CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xamarin.androidobfuscationmsbuild-task
Andreas
Andreas

Reputation: 4013

Xamarin Android use “Bundle assemblies into native code” and "obfuscation"

I am trying to combine obfuscating my xamarin android project and then bundle the assemblies into native code with the Visuals Studio 2017 Pro option.

I was able to obfuscate my assemblies with this tutorial https://blog.noser.com/xamarin-android-code-obfuscation/

Unfortunately the obfuscated assemblies does not find its way into the native bundle.

Likely i intercepted the build proccess at the wrong place.

<Target Name="Obfuscate" AfterTargets="_CopyIntermediateAssemblies" Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Release'">

Does anyone know how to merge the obfuscated assemblies into the native bundle? Thx for help in advance.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 640

Answers (1)

Joe Sewell
Joe Sewell

Reputation: 6610

I help develop another .NET obfuscation/protection tool, Dotfuscator. We've written a Xamarin build integration that automatically handles protection as part of the normal build process, so you don't have to manually write your own MSBuild targets or copy files around. The official Xamarin docs recommend using Dotfuscator to protect Android builds, but this integration also works for iOS and UWP.

As Dotfuscator's Community Edition is included in Visual Studio, you can try this integration out for free. I wrote a guest post for the Xamarin Blog that explains how to do this.

Edit regarding the setting in the question: I did some limited testing and Dotfuscator works fine with the "Bundle assemblies into native code" setting. I installed the latest version of Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise, version 15.7.2, but found out that version has a bug related to this setting. To work around it, I used the unofficial VSIX install mentioned at that link. Then I opened a Dotfuscator-Xamarin sample app and enabled the native code setting. I also added code to the sample to show the name of a class used by the application. Then I deployed the app to an emulator. The app ran normally and the logging statement showed an obfuscated name for the class, indicating that Dotfuscator correctly protected the app before it was bundled into native code.

Upvotes: 3

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