Obfuscar Configuration

Obfuscar accepts a single command line argument, the path to its configuration file.

The configuration file is used to specify what assemblies should be obfuscated, where to find the dependencies for the assemblies, and where the obfuscated assemblies should be saved.

Variables, InPath and OutPath

The following is a is an example of a minimal configuration. It is provided in the release as part of the BasicExample:

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<Obfuscator>
  <Var name="InPath" value=".\Obfuscator_Input" />
  <Var name="OutPath" value=".\Obfuscator_Output" />

  <Module file="$(InPath)\BasicExampleExe.exe" />
  <Module file="$(InPath)\BasicExampleLibrary.dll" />
</Obfuscator>

In the example configuration, two variables are defined, InPath and OutPath, using the Var element, and two assemblies are listed for obfuscation, an executable and a dll.

Variables defined using the Var element will be expanded in strings following the definition...After defining InPath as follows:

<Var name="InPath" value=".\Obfuscator_Input" />

It can be used in another location:

<Module file="$(InPath)\BasicExampleExe.exe" />

In addition to being usable like macros, there are a few special variables that have additional effects. The variable InPath is used when trying to find dependencies (the specified path is searched), and the variable OutPath is used as the output path for the obfuscated assemblies and the map. If either InPath or OutPath is unspecified, they default to the current path (".").

Modules

For each assembly to be obfuscated, there must be a Module element. Assemblies referenced by an assembly specified by a Module element must be resolveable, either via Cecil's regular resolve process, or they must be present in the path specified by InPath.

Though additional assemblies are loaded for examination, only the specified assemblies will be obfuscated.

Exclusion by Configuration

It is possible to include additional elements within the Module elements to skip types (the SkipType element), methods (the SkipMethod element), fields (SkipField), properties (SkipProperty ), and events (SkipEvent, of course). Methods can be excluded from string obfuscation by SkipStringHiding.

The SkipNamespace element specifies a namespace that should be skipped. All types, methods, fields, etc., within the namespace will be skipped.

The SkipType element specifies the name of the type to skip, including the full namespace. It can also specify whether to skip the method, fields, properties, and/or events within the type.

The SkipMethod element specifies the name of the type containing the method, a protection specifier, and a name or regex to match the method. The protection specifier is currently ignored, but will eventually be used for additional filtering.

The SkipField element specifies the name of the type containing the field, a protection specifier, and a name or regex to match the field. The protection specifier is currently ignored, but will eventually be used for additional filtering.

The SkipProperty element specifies the name of the type containing the property, a protection specifier, and a name or regex to match the property. The protection specifier is currently ignored, but will eventually be used for additional filtering.

The SkipEvent element specifies the name of the type containing the event, a protection specifier, and a name or regex to match the event. The protection specifier is currently ignored, but will eventually be used for additional filtering.

The SkipStringHiding element works like the SkipMethod element, but specifies within which methods not to obfuscate the string constants. To make it harder to analyze the code, Obfuscar normally replaces string loads by method calls to lookup functions, which incurs a small performance penalty.

A more complete example:

<Module file="$(InPath)\AssemblyX.exe">
    <!-- skip a namespace -->
    <SkipNamespace name="Company.PublicBits" />

    <!-- to skip a namespace recursively, just put * on the end -->
    <SkipNamespace name="Company.PublicBits*" />

    <!-- skip field by name -->
    <SkipField type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName"
      attrib="public" name="Fieldname" />

    <!-- skip field by regex -->
    <SkipField type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName"
      attrib="public" rx="Pub.*" />

    <!-- skip type...will still obfuscate its methods -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName2" />

    <!-- skip type...will skip its methods next -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName3" />
    <!-- skip TypeName3's public methods -->
    <SkipMethod type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName3"
      attrib="public" rx=".*" />
    <!-- skip TypeName3's protected methods -->
    <SkipMethod type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName3"
      attrib="family" rx=".*" />

    <!-- skip type and its methods -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName4" skipMethods="true" />
    <!-- skip type and its fields -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName4" skipFields="true" />
    <!-- skip type and its properties -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName4" skipProperties="true" />
    <!-- skip type and its events -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName4" skipEvents="true" />
    <!-- skip attributes can be combined (this will skip the methods and fields) -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName4" skipMethods="true" skipFields="true" />
    <!-- skip the hiding of strings in this type's methods -->
    <SkipType name="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName4" skipStringHiding="true" />

    <!-- skip a property in TypeName5 by name -->
    <SkipProperty type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName5"
      name="Property2" />
    <!-- skip a property in TypeName5 by regex -->
    <SkipProperty type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName5"
      attrib="public" rx="Something\d" />

    <!-- skip an event in TypeName5 by name -->
    <SkipProperty type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName5"
      name="Event2" />
    <!-- skip an event in TypeName5 by regex -->
    <SkipProperty type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName5"
      rx="Any.*" />

    <!-- avoid the hiding of strings in TypeName6 on all methods -->
    <SkipStringHiding type="Full.Namespace.And.TypeName6" name="*" />
</Module>

To prevent all properties from being obfuscated, set the RenameProperties variable to "false" (it's an xsd boolean). To prevent specific properties from being renamed, use the SkipProperty element. It will also skip the property's accessors, get_XXX and set_XXX.

