Encrypting DXL

Will someone talk me through deploying encrypted DXL please?

I have a huge pile of include files and huge pile of programs and need to allow certain folks to run it without giving up the "secrets" therein.  I know for each DXL file I need to end up with two files, the large encrypted one and the new simple one that issues the "#include" to the newly encrypted file.  Where is the encrypter?

-Louie

Re: Encrypting DXL
Mathias Mamsch - Fri Oct 02 02:38:10 EDT 2015

Hi Louie, 

The DXL encryption is pretty straight forward. First you need the encryption tool. This can be downloaded from IBM at the same site, where the DOORS client can be downloaded. If you do not have access to the site, you may contact someone you know to provide the tool to you. As you know the tool exists in two versions - one for Version 8.x and one for version 9.1+.

The tool takes a file as a parameter and will dump the encrypted code to the stdout. Therefore the commandline you need for invoking the tool is: 

end_user_protdxl.exe   mydxlfile.inc  >  mycrypteddxlfile.inc

Note that all files need to have the //< comment at the start! If they do not have this, they will end up encrypted, but they cannot be read/decrypted by the DOORS client anymore. 

Apart from that you can use these encrypted files, just like normal DXL files. No need for generating an unencrypted one with an include. 

I have attached a sample file which we use in one of our projects to make "encrypted builds". Due to the nature of the encryption tool, it is advisable to have your own directory for the final "build". If you have only few library files for your programs, than you can list them one by one as in the example - of course this approach needs you to change the deployment file, everytime when you add a new library. 

A different approach is, to simply copy ALL of the dxl / inc files (iterating over the dir /B /S output). Your kind batch wizard might help you to set something up. 

If course you can also code the build script in DXL calling the encryption tool from there. 

Hope that helps, regards, Mathias