Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Windows Code Signing
Contents
Overview
This page contains information on code signing on Windows and on integrating code signing into the Slicer packaging process.
Prerequisites
- Install Windows 10 SDK to get latest SignTool.exe.
Acquire and install a code signing certificate
Follow the procedure described in Acquire a Code Signing Certificate to acquire a code signing certificate from a commercial vendor recognized by Microsoft. Some example vendor links include:
It may be necessary to install the code signing certificate on the machine that will be used to sign the code. Regardless, it is necessary to export the certificate to a .pfx file to be used by SignTool.exe.
Sign files using SignTool.exe
SignTool.exe digitally signs files, verifies signatures in files, and time-stamps files. See SignTool.exe documentation.
At a minimum, the final installer .exe should be signed.
It's recommend to also sign executables inside the installer, including at least:
- Slicer.exe (launcher)
- bin/SlicerApp-real.exe (application)
Other candidate files to sign include:
- other .exe files in bin/
- other .exe files outside bin/, such as CLI modules
- .dll files in bin/ and for modules
CMake integration
Currently, CMake/CPack doesn't include any built-in functionality to automatically call SignTool.exe to digitally sign files or installers. Therefore, integrating code signing into Slicer requires adding custom steps for the targets chosen to be signed.
MySQL's implementation could be a useful example; see https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/blob/67d52e7c7a1a23424e39273cbb6f5f9d56fda8d1/cmake/install_macros.cmake#L155.
Additional references
Introduction to Code Signing (MSDN)
Windows Enforcement of Authenticode Code Signing and Timestamping (Microsoft TechNet)
