Codesign Electron Windows apps
npm install @photostructure/windows-signelectron-windows-sign scans a folder for signable files and codesigns them with both SHA-1 and SHA-256. It can be highly customized and used either programmatically or on the command line.
signtool.exe and needs to run on Windows. If you're building an Electron app and care enough to codesign them, I would heavily recommend that you build and test your apps on the platforms you're building for.
@electron/forge or @electron/packager, you can configure this module with global environment variables. If that describes
@electron/windows-codesign is built to both esm and cjs and can be used both as a module as well as directly from the command line.
ts
import { sign } from "@electron/windows-sign"
// or const { sign } = require("@electron/windows-sign")
await sign(signOptions)
`
`ps1
electron-windows-sign $PATH_TO_APP_DIRECTORY [options ...]
`
With a certificate file and password
This is the "traditional" way to codesign Electron apps on Windows. You pass in a certificate file
(like a .pfx) and a password, which will then be passed to a built-in version of signtool.exe taken
directly from the Windows SDK.
`ts
await sign({
appDirectory: "C:\\Path\\To\\App",
// or process.env.WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_FILE
certificateFile: "C:\\Cert.pfx",
// or process.env.WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD
certificatePassword: "hunter99"
})
`
`ps1
electron-windows-sign $PATH_TO_APP_DIRECTORY --certificate-file=$PATH_TO_CERT --certificate-password=$CERT-PASSWORD
`
$3
`ts
// Path to a timestamp server. Defaults to http://timestamp.digicert.com
// Can also be passed as process.env.WINDOWS_TIMESTAMP_SERVER
timestampServer = "http://timestamp.digicert.com"
// Description of the signed content. Will be passed to signtool.exe as /d
// Can also be passed as process.env.WINDOWS_SIGN_DESCRIPTION
description = "My content"
// URL of the signed content. Will be passed to signtool.exe as /du
// Can also be passed as process.env.WINDOWS_SIGN_WEBSITE
website = "https://mywebsite.com"
// If enabled, attempt to sign .js JavaScript files. Disabled by default
signJavaScript = true
// If unspecified, both sha1 and sha256 signatures will be appended. Will be passed to signtool.exe as the /fd option.
hashes = ["sha256"]
`
With a custom signtool.exe or custom parameters
Sometimes, you need to specify specific signing parameters or use a different version
of signtool.exe. In this mode, @electron/windows-sign will call the provided binary
with the provided parameters for each file to sign.
If you only provide signToolPath, the default parameters will be used.
If you only provide signWithParams, the default signtool.exe will be used.
All the additional configuration mentioned above is also
available here, but only used if you do not provide your own parameters.
`ts
await sign({
appDirectory: "C:\\Path\\To\\App",
// or process.env.WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_FILE
certificateFile: "C:\\Cert.pfx",
// or process.env.WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD
certificatePassword: "hunter99"
// or process.env.WINDOWS_SIGN_TOOL_PATH
signToolPath: "C:\\Path\\To\\my-custom-tool.exe",
// or process.env.WINDOWS_SIGN_WITH_PARAMS
signWithParams: "--my=custom --parameters"
})
`
`ps1
electron-windows-sign $PATH_TO_APP_DIRECTORY --sign-tool-path=$PATH_TO_TOOL --sign-with-params="--my=custom --parameters"
`
With a custom hook function
Sometimes, you just want all modules depending on @electron/windows-sign to call
your completely custom logic. You can either specify a hookFunction (if you're calling
this module yourself) or a hookModulePath, which this module will attempt to require.
Using the hookModulePath has the benefit that you can override how any other users
of this module (like @electron/packager) codesign your app.
`ts
await sign({
// A function with the following signature:
// (fileToSign: string) => void | Promise
//
// This function will be called sequentially for each file that
// @electron/windows-sign wants to sign.
hookFunction: myHookFunction
// Path to a hook module.
hookModulePath: "C:\\Path\\To\\my-hook-module.js",
})
`
Your hook module should either directly export a function or
export a default function.
`js
// Good:
module.exports = function (filePath) {
console.log(Path to file to sign: ${filePath})
}
// Good:
module.exports = async function (filePath) {
console.log(Path to file to sign: ${filePath})
}
// Good:
export default async function (filePath) {
console.log(Path to file to sign: ${filePath})
}
// Bad:
module.exports = {
myCustomHookName: function (filePath) {
console.log(Path to file to sign: ${filePath})
}
}
// Bad:
export async function myCustomHookName(filePath) {
console.log(Path to file to sign: ${filePath})
}
`
`
SYNOPSIS
electron-windows-sign app [options ...]
DESCRIPTION
app
Path to the application to sign. It must be a directory.
certificate-file
Path to the certificate file (.pfx) to use for signing. Uses
environment variable WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_FILE if not provided.
certificate-password
Password to use for the certificate. Uses environment variable
WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD if not provided.
sign-tool-path
Path to the signtool.exe binary. If not specified, the tool will attempt
use a built-in version.
timestamp-server
URL of the timestamp server to use. If not specified, the tool will
attempt to use a built-in server (http://timestamp.digicert.com)
description
Description to use for the signed files. Passed as /d to signtool.exe.
website
URL of the website to use for the signed files. Passed as /du to
signtool.exe.
sign-with-params
Additional parameters to pass to signtool.exe. This can be used to
specify additional certificates to use for cross-signing.
automatically-select-certificate
Automatically select the best certificate to use for signing. On by default.
help
Print this usage information.
debug
Print additional debug information.
`
File Types
This tool will aggressively attempt to sign all files that _can_
be signed, excluding scripts.
- [Portable executable files][pe] (.exe, .dll, .sys, .efi, .scr, .node)
- Microsoft installers (.msi)
- APPX/MSIX packages (.appx, .appxbundle, .msix, .msixbundle)
- Catalog files (.cat)
- Cabinet files (.cab)
- Silverlight applications (.xap)
- Scripts (.vbs, .wsf, .ps1)
If you do want to sign JavaScript, please enable it with the signJavaScript`