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If I obfuscate a vb.net assembly using Eazfuscator with symbol names encryption turned on (so that I can use the Eazfuscator stack trace decoder), is this effectively undone if I ship the PDB file? I want to ship the PDB file so that I get line numbers in stack traces that are sent back to me in error reports.
I know I can get line numbers by keeping the PDB file for the shipped version but this is an extra layer of complexity that I don't need right now, I will implement this in the future. I just want to make sure I am not effectively shipping non-obfuscated code by including the PDB file.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
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Program database (PDB) is a file format (developed by Microsoft) for storing debugging information about a program (or, commonly, program modules such as a DLL or EXE). PDB files commonly have a . pdb extension. A PDB file is typically created from source files during compilation.
Shipping pdb does not give any additional convenience to an user. So there are no reasons to ship pdb files with the app. Besides pdb file usually has a large size. Instead of shipping pdb files you should use a local Microsoft Symbol Server for a fast access to pdb files corresponding to error reports.
PDBs don't contain actual code. But I have a strong feeling that after obfuscation PDB will be incompatible with binary. Here is what located inside PDB:
As far as I understand obfuscation will ruin things like non-public types, methods, parameters etc. So if it doesn't change original IL offsets, showing line numbers might work, but it will provide some information that was actually obfuscated, question is it recoverable or not.
What I suggest is to add rich logging if you are very concerned about deobfuscation.
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No, shipping PDB files does not make obfuscation useless. Note however that PDB files can contain names of local variables so that is another piece of information which a disassembler like Reflector can use. PDB files can also contain full paths of the source code files, however, this rarely does any harm in terms of revealing sensitive information.
Some obfuscators like Crypto Obfuscator support PDB file generation - after obfuscation, it outputs new PDB files which are in sync with the obfuscated assemblies so that your stack traces remain correct. Further, the PDB files contain obfuscated names of the source code files mentioned above. It also strips all local variable names from the PDB files.
DISCLAIMER: I work for LogicNP Software, the developer of Crypto Obfuscator.
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