Hi everyone,

I'm looking at an application that is made with Filemaker Pro Advanced and this is my first experience with this type of file.

I have the main file, which contains the Registration/Activation routine. I have removed the password for the file using Passware and installed Filemaker so that I can open the file to reverse the scripts.

However it appears that the runtime was distributed with all admin/debugging rights removed (which I imagine is perfectly normal).

So I can load the file up, run it, just not debug it.

Are there any guides to approaching these targets? I saw that Passware just removed the password for user and did not decrypt it - are there any applications that can add a user (and appropriate rights) to a FileMaker runtime? Is that even possible? Are there any other FileMaker debuggers / script extractors / toolz etc about?

I have spent a lot of time googling this but unfortunately 'reverse/crack filemaker' type queries tend to produce page after page of 'Filemaker 7.0 crack' type results.

I've also posted this same question over at ARTeam and tuts4u but have had no replies (no - I didn't post them all at once - I waited 24 hours between postings!)

I don't expect anyone to do the work for me - just please point me in the direction of some tutorials, maybe some extraction tools, perhaps even an AutoFileMakerReversing script for Olly

Thanks in advance
bb

If the person making the "application" (or whatever it's called) expected to ever be able to edit it again, wouldn't there be some kind of "admin" account in there that he would use, that would also have had its password reset by your tool, and consequently could be used to "log into" the application? (i.e. might you not just be selecting the wrong account to log in with?)

Otherwise, if the file is some kind of "compiled runtime" (note that I do not know anything about Filemaker targets!), I guess there's a big chance that the scripts and whatnot in it have been "compiled" in some way that the Filemaker "editor" itself wouldn't be able to extract/reverse them even if you had all the "rights" in the world?

Hi dELTA,

Thank you for replying.



If I understand correctly, there is an option within Filemake Pro to release your compiled runtime with no admin/debugging rights. Effectively it is 'RTM' kind of option as far as I can tell. Once you are happy with your runtime, you can release it so that no others can alter it from within Filemaker.

If my understanding is correct, it is the Filemaker equivalent of not linking debugging symbols on compilation.

Apparently, I am not the first to think that 'Hey, since it was created in x, I should be able to load it up into x and reverse it'

It does however lead to another option - instead of reversing the actual runtime, I can now look at reversing the IDE to see if I can force it to allow me to read the scripts. This is a last resort though, since I suspect there will be missing information in the runtime that Filemaker needs to recreate the scripts as they were. But an option nonetheless.


I think this is the case - so for now, it is jumping around in message loops and trying to figure out how the devil it all fits together. Damn this 'real life' thing that keeps getting in the way.

That is, unless someone knows of any relevant papers that I could read to help me out. Or knows more about the structure of runtimes, can point me in the direction of a Filemaker runtime file specification or the like to keep me moving forward!

Thanks for replying dELTA, hope someone can give me a nudge in the right direction after all.

Cheers