PyArmor on Maya 2018

[jondy]

Hello,

We are very interested in PyArmor to distribute Python modules used in Maya 2018
and in order to be able to execute pyarmor in Maya it needs to be compiled with a
specific compiler, the one from Visual Studio 2015.

Is PyArmor 64bits dll compiled with VS2015?
Could you recompile it? We could then test pyarmor in Maya 2018.

Best regards,
David Deckeur
Lead Developer
Superprod Studio

[jondy]

Now PyArmor 64bit is built by gcc (cross compile in cygwin). The core functions of PyArmor is written by pure c. Here is an example show how to use it to run obfuscated python code in vs2008

First obfuscate a python script by pyarmor, suppose pyarmor is installed in /path/to/pyarmor

cd /path/to/pyarmor
python pyarmor.py obfuscate --src=example/simple queen.py

# Here it's the obfuscated script
cat dist/queen.py

# Here are runtime files required to run obfuscated scripts
ls dist/ 

Then download the following files:
http://pyarmor.dashingsoft.com/downloads/platforms/win_amd64/_pytransform.dll
http://pyarmor.dashingsoft.com/downloads/platforms/win_amd64/_pytransform.def

Next use vs2008 command line tool lib to generate .lib file

lib /DEF:_pytransform.def /OUT:_pytransform.lib

Create a project in vs2008, the content of main.c would be like

#include 
#include "Python.h"
#progma comment (lib,"path/to/_pytransform.lib")

extern int init_module(int major, int minor, void *handle);
extern int init_runtime(int sys_trace, int sys_profile, int thread_trace, int thread_profile);

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  Py_SetProgramName(argv[0]);
  Py_Initialize();
  PySys_SetArgvEx(argc, argv);
  
  /* Initialize _pytransform, it will add three funtions to python builtins module:
  __pyarmor__
  __armor_enter__
  __armor_exit__
  After that, obfuscated python code can be executed.
  */
  HANDLE pythonapi = GetCurrentProcess(); 
  init_module(PY_MAJOR_VERSION, PY_MINOR_VERSION, pythonapi);
  init_runtime(0, 0, 0, 0);
  
  /* Run obfuscated script */
  FILE *fp = fopen("/path/to/pyarmor/dist/queens.py");
  PyRun_File(fp, Py_file_input, PyEval_GetGlobals(), PyEval_GetLocals());
  fclose(fp);
  
  /* Or run obfuscated code directly */
  /* PyRun_SimpleString("__pyarmor__('queen', 'queen.py', '\x01\x02....', 1)"); */
  
  /* Exit, cleaning up the interpreter */
  Py_Exit(0); 
  return 0;
}

Finally copy runtime files to binary output path of this project and run it

cp /path/to/pyarmor/dist/* project/bin/path

I'm not sure if it works in vs2015, and if it's what you expected.

If _pytransform.dll could not be loaded by this way in vs2015, I'll build _pytransform.dll in vs2015.

Feel free to let me know if you have any question.

[nimsb]

Hi,

I tried the webapp to obfuscate a python module I wrote for Maya2018.4. But like you said, unfortunatelly it doesn't work, I get the message error :
"Could not load library _pytransform"

I don't know much about C and how to compile module with Visual Studio, so do I have a way to make it work? Can you compile the _pytransform.dll in vs2015 ?

Thank you very much!

[jondy]

Could you show me how do you import a python module in Maya 2018?

For example, there is a module foo.py, how to import it from Maya 2018, and call some functions in this module.

As my understand, it will be import by c code like this

  PyObject *m = PyImport_Import('foo.py');

Is it that?

[nimsb]

Hi,
In Maya we have a Python shell called the script editor, we simply call it like like that in python :
import foo

The way you described looks like if I had to import it with the Maya API (c++), which I don't know much about.

So my problem here I think is _pytransform.dll should be compiled with VS2015 using the maya dev kit of Maya2018.

