managed debugger for obfuscated assembly

Question

I was just wondering if there is any tool (preferably free) out there that I can use to run IL from an obfuscated assembly. I know mdbg could be used for debugging a managed assembly but I am not sure if it could be used when that assembly is obfuscated. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Obfuscated IL should function just like non-obfuscated IL - you should be able to use the assembly directly. Otherwise, the runtime itself would not be able to execute the code.

The main issue will be that the names will be obfuscated, so finding and calling the correct members can be difficult. The better obfuscators make this very difficult, however, which is really the point.

In general, it'd be better to develop against the non-obfuscated version, then obfuscate your application with the assembly in one pass. With most obfuscators, this typically gives you the proper information to debug (or at least unwind and understand a call stack).