii Channel
- Forecast Channel
- News Channel
- Wii Shop Channel
- Everybody Votes Channel
- Check Mii Out Channel
- Mario Kart Wii Channel
- Nintendo Channel
- Wii Speak Channel
WC24 Errors
These errors are stored in /shared2/wc24/nwc24dl.bin to record the errors of each download content. These errors are also displayed on-screen when software using WC24 to immediately download content fails with a WC24 error. Errors in the 117xxx range seem to be HTTP error/status codes. These errors can be general wifi errors, with the same codes as displayed in Wifi software.
| Error code | Notes |
|---|---|
| 107243 | Invalid wc24dl.vff |
| 117404 | HTTP 404 Not Found |
| 117304 | HTTP 304 Not Modified |
| 51030 | Access point not in range |