[nimsb]

here is a link of the devkit (in the answer)
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-programming/autodesk-maya-2018-devkit-is-not-available-at-autodesk-app-store/m-p/7312551#M6249

[jondy]

I think the key is how the script editor of Maya find _pytransform.dll.

Try this way first

• Obfuscate foo.py: pyarmor obfuscate foo.py,
• In the script editor of Maya, run

import sys

# Replace it with actual path of obfuscated script
obfpath = '/path/to/foo/dist'
sys.path.append(obfpath)

import pytransform
pytransform._load_library(path=obfpath)

If it works, this _pytransform.dll should work with Maya 2018.
If it doesn't work, show me the error.

[nimsb]

This is the error I get

import pytransform
# Error: PytransformError: file [...]\pytransform.py line 183: Could not load library _pytransform. # 

Edit : I did it on the package I obfuscated with the webapp tho

Edit2 : Actually I narrowed down the issue to maya python interpreter directly

# Error: WindowsError: file C:\[...]\maya\2018.4.0\platform-windows\maya\bin\python27.zip\ctypes\__init__.py line 365: 126 #

[jondy]

Thanks, it's very useful. I'll check whether _pytransform could be loaded by ctypes if it's in a zip file.

[nimsb]

I did some couple of test by harcoding path in _load_library() and using raw string as mentionned in this ticket:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1940578/windowserror-error-126-the-specified-module-could-not-be-found

so it give me that :

    path = r'C:\foo\_pytransform.dll'
    m = cdll.LoadLibrary(path)
    otherpath = 'C:\foo'
    if not os.path.abspath('.') == os.path.abspath(otherpath):
        m.set_option('pyshield_path'.encode(), otherpath.encode())
    return m

it loads the dll just fine in maya!

but now I got an error with the license :

# Error: PytransformError: file C:/foo\pytransform.py line 53: Open pyshield license file 'C:\foo\pyshield.lic'
Invalid argument
Initialize license key failed
Initialize pytransform failed # 

[jondy]

Good news! To fix license error, try this code

    path = os.path.normpath(r'C:\foo')
    m = cdll.LoadLibrary(os.path.join(path, '_pytransform.dll')
    m.set_option('pyshield_path'.encode(), path .encode())
    return m

Before that, copy the runtime files to c:\foo

pyshield.key
pyshield.lic
product.key
license.lic

They're in the same path of the obfuscated scripts.

Refer to
https://pyarmor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/understand-obfuscated-scripts.html

[nimsb]

I deleted my previous comment because I think this is working except the code generated is like that :
__pyarmor__(__name__, __file__, b'\x6', 1) where it should be like that __pyarmor__(__name__, b'\x6' )
So now I m gonna manually change all the .py in my package to verify this the issue and let you know

[nimsb]

sooo it's imported it correctly after the change I did! no error at import foo which is a great news !!
I developed a UI with PySide2 in Maya so I do have some .ui who has not been transfer over and when I transfer them manually it doesn't work so I guess I will have to convert the .ui into .py using pyuic because maybe I cannot attach external dependencies like .ui ?
The error I get is :
# Error: IOError: file C:\[...]\maya\2018.4.0\platform-windows\maya\bin\python27.zip\xml\etree\ElementTree.py line 647: 2 #

[jondy]

Yes, pyarmor only can obfuscate .py file, so you need convert .ui into .py before obfuscate them. If the clear .py file works, the obfuscated one should work. When do you get this error? obfuscating script, or importing obfuscated script

[jondy]

I deleted my previous comment because I think this is working except the code generated is like that :
__pyarmor__(__name__, __file__, b'\x6', 1) where it should be like that __pyarmor__(__name__, b'\x6' )
So now I m gonna manually change all the .py in my package to verify this the issue and let you know

It surprises me. Does it mean that __pyarmor__(__name__, b'\x6' ) works, but __pyarmor__(__name__, __file__, b'\x6', 1) doesn't work?