esProc Integration & Application: License and Encryption

1. File encryption

esProc provides ways of encrypting cellset files to protect them from unauthorized access or use. There are two levels of encryption:

Execution privilege：By this privilege, users can set parameters, execute the cellset and see the cell values; they can also view the cellset descriptions and cell tips but cannot modify them. With only the execution privilege, users can neither see strings in the cells nor any cellset variables.

Full control privilege：Users have full access to the cellset file and can take any action. 

Take the following cellset as an example:

In the above cellset, the information in the comment cells of column B is the tips waiting to be set for cells of column A. Notice the difference between comment cells and cell tips. Parameter state is used in the cellset:

Click Tool>Cellset password on the menu bar to set the password on the pop-up window:

There are two parts for password settings: Set the password for full control privilege after Input password and set the privilege without a password after None password privilege.

To set the password, just enter it in the box, like setting abc as the password for the full access to the cellset in the above.

Select in the drop-down menu either “For execution” or “For full control” for setting the privilege without a password:

If For full control is selected, then users are granted the highest full control privilege without a password and the input password set before will be cleared, which means the cellset encryption has been removed.

Suppose set abc as the password for the full control privilege, select For execution as the None password privilege and then click OK and close the cellset, the system will open the cellset according to the None password privilege next time it is required to do so. For example:

It can be seen that, after the cellset is encrypted, the code is invisible, even the information in the comment cells won’t be displayed, with only the execution privilege, except that the cell tips still work. Moreover, users with the execution privilege cannot perform operations which can only be performed with full control privilege. So users can view the cellset descriptions by clicking Tool>Cellset description, but they cannot modify them:

The values of constant cells of the cellset can be viewed in Value View Section and the cellset parameter and its default value can be viewed in Cellset Variables List which is on the bottom right corner of the dialog box:

By execution privilege, users can click  on the menu bar to execute the cellset. If cellset parameters need to be set before the execution, the Input argument window will pop up for the setting.

After the parameter is set and the cellset is executed and the result is returned, the cells holding the code will change their color though the code still remains encrypted:

At this point, click one of the cells and its value will be displayed on the right. Following is A5’s value:

With execution privilege, click Tool>Unlock advanced privilege on the menu bar to unlock the cellset and get back the full control privilege with the password being entered correctly:

Users are allowed, as a full control privilege, to see or modify the code in the cellset, and to encrypt or unencrypt the cellset file, etc.

2. License and registration code

Different esProc editions correspond to different registration codes and support different functions. About each edition’s feature and the way of getting a registration code, please visit the official website http://www.raqsoft.com/product-esproc.

With a registration code, users can conduct registration in the esProc according to following steps.

Launch esProc and click Help>Registration on the menu bar:

Enter the registration code and click Scan button to check its validity and the corresponding authorized functions. After confirming its validity, click Register to begin the registration procedure. By the way, leave the registration code blank if the esProc edition is free.

Click Check points to see the authorized functions provided by this edition:

Click More Editions to visit the official website for information of more editions.

When the registration is completed, information about the registration code will be saved automatically in esProc’s configuration file config.xml, which is placed in esProc’s [installation directory]\esProc\config directory by default. Some of the license information is as follows:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=” UTF-8″?>

< Config Version=”1″>

         <!– esProc licensing code; leave it blank for a free version–>

         < regCode>W2r@7-8cLMJ-GVU33-BhTIB3E</regCode>

</Config>

Users can edit the config.xml file by themselves, instead of using the Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

When the command line is used to call an esProc cellset file, the config.xml file residing in a default directory will be loaded automatically to read the license information. Please refer to esProc Integration & Application: Command Line for the use of the command line.

To use the esProc JDBC, the configuration file needs to be copied to the classpath of the Java application project. The license information will be read from the file while esProc JDBC is called. Besides using the default configuration, users can also specify the configuration file with the format …?config=… in the connecting string. In this case, registration code will be got from the <regCode> node of the specified file. For instance, according to con= DriverManager.getConnection(“jdbc:esproc:local:/?config=myconfig.xml”);, the license information need to be read from myconfig.xml file instead of the default config.xml file. About the deployment of esProc JDBC, please see esProc Integration & Application: Deploying JDBC.