SQLcipher Guide

SQLCipher is based on SQLite, and thus, the majority of the accessible API is identical to the C/C++ interface for SQLite 3. However, SQLCipher does add a number of security specific extensions in the form of PRAGMAs, SQL Functions and C Functions.

1. Build SQLcipher from source

1. $ git clone https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher.git
2. $ cd sqlcipher
3. $ ./configure –enable-tempstore=yes CFLAGS="-DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC -DSQLITE_TEMP_STORE=2" LDFLAGS="-lcrypto"
4. $ make
5. $ make install #if you want to do a system wide install of SQLCipher

Mark the output of make install, especially the following lines:

• libtool: install: /usr/bin/install -c .libs/libsqlcipher.a /usr/local/lib/libsqlcipher.a
• /usr/bin/install -c -m 0644 sqlite3.h /usr/local/include/sqlcipher

these are the folders of SQLcipher headers and the library necessary when building proper C project.

2. Building minimal C project example

In SQLite_example.c put the following lines:

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#include "sqlite3.h" //We want to SQLCipher extension, rather then a system wide SQLite header
rc = sqlite3_open("test.db",&db); //open SQLite database test.db
rc = sqlite3_key(db,"1q2w3e4r",8); //apply encryption to previously opened database

Build you example:

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$gcc SQLite_example.c -o SQLtest -I /path/to/local/folder/with/sqlcipher/header/files/ -L /path/to/local/folder/with/sqlcipher/library.a -l sqlcipher

e.g. with paths extracted from the output of $make install

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$gcc SQLite_example.c -o SQLtest -I /usr/local/include/sqlcipher -L /usr/local/lib/libsqlcipher.a -lsqlcipher

Finally, make sure that your SQLCipher library is in the system wide library path e.g. for (Arch)Linux:

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$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib/

Run your test code ((Arch)Linux):

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$ ./SQLtest