Python CLI for managing secrets (passwords, API keys, etc)
Project description
Python CLI for managing secrets (passwords, API keys, etc)
Version: 19.8.2
Free software: Apache 2.0 License
Documentation: https://python_secrets.readthedocs.org.
Features
Uses the openstack/cliff command line framework for a robust and full-featured CLI. It is easy to add new commands and features!
Supports a “drop-in” model for defining variables in a modular manner (something like the python-update-dotdee program), supporting simplified bulk setting or generating variables as needed.
Like python-update-dotdee, produces a single master .yml file for use by programs like Ansible (e.g. ansible-playbook playbook.yml -e @"$(psec secrets path)")
Support multiple simultaneous sets of secrets (environments) for flexibility and scalability in multi-environment deployments and to support different use cases or different combinations of secrets.
List the groups of variables (and how many secrets in each group).
Describe secrets by their variable name, type (e.g., password, uuid4, random_base64) and an optional description that will be used to prompt for values when setting string variables.
Allow manual entry of values, or automatic generation of secrets according to their type.
Manually set string variables based on the output of simple commands. This allows interfacing with external programs for obtaining secrets, such as Vault by Hashicorp.
Generate unique values for variables, or use a single value per type to simplify use of secrets in access control of services while supporting a “break-glass” process to quickly regenerate secrets when needed.
Show the variables and their unredacted values (or redacted them to maintain secrecy during demonstrations or in documentation).
Export the variables (optionally with a specific prefix string) to the environment and run a command that inherits them (e.g., to pass variables to terraform for provisioning cloud instances).
Output the variables and values in multiple different formats (CSV, JSON, YAML) for use in shell scripts, etc. using cliff features.
Send secrets to other users on demand using GPG encrypted email to protect the secrets while in transit and while at rest in users’ email inboxes.
Makes it easy to store temporary files (e.g., the output from Jinja template rendering) that may contain secrets outside of the source repo directory in an environment-specific tmp/ directory.
Limitations
Secrets are stored in unencrypted form in the environments directories. Permissions are set to limit access, but this is not an “encrypt data at rest” solution like Vault by Hashicorp.
Does not handle secure distributed access for users on remote systems. You must use something like Vault by Hashicorp or libfuse/sshfs for secure (realtime) distributed access.
Does not handle secure distribution of newly generated secrets out to distributed systems that need them. You will need to use a program like Ansible and related playbooks for pushing out and changing secrets (or for retrieving backups). Look at the D2 Ansible playbooks (https://github.com/davedittrich/ansible-dims-playbooks) for example playbooks for doing these tasks.
Does not clean up the environment-specific tmp/ directories. (You need to handle that in code, but at least they are less likely to end up in a Git commit.)
Usage Concepts
There is a separate Usage chapter with individual command documentation. The remainder of this section covers higher level usage concepts necessary to best use the python_secrets package in your open source software project.
Directories and files
There are three file system concepts that are important to understand regarding secrets storage:
The root directory for secrets storage;
The environment for organizing a set of secrets and secret group descriptions;
The secrets file and group descriptions.
Root directory
By default, psec expects a root directory in the current user’s home directory. Unless you over-ride the name of this directory, it defaults to .secrets on Linux and secrets on Windows. The ability to change the location is supported to allow this directory to be placed on an exported file share, in a common location for use by a group on a workstation, or to move the contents to a different partition with more disk space.
The first time you use psec, there will likely be no directory:
$ tree ~/.secrets
/Users/dittrich/.secrets [error opening dir]
0 directories, 0 files
Environments
Environments are sub-directories within the root secrets directory. You can just create the directory structure without any files. You create one environment per set of unique secrets that you need to manage. This could be one for open source Program A, one for Program B, etc., or it could be one for development, one for testing, one for production, etc. (or any combination).
