How to improve Security of Vi code?

[MViControl]

Hi,

anybody know how to hide the G code of a vi with method which other than the security method provided by labview itself? the purpose of this is to keep some customer away from the source code.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

Hi,

anybody know how to hide the G code of a vi with method which other than the security method provided by labview itself? the purpose of this is to keep some customer away from the source code.

What is wrong about password protection? It's by far the best method, unless you want to hide your code from NI, who theoretically have the ability to look at that code anyhow with ease. Anything else has only a lot of drawbacks. It consists basically of removing the diagram code entirely from the VI that you give to the customer. The drawbacks are:

- The VI will not work on any other version or platform of LabVIEW since LabVIEW can't recompile it.

- Maintenance of two VI versions, one without diagram and one with is more complicated.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[MViControl]

What is wrong about password protection? It's by far the best method, unless you want to hide your code from NI, who theoretically have the ability to look at that code anyhow with ease. Anything else has only a lot of drawbacks. It consists basically of removing the diagram code entirely from the VI that you give to the customer. The drawbacks are:

- The VI will not work on any other version or platform of LabVIEW since LabVIEW can't recompile it.

- Maintenance of two VI versions, one without diagram and one with is more complicated.

Rolf Kalbermatter

The Password Protection system works fine. Just want to get more methods to protect the code. Could you please tell me more about the "drawback way" you described?

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

The Password Protection system works fine. Just want to get more methods to protect the code. Could you please tell me more about the "drawback way" you described?

Well you can save a VI with removed diagram. But this has the aforementioned drawbacks. It contains only the compiled code for the LabVIEW version that created the VI and also only for that platform. Some of your user is likely to have not the same version of LabVIEW or wanting to use it on the Mac or Linux instead which requires LabVIEW to recompile the diagram. But wait there is no diagram, so the VI is broken and the user has no way to fix it in anyway.

So what does that mean? You will have to support whatever LabVIEW version your users have or state this VI will only run in LabVIEW x.y on platform Z. Such a limit is likely to make the acceptance of your library to go so low that you can just as well stop distributing it at all, since nobody is bothering with it. It is already hard to get people to bother about VIs that are not protected and free of charge if they do not come from NI, so any extra hurdle, even the password protection alone, makes that only harder.

Also since you have no way to go from the "protected" VI back to the unprotected VI you do need to maintain backup copies of the unprotected ones. An error where you accidentally overwrite your unprotected VI with the "protected" one happens so easily, believe me I can guarantee you that this will happen to you!

Rolf Kalbermatter

[MViControl]

Well you can save a VI with removed diagram. But this has the aformentioned drawbacks. It contains only the compiled code for the LabVIEW version that created the VI and also only for that platform. Some of your user is likely to have not the same version of LabVIEW or wanting to use it on the Mac or Linix instead which requires LabVIEW to recompile the diagram. But wait there is no diagram, so the VI is broken and the user has no way to fix it in anyway.

So what does that mean? You will have to support whatever LabVIEW version you users have or state this VI will only run in LabVIEW x.y on platform Z. Such a limit is likely to make the acceptance of your library to go so low that you can just as well stop distributing it at all, since nobody is bothering with it. It is already hard to get people to bother about VIs that are not protected and free of charge if they do not come from NI, so any extra hurdle, even the password protection alone, makes that only harder.

Also since you have no way to go from the "protected" VI back to the unprotected VI you do need to maintain backup copies of the unprotected ones. An error where you accidentially overwrite your unprotected VI with the "protected" one happens so easily, believe me I can guarantee you that this will happen to you!

Rolf Kalbermatter

Thanks buddy, now I know the options