How to encrypt sections of our app.config inside our asp.net console application

Question

I have the following section inside my asp.net console application's app.config, to store our APIKey:-

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="customAppSettingsGroup">
      <section name="customAppSettings"
               type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler,System" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>
  <customAppSettingsGroup>
    <customAppSettings>
      <add key="APIKey" value="****" />
    </customAppSettings>
  </customAppSettingsGroup>
  <appSettings>
</appSettings>

but i have 2 questions:-

1) how i can access this section inside my code?

2) Can i encrypt this section both inside visual studio and inside the live server?

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi @john john ,

According to your description, I create a simple demo to produce your problem, you could try something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>  
<configuration>  
  <configSections>  
    <!--<sectionGroup name="customAppSettingsGroup" >-->  
    <section name="customAppSettings" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" />  
    <!--</sectionGroup>-->  
  </configSections>  
  <!--<customAppSettingsGroup>-->  
  <customAppSettings>  
    <add key="APIKey" value="*****" />  
  </customAppSettings>  
  <!--</customAppSettingsGroup>-->  
  <appSettings>  
  </appSettings>  
  <startup>  
    <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.7.2" />  
  </startup>  
</configuration>  

And use these code to get the key value:

NameValueCollection section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("customAppSettings") as NameValueCollection;  
string key = section["APIKey"];  

Regarding its encryption and decryption, I think you could try to use SectionInformation.ProtectSection(String) Method. About how to call Data Protection API (DPAPI), you could read this bolg to learn a complete example: How to encrypt and decrypt data using DPAPI in C# or VB.NET

Best regards,
Xudong Peng

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.