The command environments create creates an environment. Since this program is designed to support multiple environments, a name for the new environment is required. The name of the environment can be provided explicitly, or it can be inferred from the base name of the current working directory:
$ pwd
/Users/dittrich/git/python_secrets
$ psec environments create
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/python_secrets created
$ tree ~/.secrets
/Users/dittrich/.secrets
└── python_secrets
└── secrets.d
2 directories, 0 files
Let’s say we want to create empty environments for the three deployments (development, testing, and production). The names can be assigned explicitly by (a) giving an argument on the command line, (b) using the -e or --environment command line flag, or (c) by setting the environment variable D2_ENVIRONMENT:
$ psec environments create development
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/development created
$ psec --environment testing environments create
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/testing created
$ D2_ENVIRONMENT=production psec environments create
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/production created
$ tree ~/.secrets
/Users/dittrich/.secrets
├── development
│ └── secrets.d
├── production
│ └── secrets.d
├── python_secrets
│ └── secrets.d
└── testing
└── secrets.d
8 directories, 0 files
If you want to create more than one environment at once, you will have to specify all of the names on the command line as arguments:
$ psec environments create development testing production
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/development created
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/testing created
environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/production created
If you are using one source repository for building multiple deployments, of course you can’t rely on the basename of the directory for all deployments. The default environment can be set, shown, or unset, using the environments default command.
$ psec environments default --help
usage: psec environments default [-h] [--unset-default] [environment]
Manage default environment via file in cwd
positional arguments:
environment
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--unset-default Unset localized environment default
If no default is explicitly set, the default that would be applied is returned:
$ cd ~/git/python_secrets
$ psec environments default
default environment is "python_secrets"
You can get a list of all available environments at any time, including which one would be the default used by sub-commands:
$ psec environments list
+-------------+---------+
| Environment | Default |
+-------------+---------+
| development | No |
| testing | No |
| production | No |
+-------------+---------+
The following shows setting and unsetting the default:
$ psec environments default testing
default environment set to "testing"
$ psec environments default
testing
$ psec environments list
+-------------+---------+
| Environment | Default |
+-------------+---------+
| development | No |
| testing | Yes |
| production | No |
+-------------+---------+
$ psec environments default --unset-default
default environment unset
The environment directories are useable for storing all secrets and sensitive files (e.g., backups of certificates, databases, etc.) associated with an environment.
For convenience, there is a command environments tree that produces output similar to the Unix tree command:
$ psec -e d2 environments tree
/Users/dittrich/.secrets/d2
├── backups
│ ├── black.secretsmgmt.tk
│ │ ├── letsencrypt_2018-04-06T23:36:58PDT.tgz
│ │ └── letsencrypt_2018-04-25T16:32:20PDT.tgz
│ ├── green.secretsmgmt.tk
│ │ ├── letsencrypt_2018-04-06T23:45:49PDT.tgz
│ │ └── letsencrypt_2018-04-25T16:32:20PDT.tgz
│ ├── purple.secretsmgmt.tk
│ │ ├── letsencrypt_2018-04-25T16:32:20PDT.tgz
│ │ ├── trident_2018-01-31T23:38:48PST.tar.bz2
│ │ └── trident_2018-02-04T20:05:33PST.tar.bz2
│ └── red.secretsmgmt.tk
│ ├── letsencrypt_2018-04-06T23:45:49PDT.tgz
│ └── letsencrypt_2018-04-25T16:32:20PDT.tgz
├── dittrich.asc
├── keys
│ └── opendkim
│ └── secretsmgmt.tk
│ ├── 201801.private
│ ├── 201801.txt
│ ├── 201802.private
│ └── 201802.txt
├── secrets.d
│ ├── ca.yml
│ ├── consul.yml
│ ├── jenkins.yml
│ ├── rabbitmq.yml
│ ├── trident.yml
│ ├── vncserver.yml
│ └── zookeper.yml
├── secrets.yml
└── vault_password.txt
To just see the directory structure and not files, add the --no-files option:
$ psec -e d2 environments tree --no-files
/Users/dittrich/.secrets/d2
├── backups
│ ├── black.secretsmgmt.tk
│ ├── green.secretsmgmt.tk
│ ├── purple.secretsmgmt.tk
│ └── red.secretsmgmt.tk
├── keys
│ └── opendkim
│ └── secretsmgmt.tk
└── secrets.d
Secrets and group descriptions
The environment directories just created are all empty. Secrets are stored in a YML file (.yml) within the environment’s directory, and group descriptions are stored in a drop-in directory with the same base name, but with an extention of .d instead of .yml (following the Linux drop-in configuration style directories used by programs like rsyslog, dnsmasq, etc.)
