locksmith 0.1

Your liaison between repository secrets and the great beyond.

locksmith

Your liaison between repository secrets and the great beyond.

Overview

locksmith acts as an interface between secrets and the Python code using them.

Use case

Consider the following scenario: Your cool new app requires a slick, unique API key to run. Perhaps your framework requires you to put this API key in a manifest.json or AppDelegate file. However, your manifest file(s) need to be checked into GitHub, thus exposing your precious API key. locksmith provides a layer of security to prevent you from having to type out your secrets in plaintext anywhere in your repository.

How it works

locksmith uses GnuPG to encrypt your secrets. Each user in your repository can have their own secrets, either shared among many or unique to each user. Then, locksmith exposes a simple API to access your secrets in code, rather than typing out something like API_KEY = "something_that_shouldn't_be_shared".

Installation

WIP pip package, working from this tutorial --> https://dzone.com/articles/executable-package-pip-install

Eventually, you will be able to just do pip install locksmith

Also, make sure you have gpg installed. You can use Homebrew:

brew install gpg

Setup and Background

First, decide on who's going to be using your secrets. locksmith looks for secrets based on users, which are programmer-defined. For example, if I was the only user of my repo, the only user would be wcarhart. However, perhaps you're collaborating on a repo, where you'd have two users, such as wcarhart and friend_user. Or, perhaps you're collaborating on a repo but you'd only like to use one joint user for locksmith, such as locksmith_user.

If you have one user, locksmith_user, add the following file locksmith_user.lcksmth to your repository (but do NOT check it into version control!):

secret0=secret_value0
secret1=secret_value1
...
secretN=secret_valueN

An example of this file with actual values could be:

API_KEY=3eWhJtewSr0sSshNX9STOLUV1nGtFznxQM8UfyYH
DATABASE_USER=admin
DATABASE_AUTH=password

If you named this file locksmith_user.lcksmth, then these secrets will be available to the user locksmith_user, or to any user that knows locksmith_user's password.

Now, encrypt the file using gpg:

gpg -c locksmith_user.lcksmth

This will produce a file locksmith_user.lcksmth.gpg. You can now safely check this into your version control

Usage and API

Usage

First, make sure to include locksmith in your Python code:

from locksmith import Locksmith

Then, make a Locksmith object based on what user(s) you have defined:

l = Locksmith("locksmith_user")

When the above line is executed, you will be prompted for locksmith_user's password. This will happen only when you instatiate a new Locksmith object and not every time you access a secret.

API

locksmith exposes the following API for you to use

get_secret(parameter)

The get_secret function allows you to get a specific secret, specified by parameter. Use it like this:

secret_value = l.get_secret("API_KEY")

If you pass in an invalid parameter, locksmith will raise a ValueError LookupError.

add_secret(secret, value)

The add_secret function allows you to add a secret on the fly to your secrets. Use it like this:

l.add_secret("API_KEY", "some_secret_value")

Note that this exposes your some_secret_value in plaintext. It's better practice to put your secret in the locksmith_user.lcksmth file before encrypting it. If you pass in an invalid secret or value, locksmith will raise a ValueError or LookupError.

update_secret(secret, value)

The update_secret function allows you to update one of your secrets on the fly. Use it like this:

l.update_secret("API_KEY", "some_secret_value")

Note that this exposes your some_secret_value in plaintext. It's better practice to put your secret in the locksmith_user.lcksmth file before encrypting it. If you pass in an invalid secret or value, locksmith will raise a ValueError or LookupError.

save()

If you make a change using add_secret or update_secret, you'll have to call the save function to persist your changes. Use it like this:

l.add_secret("API_KEY", "1234")
l.update_secret("API_KEY", "5678")
l.save()

Note that this exposes your some_secret_value in plaintext. It's better practice to put your secret in the locksmith_user.lcksmth file before encrypting it. This function is a WIP.