Encrypting War files

Question

Hi all,

I would like to encrypt or obfuscate my WAR file so that reverse engineering will take a little more effort. Is there such a tool or maven plugin that will encrypt a WAR file and its contents?

Also, once the WAR is encrypted, how will the Web Application be deployed at that point? If the web server explodes the WAR, can each jar and resource still be encrypted, how will the startup behavior be modified to decrypt the nested jars and resources?

Thanks, Walter

Answer 1

Zelix KlassMaster can be run from Ant. Looks like it handles WARs too.

Couldn't tell you about the deployment of the WAR but any obfuscator that causes an archive not to work after it's been obfuscated isn't worth much.

Answer 2

DashO from PreEmptive Solutions will also obfuscate WAR files.

Answer 3

Cracking Java byte-code encryption - Why Java obfuscation schemes based on byte-code encryption won't work - Article from JavaWorld.

If your code is important enough to go to all this trouble it probably makes sense to host it on a private server... :\