SQLCipher Headers

[AndreC]

I have been experimenting with SQLcipher recently for usage on iOS applications, I manage to extract the iOS keychains that contain the PRAGMA key for an SQLcipher encrypted SQLite database. With that, I was able to decrypt the SQLite database and read it using the SQLite DB Browser.

My current goal is being able to encrypt back the database so that iOS applications are able to read the database. I have been attempting to encrypt back the database with reference to this blog post.

How to encrypt a plaintext SQLite database to use SQLCipher (and avoid “file is encrypted or is not a database” errors)

We often field questions about how SQLCipher encryption works. In one common scenario, a developer wants to convert an existing standard SQLite database to an encrypted SQLCipher database. For example, this might be a requirement for an application that was not previously using SQLCipher, and must convert an insecure database to use SQLCipher full database encryption during an upgrade. In such cases, developers may initially attempt to open a standard SQLite database and then call sqlite3_key o…

Using this method, I was able to encrypt the database but unable to keep the headers of the database. In the blog post, it mentions that the PRAGMA key cannot be reused to encrypt back the database so does the database get encrypted back the same way using the sqlcipher_export? Also, I was using the cipher_plaintext_header_size = 32 but was unable to retain any headers following the encryption methods in the blog post mentioned earlier, how should I encrypt back the database keeping the original database headers?
https://www.zetetic.net/sqlcipher/sqlcipher-api/#cipher_plaintext_header_size

[developernotes]

Hi @AndreC

cipher_plaintext_header_size is not a persistent setting, so you will need to set your configuration again when you create a connection if you wish to perform an update to the database. Would you give that a try and let us know your results? If you are still facing an issue, would you mind sharing a bit more in detail about what you are attempting to accomplish?