ArmA: Armed Assault: Addon Signatures

⚠

Addon Signature implementation in all version before 1.08 contains serious bugs which cause even users with no modified or unsigned addons are marked as using modified data.

Overview

Addon signatures are a way to reduce cheating in Armed Assault. They are used to detect data files modified by anyone else but the addon creator. They are based on strong cryptographic principles (private/public key pairs), therefore hacking around them is very hard.

Addon is signed by its creator using a private key, while the public key is used by the game to verify that the addon has not been modified.

Controlling addon signature verification on the server

If a server admin decides addon signatures should be verified, he should add a following line to the server.cfg file:

verifySignatures=1

When signature verification is turned on, clients connecting to the server must not use any unsigned addons (which currently means only original content produced by Bohemia Interactive can be used on such server, as no tools for content creation has been released yet).

Server admin can decide which addon makers he considers trustworthy by placing their public keys in the "keys" directory.

Signing addons

Signing addons is done using DSSignFile utility. A private key is needed for this.

Security considerations

Addon makers need to make sure their private keys are not leaked.