Sign code
By crino
Share http://www.codeproject.com/KB/mobile/signcode.aspx#
How sign the code by own certificate and install the certificate on device.
Introduction
This article is for tests purpose only, the best way to sign code is Mobile2Market, Versign etc...
With WM5 Microsoft has implements a new security schema on PocketPC too.
The new schema requires that the applications must be signed with a valid certificate to run without problems on devices.
For simple applications the schema is not a problem, you'll get some borings popup to run the applications or to install cabs the first time. We have more problems when we try to deploy services or drivers, our dlls or applications will not run because the schema is loaded after service.exe and device.exe processes!
In this article i'll explain how we can deploy our own certificate on device and sign our code.
Step 1 - Create the certificate
The first step is create our certificate. To do this we'll use the utility makecert.exe
:
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
makecert -r -sv MyCert.pvk -n "
CN=MyCert"
-b 01/01/2000 -e 01/01/2099 MyCert.cer
For more information about makecert.exe
parameters refer to MSDN library.
Now we have our certificate (MyCert.cer) and private key (MyCert.pvk) but we need of .pfx to pass it to signtool.exe
, so go on step 2.
Step 2 - Create .pfx from the .cer
To create .pfx file from .cer file we've to run pvk2pfx.exe
tool:
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
pvk2pfx.exe -pvk MyCert.pvk -spc MyCert.cer -pfx MyCert.pfx
The command will creates .pfx file (MyCert.pfx).
Step 3 - Create the provisioningdoc xml
Ok, now we are ready to build our cab which will installs our certificate on devices. To do this we've to create our wap-provisioningdoc xml.
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
"<
?xml version="
1.0"
encoding="
utf-8"
?>
<
wap-provisioningdoc>
<
characteristic type="
CertificateStore"
>
<
characteristic type="
Privileged Execution Trust Authorities"
>
<
characteristic type="
[cert_sha1]"
>
<
parm name="
EncodedCertificate"
value="
[cert_base64]"
/>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
characteristic type="
CertificateStore"
>
<
characteristic type="
SPC"
>
<
characteristic type="
[cert_sha1]"
>
<
parm name="
EncodedCertificate"
value="
[cert_base64]"
/>
<
parm name="
Role"
value="
222"
/>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
/wap-provisioningdoc>"
This is the standard schema for our provisioningdoc.
We've to fill [cert_sha1] and [cert_base64] with our values get from MyCert.cer. To obtain these values we've to use openssl.exe
tool:
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
openssl sha1 MyCert.cer > MyCert_sha1.txt
openssl base64 -in MyCert.cer > MyCert_base64.txt
With these commands we get two files with sha1 and base64 values of our certificate. So create an empty file '_setup.xml' and past the content into:
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
<
?xml version="
1.0"
encoding="
utf-8"
?>
<
wap-provisioningdoc>
<
characteristic type="
CertificateStore"
>
<
characteristic type="
Privileged Execution Trust Authorities"
>
<
characteristic type="
30bc827f441fa4437b645163e49ade7226b362c3"
>
<
parm name="
EncodedCertificate"
value="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"
/>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
characteristic type="
CertificateStore"
>
<
characteristic type="
SPC"
>
<
characteristic type="
30bc827f441fa4437b645163e49ade7226b362c3"
>
<
parm name="
EncodedCertificate"
value="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"
/>
<
parm name="
Role"
value="
222"
/>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
/characteristic>
<
/wap-provisioningdoc>
We're ready to build our cab to deploy on our devices.
Step 4 - Build the .cab
This is the most simple step, we've to run makecab.exe
tool:
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
makecab.exe _setup.xml mycert_cert.cab
Our certificate is now ready to install on devices!
Step 5 - Sing our application code
After we installed the certificate on our devices we can sign our code with MyCert.pfx our code to run as trusted.
We've to use signtool.exe
tool:
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
signtool.exe sign /f MyCert.pfx *.exe *.cab
or
![](http://www.codeproject.com/images/minus.gif)
signcode -v MyCert.pvk -spc MyCert.cer *.exe
With these simple five steps we've our certificate applications!
History
19/12/2005 - Initial article.
30/12/2005 - Corrected the command line on Step 5
31/12/2005 - Regenerated the certificate and updated zip file
15/11/2006 - Added command line in Step 5 and updated zip file with signcode.exe tool.