The default secrets file name is secrets.yml, which means the default descriptions directory would be named secrets.d.
You can define environment variables to point to the root directory in which a set of different environments can be configured at one time, to define the current environment, and to change the name of the secrets file to something else.
$ env | grep ^D2_
D2_SECRETS_DIR=/Users/dittrich/.secrets
D2_ENVIRONMENT=do
Each environment is in turn rooted in a directory with the environment’s symbolic name (e.g., do for DigitalOcean in this example, and goSecure for the GitHub davedittrich/goSecure VPN project.)
$ tree -L 1 ~/.secrets
/Users/dittrich/.secrets
├── do
└── goSecure
3 directories, 0 files
Each set of secrets for a given service or purpose is described in its own file.
.
├── secrets.d
│ ├── ca.yml
│ ├── consul.yml
│ ├── jenkins.yml
│ ├── rabbitmq.yml
│ ├── trident.yml
│ ├── vncserver.yml
│ └── zookeper.yml
└── secrets.yml
You can see one of the descriptions files from the template in this repository using cat secrets/secrets.d/myapp.yml:
---
- Variable: myapp_pi_password
Type: password
Prompt: 'Password for myapp "pi" user account'
Export: DEMO_pi_password
- Variable: myapp_app_password
Type: password
Prompt: 'Password for myapp web app'
Export: DEMO_app_password
- Variable: myapp_client_psk
Type: string
Prompt: 'Pre-shared key for myapp client WiFi AP'
Export: DEMO_client_ssid
- Variable: myapp_client_ssid
Type: string
Prompt: 'SSID for myapp client WiFi AP'
Export: DEMO_client_ssid
# vim: ft=ansible :
The psec program uses the openstack/cliff command line interface framework, which supports multiple output formats. The default format the table format, which makes for nice clean output. (Other formats will be described later.)
The groups can be listed using the groups list command:
$ psec groups list
+---------+-------+
| Group | Items |
+---------+-------+
| jenkins | 1 |
| myapp | 4 |
| trident | 2 |
+---------+-------+
The variables in one or more groups can be shown with the groups show command:
$ psec groups show trident myapp
+---------+-----------------------+
| Group | Variable |
+---------+-----------------------+
| trident | trident_sysadmin_pass |
| trident | trident_db_pass |
| myapp | myapp_pi_password |
| myapp | myapp_app_password |
| myapp | myapp_client_psk |
| myapp | myapp_client_ssid |
+---------+-----------------------+
When integrating a new open source tool or project, you can create a new group and clone its secrets descriptions. This does not copy any values, just the descriptions, allowing the current environment to manage its own values.
