Open web.config from console application?

Question

I have a console capplication that runs on the same computer that hosts a bunch of web.config files. I need the console application to open each web.config file and decrypt

Answer 1

The when the ConfigurationManager class grab a section from the config file, it has an "IsProtected" property that it can infer for a given section that you grab. If it is protected, you can then Unprotect it using some code.

The basic method for encrypting/decrypting goes like this (taken from article link below):

private void ProtectSection(string sectionName, string provider)
{
    Configuration config =
        WebConfigurationManager.
            OpenWebConfiguration(Request.ApplicationPath);

    ConfigurationSection section =
                 config.GetSection(sectionName);

    if (section != null &&
              !section.SectionInformation.IsProtected)
    {
        section.SectionInformation.ProtectSection(provider);
        config.Save();
    }
}

private void UnProtectSection(string sectionName)
{
    Configuration config =
        WebConfigurationManager.
            OpenWebConfiguration(Request.ApplicationPath);

    ConfigurationSection section =
              config.GetSection(sectionName);

    if (section != null &&
          section.SectionInformation.IsProtected)
    {
        section.SectionInformation.UnprotectSection();
        config.Save();
    }
}

Check out this article for the full details on working with this.