NAX0

2026-05-16T00:48:44Z

Chainswordcs: link to SystemSaveData instead of Flash_Filesystem#SystemSaveData

This is the format on the files stored on [[SD_Filesystem|SD]] (Nintendo Aes Xts -- official name is AesXtsFilesystem/AesXtsFile).

The data between this header and offset 0x4000 is unused/uninitialized it appears. The actual content which is encrypted, starts at offset 0x4000 with the size from the header.

When a NAX0 file is recreated, the header and raw content in NAX0 are completely different except for the magicnum and size-field. This is the case when a title is redownloaded/reinstalled, and when "save/" files are recreated after manual deletion.

[[Error_codes|Error]] 0x250E02 is returned by NCM when attempting to access a NcaId where the NAX0 header HMAC validation fails.

[S2] This is now NAX1, with +0x10 size 0x10-bytes being all-zero.

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Offset
! Size
! Description
|-
| 0x0
| 0x20
| Header HMAC
|-
| 0x20
| 0x8
| Magicnum "NAX0"
|-
| 0x28
| 0x20
| Encrypted AES-XTS Keys
|-
| 0x48
| 0x8
| Size of the file relative to offset 0x4000.
|-
| 0x50
| 0x30
| Padding
|}

= Encryption =

The actual content uses AES-XTS with the same non-standard tweak (endianness swap) as usual, and sector size 0x4000.

Key derivation is as follows:

First, FS retrieves the 16-byte console-unique seed that NS registered (data originates from the ns_appman:/private [[SystemSaveData|system savegame]]). Next, FS calculates encryptedSeedKeys = <0x20 hardcoded keydata depending on if this NAX0 is a save or an NCA> XORed with the system seed, calculates kek = [[SPL_services#GenerateAesKek|GenerateAesKek]](<hardcoded keydata>, 0, 0), and then calculates decryptedSeedKeys by doing decryptedSeedKeys[i] = [[SPL_services#GenerateAesKey|GenerateAesKey]](kek, encryptedSeedKeys[i]); for both keys.

Once the decryptedSeedKeys are calculated, FS calculates naxSpecificKeys = hmac-sha256(key=decryptedSeedKeys[0], data=<NAX0 path, relative to /Nintendo/Contents>); (example path: '/registered/000000FF/cafebabecafebabecafebabecafebabe.nca'). Then, FS does the following decryptions in place: aes128_ecb_decrypt(key=naxSpecificKeys[0], data=Header + 0x28); aes128_ecb_decrypt(key=naxSpecificKeys[1], data=Header + 0x38); Finally, hmac-sha256(key=Header[0x20:0x60], data=decryptedSeedKeys[1]) is calculated, and compared using a constant-time memcmp to the hmac stored at Header + 0x0. If it matches, decryption proceeds using the two decrypted keys at Header + 0x28 as an AES-XTS keypair.

Nintendo Switch Brew - User contributions [en]

NAX0