$ psec groups create newgroup --clone-from ~/git/goSecure/secrets/secrets.d/gosecure.yml
created new group "newgroup"
$ psec groups list 2>/dev/null
+----------+-------+
| Group | Items |
+----------+-------+
| jenkins | 1 |
| myapp | 4 |
| newgroup | 12 |
| trident | 2 |
+----------+-------+
Showing Secrets
To examine the secrets, use the secrets show command:
$ psec secrets show
+------------------------+----------+-------------------+----------+
| Variable | Type | Export | Value |
+------------------------+----------+-------------------+----------+
| jenkins_admin_password | password | None | REDACTED |
| myapp_app_password | password | DEMO_app_password | REDACTED |
| myapp_client_psk | string | DEMO_client_ssid | REDACTED |
| myapp_client_ssid | string | DEMO_client_ssid | REDACTED |
| myapp_pi_password | password | DEMO_pi_password | REDACTED |
| trident_db_pass | password | None | REDACTED |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | password | None | REDACTED |
+------------------------+----------+-------------------+----------+
By default, the values of secrets are redacted when output. To show the values in clear text in the terminal output, add the --no-redact flag:
$ psec secrets show --no-redact
+------------------------+----------+-------------------+------------------------------+
| Variable | Type | Export | Value |
+------------------------+----------+-------------------+------------------------------+
| jenkins_admin_password | password | None | fetch outsider awning maroon |
| myapp_app_password | password | DEMO_app_password | fetch outsider awning maroon |
| myapp_client_psk | string | DEMO_client_ssid | PSK |
| myapp_client_ssid | string | DEMO_client_ssid | SSID |
| myapp_pi_password | password | DEMO_pi_password | fetch outsider awning maroon |
| trident_db_pass | password | None | fetch outsider awning maroon |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | password | None | fetch outsider awning maroon |
+------------------------+----------+-------------------+------------------------------+
If you don’t care about redaction and want to turn it off and save the dozen keystrokes it takes to type `` –no-redact``, you can export the environment variable D2_NO_REDACT set to (case-insensitive) “true”, “1”, or “yes”. Anything else leaves the default the same. We’ll do this now for later examples.
$ export D2_NO_REDACT=true
The default is also to show all secrets. If you only want to process a subset of secrets, you have two ways to do this.
Specify the variables you want to show on the command line as arguments:
$ psec secrets show rabbitmq_default_user_pass rabbitmq_admin_user_pass +----------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+ | Variable | Type | Value | +----------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+ | rabbitmq_default_user_pass | password | handheld angrily letdown frisk | | rabbitmq_admin_user_pass | password | handheld angrily letdown frisk | +----------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+
Use the --group flag and specify the group(s) you want to show as command line arguments:
$ psec secrets show --group jenkins trident +----------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+ | Variable | Type | Value | +----------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+ | jenkins_admin_password | password | handheld angrily letdown frisk | | trident_db_pass | password | handheld angrily letdown frisk | | trident_sysadmin_pass | password | handheld angrily letdown frisk | +----------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+
Describing Secrets and Secret Types
To describe the secrets in the select environment, use the secrets describe command:
$ psec secrets describe
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------------------------------+
| Variable | Type | Prompt |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------------------------------+
| google_oauth_client_id | string | Google OAuth2 client id |
| google_oauth_client_secret | string | Google OAuth2 client secret |
| google_oauth_refresh_token | string | Google OAuth2 refresh token |
| google_oauth_username | None | google_oauth_username |
| jenkins_admin_password | password | Password for Jenkins "admin" account |
| myapp_app_password | password | Password for myapp web app |
| myapp_client_psk | string | Pre-shared key for myapp client WiFi AP |
| myapp_client_ssid | string | SSID for myapp client WiFi AP |
| myapp_pi_password | password | Password for myapp "pi" user account |
| trident_db_pass | password | Password for Trident postgres database |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | password | Password for Trident sysadmin account |
+----------------------------+----------+-----------------------------------------+
$ psec secrets describe --group trident
+-----------------------+----------+----------------------------------------+
| Variable | Type | Prompt |
+-----------------------+----------+----------------------------------------+
| trident_db_pass | password | Password for Trident postgres database |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | password | Password for Trident sysadmin account |
+-----------------------+----------+----------------------------------------+
To get a description of the available secret types, add the --types flag.
