ChiseledSqlClient

[!IMPORTANT]
ChiseledSqlClient was an experiment that eventually lead to Chisel, a NuGet package which greatly simplifies the removal of unwanted dependencies and properly handles transitive dependencies.

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As of version 5.2.0, the Microsoft.Data.SqlClient NuGet package includes everything needed to authenticate to SQL databases with the Microsoft identity platform (formerly Azure AD). It has been suggested to split Azure dependent functionality in a separate NuGet Package (#1108) but currently all the Azure and Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) packages are required dependencies.

So if you only use authentication with user/password or SSPI integrated security you have to pay for the weight of all those unused libraries.

This project demonstrates how to get rid of Azure and MSAL packages while still being able to use Microsoft.Data.SqlClient when using non-Azure AD authentication.

Methodology

[!WARNING]
Use this technique at your own risk.

Using a custom MSBuild target, it is possible to remove dependencies from your build. I figured out this trick some time ago when I wanted to get rid of the AWS SDK dependencies brought in by the MongoDB driver. Turns out Microsoft.Data.SqlClient is not the only database driver to bring in cloud provider dependencies!

In order to remove Azure and MSAL libraries, add the following target in your project.

<Target Name="RemoveAzureActiveDirectory" AfterTargets="ResolvePackageAssets">
  <ItemGroup>
    <RuntimeCopyLocalItems Remove="@(RuntimeCopyLocalItems)" Condition="$([System.String]::Copy('%(RuntimeCopyLocalItems.NuGetPackageId)').StartsWith('Azure')) Or $([System.String]::Copy('%(RuntimeCopyLocalItems.NuGetPackageId)').StartsWith('Microsoft.Identity'))" />
    <NativeCopyLocalItems Remove="@(NativeCopyLocalItems)" Condition="$([System.String]::Copy('%(NativeCopyLocalItems.NuGetPackageId)').StartsWith('Microsoft.Identity'))" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Target>

This will remove all DLLs from the build, see the dependent DLLs table for the full list.

Finally, the Microsoft.Identity.Client library must be replaced with a library stub containing a single (empty) DeviceCodeResult class. Its version must match the Microsoft.Identity.Client dependency, i.e. 4.56.0 as of Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.2.0. See the ChiseledSqlClient solution for a complete working example that can be run with the dotnet run -p:ChiselingEnabled=true command.

Results

The numbers presented here were obtained when targeting net8.0-windows on win-x64. Results may vary for other combinations of target frameworks and runtime identifiers.

<img src="results.svg" alt="Total DLL Size (MB) graph">

With all the Azure and MSAL libraries, the total DLL size is 9.5 MB.

dotnet run
Total DLL size: 9.5 MB
✅ Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - 12.0.2000.8
        Feb  2 2024 04:20:23
        Copyright (C) 2022 Microsoft Corporation

Without all the Azure and MSAL libraries, the total DLL size is 4.3 MB, less than half of the original size!

dotnet run -p:ChiselingEnabled=true
Total DLL size: 4.3 MB
✅ Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - 12.0.2000.8
        Feb  2 2024 04:20:23
        Copyright (C) 2022 Microsoft Corporation

Dependent DLLs

Here's the list of all the Microsoft.Data.SqlClient dependencies. Those in bold are removed when chiseling.

| File | Size | |---------------------------------------------------------|---------| | msalruntime.dll | 2.27 MB | | Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.dll | 2.13 MB | | Microsoft.Identity.Client.dll | 1.13 MB | | Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens.dll | 0.99 MB | | Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SNI.dll | 0.50 MB | | System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.dll | 0.44 MB | | Azure.Core.dll | 0.38 MB | | Azure.Identity.dll | 0.33 MB | | Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core.dll | 0.22 MB | | System.Diagnostics.EventLog.dll | 0.17 MB | | WebView2Loader.dll | 0.14 MB | | Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.OpenIdConnect.dll | 0.11 MB | | Microsoft.IdentityModel.JsonWebTokens.dll | 0.11 MB | | System.Runtime.Caching.dll | 0.09 MB | | Microsoft.Identity.Client.NativeInterop.dll | 0.09 MB | | System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt.dll | 0.08 MB | | Microsoft.Identity.Client.Extensions.Msal.dll | 0.07 MB | | Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.dll | 0.04 MB | | Microsoft.IdentityModel.Logging.dll | 0.04 MB | | Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Wpf.dll | 0.04 MB | | System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData.dll | 0.04 MB | | Microsoft.Web.WebView2.WinForms.dll | 0.03 MB | | Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.dll | 0.02 MB | | System.Memory.Data.dll | 0.02 MB | | Microsoft.IdentityModel.Abstractions.dll | 0.02 MB | | Microsoft.Bcl.AsyncInterfaces.dll | 0.01 MB |