To prevent all events from being obfuscated, set the RenameEvents variable to "false" (it's also xsd boolean). To prevent specific events from being renamed, use the SkipEvent element. It will also skip the event's accessors, add_XXX and remove_XXX.

Name Matching

The SkipMethod, SkipProperty, SkipEvent, SkipField, and SkipStringHiding elements accept an rx attribute that specifies a regular expression used to match the name of the thing to be skipped. The SkipType, SkipMethod, SkipProperty, SkipEvent, SkipField, and SkipStringHiding elements all accept a name attribute that specifies a string with optional wildcards or a regular expression used to match the name of the thing to be skipped. For elements where both the name and rx attributes are specified, the rx attribute is ignored. The name attribute can specify either a string or a regular expression to match the name of the thing to be skipped. If the value of the name attribute begins with a '^' character, the value (including the '^') will be treated as a regular expression (e.g., the name '^so.*g' will match the string something). Otherwise, the value will be used as a wildcard string, where '*' matches zero or more characters, and '?' matches a single character (e.g., the wildcard string som?t*g will match the string something).

This behavior also applies to the value of the type attribute of the SkipMethod, SkipProperty, SkipEvent, SkipField, and SkipStringHiding elements.

Accessibility Check

The SkipMethod, SkipProperty, SkipEvent, SkipField, and SkipStringHiding elements also accept an attrib attribute.

• Not specified or attrib='': All members are skipped from obfuscation.
• attrib='public': Only public members are skipped.
• attrib='protected': Only public and protected members are skipped.
• All other values for attrib generate an error by now.

Members which are internal or protected internal are not skipped when attrib is public or protected.

Properties and events do not directly have an accessibility attribute, but their underlying methods (getter, setter, add, remove) have. For properties the attribute of the getter and for events the attribute of the add method is used.

Exclusion by Code

There's also some functionality where you can mark types with an attribute to prevent them from being obfuscated...reference Obfuscar.dll and add the Obfuscate attribute to your types. For example, to suppress obfuscation of X, its methods, fields, resources, etc.:

[Obfuscate( false )]
class X { }

The Obfuscate attribute has a flag, ShouldObfuscate, that defaults to true if not set. The following are equivalent:

[Obfuscate]
class X { }

[Obfuscate( true )]
class Y { }

[Obfuscate( ShouldObfuscate = true )]
class X { }

And if you only want specific classes obfuscated, you can set the MarkedOnly variable to "true" (also an xsd boolean), and apply the Obfuscate attribute to the things you want obfuscated. This is done in the ObfuscarTests project (included w/ the source...it's intended to be a place for unit tests, but for now does little) to obfuscate a subset of the classes. For example, if MarkedOnly is set to true, to include obfuscation of X, its methods, fields, resources, etc.:

[Obfuscate]
class X { }

Note: Obfuscar now also supports the System.Reflection.ObfuscationAttribute. Only the Exclude and ApplyToMembers properties are supported.

Control Generation of Obfuscated Names

By default all new type and member names generated by Obfuscar are only unique within their scopes. A type with name A may be part of namespace A.A and A.B. The same holds true for type members. Multiple types may have fields and properties with the same name.

When using System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer on obfuscated types, the names of generated Xml elements and attributes have to be specified with one of the XmlXXXXXAttribute attributes. This is because the original type and member names do not exist any more after obfuscation. For some reasons the XmlSerializer uses the obfuscated names internally even though they are overridden by attributes. Because of that it fails on duplicate names. The same is true for the XML Serializer Generator-Tool (Sgen.exe).

You can work around this problem by setting the ReuseNames variable to false. In this case the obfuscator does not reuse names for types, fields and properties. The generated names are unique over all assemblies. This setting does not apply to methods.

Add the following line to the configuration file to enable unique names:

<Var name="ReuseNames" value="false" />

Control Hiding of Strings

By default Obfuscar hides all string constants by replacing the string load (LDSTR opcode) by calls to methods which return the string from a buffer. This buffer is allocated on startup (in a static constructor) by reading from a XOR-encoded UTF8 byte array containing all strings. This comes with a small performance cost. You can disable this feature completely by adding the following line to the configuration file:

<Var name="HideStrings" value="false" />

If you only want to disable it on specific methods use the SkipStringHiding elements.

Signing of Strongly Named Assemblies

Signed assemblies will not work after obfuscation and must be re-signed.

Add the following line to the configuration file to specify the path to your key file. When given a KeyFile in the configuration, Obfuscar will sign a previously signed assembly with the given key. Relative paths are searched from the current directory and, if not found, from the directory containing the particular assembly.

<Var name="KeyFile" value="key.snk" />

If no KeyFile is specified, Obfuscar normally throws an exception on signed assemblies. If an assembly is marked delay signed, the signing step will be skipped in case no key file is given.

With the special key file name auto, Obfuscar uses the value of the AssemblyKeyFileAttribute instead (if existing).