$ psec secrets describe --types
+------------------+----------------------------------+
| Type | Description |
+------------------+----------------------------------+
| password | Simple (xkcd) password string |
| string | Simple string |
| crypt_6 | crypt() SHA512 ("$6$") |
| token_hex | Hexadecimal token |
| token_urlsafe | URL-safe token |
| consul_key | 16-byte BASE64 token |
| sha1_digest | DIGEST-SHA1 (user:pass) digest |
| sha256_digest | DIGEST-SHA256 (user:pass) digest |
| zookeeper_digest | DIGEST-SHA1 (user:pass) digest |
| uuid4 | UUID4 token |
| random_base64 | Random BASE64 token |
+------------------+----------------------------------+
Generating and Setting variables
Secrets are generated using the secrets generate command and are set manually using the secrets set command.
$ psec help secrets generate
usage: psec secrets generate [-h] [-U] [args [args ...]]
Generate values for secrets
positional arguments:
args
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-U, --unique Generate unique values for each type of secret (default:
False)
..
$ psec secrets set --help
usage: psec secrets set [-h] [--undefined] [args [args ...]]
Set values manually for secrets
positional arguments:
args
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--undefined Set values for undefined variables (default: False)
To regenerate all of the non-string secrets at once, using the same value for each type of secret to simplify things, use the secrets generate command:
$ psec secrets generate
$ psec secrets show --column Variable --column Value
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Variable | Value |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| trident_db_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| consul_key | zQvSe0kdf0Xarbhb80XULQ== |
| jenkins_admin_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| rabbitmq_default_user_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| rabbitmq_admin_user_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| vncserver_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| zookeeper_uuid4 | 769a77ad-b06f-4018-857e-23f970c777c2 |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
You can set one or more variables manually using secrets set and specifying the variable and value in the form variable=value:
$ psec secrets set trident_db_pass="rural coffee purple sedan"
$ psec secrets show --column Variable --column Value
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Variable | Value |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| trident_db_pass | rural coffee purple sedan |
| ca_rootca_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| consul_key | zQvSe0kdf0Xarbhb80XULQ== |
| jenkins_admin_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| rabbitmq_default_user_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| rabbitmq_admin_user_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| vncserver_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| zookeeper_uuid4 | 769a77ad-b06f-4018-857e-23f970c777c2 |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
Or you can generate one or more variables in a similar manner by adding them to the command line as arguments to secrets generate:
$ psec secrets generate rabbitmq_default_user_pass rabbitmq_admin_user_pass
$ psec secrets show --column Variable --column Value
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Variable | Value |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| trident_db_pass | rural coffee purple sedan |
| ca_rootca_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| consul_key | zQvSe0kdf0Xarbhb80XULQ== |
| jenkins_admin_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| rabbitmq_default_user_pass | embezzle xerox excess skydiver |
| rabbitmq_admin_user_pass | embezzle xerox excess skydiver |
| trident_sysadmin_pass | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| vncserver_password | gargle earlobe eggplant kissable |
| zookeeper_uuid4 | 769a77ad-b06f-4018-857e-23f970c777c2 |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------+
A set of secrets for an open source project can be bootstrapped using the following steps:
Create a template secrets environment directory that contains just the secrets definitions. This example uses the template found in the davedittrich/goSecure repository (directory https://github.com/davedittrich/goSecure/tree/master/secrets).
