API Usage

Here’s a simple example:

>>> from cryptoyaml import generate_key, CryptoYAML
>>> new_key = generate_key('secret')
>>> config = CryptoYAML('/path/to/settings.yml.aes', keyfile=new_key)

Initially you must generate a key (it uses the Fernet symmetric encryption from the cryptography library) and use it to construct an CryptoYAML instance.

That instance then provides a data attribute which is initally an empty dictionary that you can fill with arbitrary data, provided, the PyYAML library can encode it:

>>> config.data['foo'] = 123

Note, however, that the data is only persisted on the filesystem when you explicitly commit it to disk like so:

>>> config.write()

Once written, the file can be re-read as long as the original secret is still provided:

>>> reread = CryptoYAML('/path/to/settings.yml.aes', keyfile=new_key)
>>> reread.data['foo']
>>> 123

Command Line Usage

Having an encrypted settings file is neat, but sometimes you might want to take a look at it or manipulate it from the command line instead of programmatically.

For this cryptoyaml has three commands for generating a key, creating a new file, reading it and setting individual settings:

# cryptoyaml generate_key mysecret
Created new private key at /Users/senic/Development/senic.cryptoyaml/mysecret
# cryptoyaml create mysettings.yml.aes --keyfile mysecret
created new file at /Users/senic/Development/senic.cryptoyaml/mysettings.yml.aes
# cryptoyaml set mysettings.yml.aes foo bar --keyfile mysecret
foo -> bar
# cryptoyaml cat mysettings.yml.aes --keyfile mysecret
{'foo': 'bar'}

Environment variables

A common practice is to provide the secret key via an environment variable. Simply setting CRYPTOYAML_SECRET will allow you to omit the key for both API usage and for the command line.

0.2.0 (2017-02-27)

• Re-released as cryptoyaml (instead of senic.cryptoyaml) to make packing simpler and to tone down the branding.

0.1.1 (2017-01-03)

Cosmetic brown bag release…

• fix README markup.

• fix namespace declaration (to allow it to co-exist with other senic.* packages).

0.1.0 (2016-12-20)

Initial release.