Overview
CIA stands for CTR Importable Archive. These files contain a compiled application which can be installed on CTR NAND, TWL NAND (part of the NAND used by DSi applications) and on the SD card.
Format
The CIA format has a similar structure to the WAD format.
The file is represented in little-endian.
The data is aligned in 64 byte blocks (if a content ends at the middle of the block, the next content will begin from a new block).
CIA Header
This is a 32 bytes long header (8 x uint32).
| START | SIZE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | 0x04 | Archive Header Size (=0x2020 bytes) (Starts with 0x80 @ offset 0x0020) |
| 0x04 | 0x04 | Reserved = 0 |
| 0x08 | 0x04 | Certificate chain size |
| 0x0C | 0x04 | Ticket size |
| 0x10 | 0x04 | TMD file size |
| 0x14 | 0x04 | Banner size (0 if no banner) |
| 0x18 | 0x04 | APP file size |
| 0x1C | 0x04 | 0x80000000 |
The order of the sections in the header also is the order of them in the CIA file:
- certificate chain
- Ticket
- TMD file data
- APP file data
- banner
The APP data can be either encrypted or cleartext, retail Download Play CIAs' APP data is always encrypted.
Banner
The banner starts with a 0xF0 large data block, whose purpose is currently unknown. Then at offset 0x400 into the banner section is the actual banner, which contains information about the creator, the first title and the second title (you can see them in the system settings):
| START | SIZE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | 0x04 | Magic: 'SMDH' |
| 0x05 | 0x04 | Reserved = 0 |
This small 'header' is immediately followed by a 0x80 large block for the application name (first title) and then a 0x100 bytes large block for the second title (this title will be shown in the system settings). After that there's alway the same order:
- publisher name (aligned to 0x80 bytes)
- first title (aligned to 0x80 bytes)
- second title (aligned to 0x100 bytes)
This order will repeat 10 times, thus there's a 0x1660 bytes large space for these information.