Use this template to clone a secrets environment, which will initially be empty:
$ psec environments create test --clone-from ~/git/goSecure/secrets new password variable "gosecure_app_password" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_ssid" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_ssid" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_psk" is not defined new password variable "gosecure_pi_password" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_pi_pubkey" is not defined environment directory /Users/dittrich/.secrets/test created
$ psec -e test secrets show --no-redact --fit-width +-----------------------+----------+-------+ | Variable | Type | Value | +-----------------------+----------+-------+ | gosecure_app_password | password | None | | gosecure_client_ssid | string | None | | gosecure_client_psk | string | None | | gosecure_pi_password | password | None | | gosecure_pi_pubkey | string | None | +-----------------------+----------+-------+
First, generate all secrets whose type is not string:
$ psec -e test secrets generate new password variable "gosecure_app_password" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_ssid" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_ssid" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_psk" is not defined new password variable "gosecure_pi_password" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_pi_pubkey" is not defined $ psec -e test secrets show --no-redact --fit-width +-----------------------+----------+------------------------------+ | Variable | Type | Value | +-----------------------+----------+------------------------------+ | gosecure_app_password | password | brunt outclass alike turbine | | gosecure_client_psk | string | None | | gosecure_client_ssid | string | None | | gosecure_pi_password | password | brunt outclass alike turbine | | gosecure_pi_pubkey | string | None | +-----------------------+----------+------------------------------+
Finally, manually set the remaining string type variables:
$ psec -e test secrets set --undefined new string variable "gosecure_client_psk" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_client_ssid" is not defined new string variable "gosecure_pi_pubkey" is not defined Pre-shared key for goSecure client WiFi AP? [None]: atjhK5AlsQMw3Zh SSID for goSecure client WiFi AP? [None]: YourWiFiSSID SSH public key for accessing "pi" account? [None]: @~/.ssh/new_rsa.pub $ psec -e test secrets show --no-redact --fit-width +-----------------------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Variable | Type | Value | +-----------------------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | gosecure_app_password | password | brunt outclass alike turbine | | gosecure_client_psk | string | atjhK5AlsQMw3Zh | gosecure_client_ssid | string | YourWiFiSSID | | gosecure_pi_password | password | brunt outclass alike turbine | | gosecure_pi_pubkey | string | ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC+qUIucrPvRkTmY0tgxr9ac/VtBUHhYHfOdDVpU99AcryLMWiU | | | | uQ2/NVikfOfPo5mt9YTQyqRbeBzKlNgbHnsxh0AZatjhK5AlsQMw3ZhZUcLYZbt7szuQy8ineN0potlCJoVaMSOb | | | | 9htf9gAPvzwxUnHxg35jPCzAXYAi3Erc6y338+CL0XxQvCogXOA+MwH7wZGgdT3WpupLG/7HAr/3KJEQQk1FlS2m | | | | Rd+WuewnLbKkqBP21N+48ccq6XhEhAmlzzr9SENw5DMmrvMAYIYkoTwUeD3Qx4YebjFkCxZw+w7AafEFn0Kz6vCX | | | | 4mp/6ZF/Ko+o04HM2sVr6wtCu2dB dittrich@localhost | +-----------------------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
You are now ready to compile your software, or build your project!
There is also a mechanism to run simple commands (i.e., basic arguments with no special inline command substitution or variable expansion features of shells like bash) and use the resulting output as the value.
For this example, let’s assume an environment that requires a CIDR notation address for ingres access control (e.g., when using Amazon Web Services to allow control of instances from your remote laptop).
$ psec -e xgt secrets set aws_cidr_allowed=""
$ psec -e secrets show --no-redact aws_cidr_allowed
+------------------+--------+-------+
| Variable | Type | Value |
+------------------+--------+-------+
| aws_cidr_allowed | string | |
+------------------+--------+-------+
The psec program has a utility feature that will return the current routable IP source address as an IP address, or using CIDR notation. The variable can be set in one of two ways:
Via (non-interactive) inline command subtitution from the terminal shell:
$ psec -e xgt secrets set aws_cidr_allowed="$(psec utils myip --cidr)"
Interactively when prompted using simple command line form:
$ psec -e xgt secrets set aws_cidr_allowed aws_cidr_allowed? []: !psec utils myip --cidr
The variable now contains the output of the specified program:
$ psec secrets show --no-redact aws_cidr_allowed
+------------------+--------+------------------+
| Variable | Type | Value |
+------------------+--------+------------------+
| aws_cidr_allowed | string | 93.184.216.34/32 |
+------------------+--------+------------------+
Processing templates
Outputting structured information for use in other scripts
Once secrets are created and stored, they will eventually need to be accessed in order to use them in program execution. This can be done by passing the .yml secrets file itself to a program, or by outputting the variables in other formats like CSV, JSON, or as environment type variables.
