I have a VB.NET application that is essentially a front end for a NSIS script. The script is called with all of the files and variables given on the commandline. The purpose of the application is to search and find these files on a persons computer, then format the commandline and call the NSIS script to create the installer.
I want to be able to distribute this program and protect NSIS script source code. What I was looking for is a way to "read" the script from memory within the application. My idea is that the contents of the script would be saved inside of the application, then whenever it is needed the script could be loaded and called without ever having to actually write it to the users computer.
Is this possible? If so what should I look for to accomplish it. I don't need step by step (not that you could provide one with such a skeletal outline) just what is the major concept or functions inside VB that would allow me to do this.
I assume you are using the official NSIS compiler and not a custom .dll version? If that is the case then someone can just replace makensis.exe with something that writes stdin to a file. NSIS 3 also supports dumping the preprocessed script to stdout or a file so if you allow your users to modify the switches passed to makensis then this would be a easy way to recover most of your script.
Even if we take NSIS out of the equation you are stuck with a problem that is hard to solve. I would suggest that you just encrypt the script with a simple XOR cipher, this should stop most people just looking at your .exe in a hex-editor. You can of course use stronger encryption if you want.
When you are about to call makensis you would retrieve the encrypted script resource as a memory stream or array, decrypt it and then pass it as the stdin for makensis by using ProcessStartInfo.RedirectStandardInput...
Related
I have a single command line windows executable that has many options built into this exe file.
Eg:
(It can take screenshot)
ToolGo.exe printscreen c:\temp\filename.jpg yyyymmdd
(It can show up)
ToolGo.exe showIP machineA
I want to write another command line application, possibly in .net , where it can embed/build a wrapper around this ToolGo.exe file into my application without the user be able to use the ToolGo.exe, and also users can only access one function of this main exe file.
In the example I want this other tool to access only the print screen function in this new exe file.
The new application will have this:
Tool2go.exe printscreen c:\temp\filename.jpg yyyymmdd
But if someone types the following, it will not work:
Tool2go.exe showIP machineA
Or
ToolGo.exe showIP machineA
Any ideas how I can write this code to do this in a .net command line application?
This is a multi-part question, so I'll just give the main part of the issue as the answer with suggestions on handling the rest.
You can embed a .exe into your program by clicking on Properties and navigating the the Resources section, and adding that .exe to it.
After that, it's just a matter of extracting it locally so you can pass your commands to it, and handle it's responses. (I'm not really aware of any way to do so w/out first extracting the. exe; the .exe itself needs to run somehow after all).
To extract the embedded .exe, you do this:
' Extract the MyProgram resource (i.e. your .exe)
Dim b() As Byte = My.Resources.MyProgram
' Write it to the user's Temp folder
File.WriteAllBytes(Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables("%TEMP%\MyProgram.exe"), b)
By extracting it to the user's Temp folder, you can pass it your commands, and since it's 'out of sight' the user probably won't even know it's there to directly use it themselves, unless they're a bit more advanced and visit their Temp folder often. You can slightly help to avoid this, but extracting the .exe when your program starts, and then deleting it when it exits, so it only exists on the user's system while your program is running.
As far as what the user can and cannot type in order to pass to the program, you can simply handle the filtering with your program; since your program is the one passing the commands to the .exe, just don't pass any commands that you don't allowed, and pass the ones you do want allowed.
I created a protocol generation tool that reads some data from a websource, allows the user to filter some of the fields an generate a protocol based on given filterdata. The protocol is generated as a word document that is edited multiple times, on multiple layers, before shown to the user.
For some users the line:
Process.Start(pathtowordfile)
does not open Word, for others it works fine.
Even more strange: if the useres try to generate the protocol the first time it opens. if they change one of the filters and generate again, the file does not open. But it is generated correctly, you are able to open it manually.
We are using Windows 7 on all machines and, in general, the User has no administrativ privileges on the machine.
Are there any alternatives to
Process.Start()
?
Not sure how the code can sometimes work, but the critical bit I think would be to make sure you set UseShellExecute=true when you are trying to Process.Start a file that is not an executable.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.processstartinfo.useshellexecute%28v=vs.110%29.aspx
I haven't looked into it in quite awhile, but last I checked shell execute relies on the Word application to be properly registered with DDE so Windows knows what to do with a .doc(x) file. Word may not be installed "properly".
after trying varios things, including Wonko's hint, I dicided to use the interop.Word.Wordapplication to display the document. It doesn't explain why process.start not does the job but anyway, now everybody of the users is happy^^
I'm pretty new to both Taverna and Abaqus but I am trying to run an Abaqus model using a "Tool" in Taverna remotely on a HPC. This works fine if I already have my model file and inputs on the HPC but I need a way of uploading the files dynamically in Taverna (trying to generically wrap Abaqus models).
I've tried adding a input port that takes a file list but I don't know how I can copy it to the "location" that I've set for the tool. Could a beanshell service be the answer or can I iterate through the file list and copy them up before executing the abaqus model?
Thanks
When you say that you created an input port that takes a file list, I guess you mean an input to the tool service.
Assuming the input port is called my_file_list, when the tool service is run, it will take a list of data values on port my_file_list. As an example, say it has "hello", "hi" and "hola" is the three values in the list.
On the location where the tool service is run, it executes in a temporary directory - a different directory for each execution of the service. It is normally something like /tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696
Three files will be created in the temporary directory; those files contain the (in this example) three values the tool service received on port my_file_list. The files could be called
/tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696/tempfile.0.tmp containing hello
/tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696/tempfile.1.tmp containing hi
/tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696/tempfile.2.tmp containing hola
There will also be a file called my_input_list. That file will contain
/tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696/tempfile.0.tmp
/tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696/tempfile.1.tmp
/tmp/usecase-2029778474741087696/tempfile.2.tmp
The script of your tool service would normally read the contents of my_input_list line by line and do something with the contents of the listed file(s).
I have also seen some scripts that 'cheat' and iterate directly over tempfile*.tmp but that would be "a bad thing". The problem with that trick, is that if you want to add a second list of files to the tool service then the file my_input_list could contain
/tmp/usecase7932018053449784034/tempfile.4.tmp
/tmp/usecase7932018053449784034/tempfile.5.tmp
/tmp/usecase7932018053449784034/tempfile.6.tmp
as other temporary files were used for the other file list port.
I hope that helps
The tool service allows you to upload files - but if you are using the HPC through a job submission node, then you would have to modify your command line tool to then use the job file staging command to further push the files as part of the job. The files would be available in the current (temporary) directory of the specified tool script.
I would try to do it through the Tool service and not involve the beanshell - then you can keep your workflow simpler.
A good thing to remember is that you can write multiple shell commands in the box.
Similarly you would probably want to retrieve back the results so that you can process them further in the workflow (unless they are massive - in which case you should just output their remote filenames and send them in again to the next HPC job)
The exact commands to use for staging files and retrieving them depends on the HPC job submission system. Which one are you using?
Thanks for the input guys.
It was my misunderstanding of how Taverna uses the File list. All the files in the list are copied to the temp "sandbox" and are therefore available for use.
Another nice easy way is to zip the directory and pass the zipped files into an input port for the service. Then just unzip the files inside the command.
Thanks again
When we run a *.vbs file, in processes, we used to get "wscript.exe". We can change this "wscript.exe" to our custom name by creating a shortcut and executing the shortcut.
Is it possible to display the current *.vbs file name in process, without using shortcuts?
No. Your script is running in an interpreter, and it's the interpreter executable name that is being displayed in the process list.
While it's not impossible to change the process name, you'd need admin privileges to be able to do this, and you'd need to rewrite the interpreter (wscript.exe) to actually do it. See this answer to a similar question.
I have a small VB .Net application that, among other things, attempts to substitute system wide typed text by the user(hotstrings concept). To achieve that, I have deployed 'ahk2exe' and 'AutoHotkeySC.bin' with my application and did the following:
When a user assignes a new 'hotstring':
Kill 'hotstring' exe script file if running
Append new hotstring to the script file (if non exist then create a new one)
Convert edited/new script file to exe (using ahk2exe)
Run the newly converted script exe
(somewhere there I also check if the hotstring has been already assigned)
However, I am not totally satisfied with this method for the following two main reasons:
The extra resources deployed with the application.
Lag: The time it takes for the system to kill the process and then restart it takes a minimum of 5 seconds on my fast computer and more on other computers. That amount of time is much more than the time it takes the user to assign the hotstring, minimize/close the window and then test his/her new hotstring. When the user does so initially with no success they will think the process failed. So this method is not very good for user experience.
So, I am looking for a different method or implementation. May be using keyboard hooks? Or maybe adding a .dll library that achieves the same. Are there any resources you know about that might help (free or commercial)? What is the best way to achieve my desired goal?
Many thanks for your help.
Implementing what Autohotkey does would be a pretty non trivial task.
But I'm pretty sure that AHK supports an "autoreload" option for scripts
googling "autohotkey auto reload" turned up several pages discussing that very concept. IF that worked, all you'd have to do is update the script file and that's it, AHK should automatically reload the script.