Passing the secrets file by path
One way to do this is to take advantage of command line options like Ansible’s --extra-vars and passing it a path to the .yml secrets file. (See Passing Variables On The Command Line). You can do that like this.
Let’s assume we want to use consul_key variable to configure Consul using Ansible. Here is the variable as stored:
$ psec secrets show consul_key
+------------+------------+--------------------------+
| Variable | Type | Value |
+------------+------------+--------------------------+
| consul_key | consul_key | GVLKCRqXqm0rxo0b4/ligQ== |
+------------+------------+--------------------------+
Using Ansible’s debug module, we can verify that this variable is not set by any previously loaded Ansible inventory:
$ ansible -i localhost, -m debug -a 'var=consul_key' localhost
localhost | SUCCESS => {
"consul_key": "VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!"
}
In order for Ansible to set the consul_key variable outside of any pre-defined inventory files, we need to pass a file path to the --extra-vars option. The path can be obtained using the psec secrets path command:
$ psec secrets path
/Users/dittrich/.secrets/python_secrets/secrets.yml
It is possible to run this command in an in-line command expansion operation in Bash. Ansible expects the file path passed to -extra-vars to start with an @ character, so the command line to use would look like this:
$ ansible -i localhost, -e @"$(psec secrets path)" -m debug -a 'var=consul_key' localhost
localhost | SUCCESS => {
"consul_key": "GVLKCRqXqm0rxo0b4/ligQ=="
}
Ansible now has the value and can use it in templating configuration files, or so forth.
Other programs like Hashicorp terraform look for environment variables that begin with TF_VAR_ and use them to set terraform variables for use in modules. To prove we are running in a sub-shell, we will first change the shell prompt.
$ PS1="test> "
test> psec -e test --export-env-vars --env-var-prefix="TEST_" run bash
$ env | grep '^TEST_'
TEST_gosecure_pi_pubkey=ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC+qUIucrPvRkTmY0tgxr9ac/VtBUHhYHfOdDVpU99AcryLMWiU [...]
TEST_gosecure_client_psk=atjhK5AlsQMw3Zh
TEST_gosecure_client_ssid=YourWiFiSSID
TEST_gosecure_pi_password=brunt outclass alike turbine
TEST_gosecure_app_password=brunt outclass alike turbine
$ exit
test>
Python Script Security
Last, but certainly not least, take the time to read up on Python Security and understand the types and sources of security vulnerabilities related to Python programs. Keep these ideas in mind when using and/or modifying this program.
Bugs, Enhancements, and Future Work
There is a known bug in the complex way that argparse and cliff handle the epilog (returned by get_epilog() method in command classes.) The result is that Sphinx documentation looks great, but command line help looks like a jumbled mess. For example,
usage: psec run [-h] [arg [arg ...]]
Run a command using exported secrets
positional arguments:
arg command arguments (default: "psec run --help")
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
.. code-block:: shell $ psec run usage: psec run [-h] [arg [arg ...]] Run a
command using exported secrets positional arguments: arg command arguments
(default: "psec run --help") optional arguments: -h, --help show this help
message and exit ..
The solution is supposed to be setting formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter, but this didn’t seem to be easy to do with cliff in a way that worked as expected.
Feature requests (and of course bug reports) are highly encouraged. You can do that by opening an issue on GitHub. Better yet, make a pull request with your own fix or feature. (Check there to see if one may already exist.)
If you want to help, there are some things that are on the “to do” list. These are tracked on this repository’s GitHub Projects page.
General or more elaborate potential enhancements are listed here:
Increase test coverage (test driven development is a Good Thing(TM))
The Mantl project (GitHub mantl/mantl) employs a security-setup script that takes care of setting secrets (and non-secret related variables) in a monolithic manner. It has specific command line options, specific secret generation functions, and specific data structures for each of the component subsystems used by mantl/mantl. This method is not modular or extensible, and the security-setup script is not generalized such that it can be used by any other project. These limitations are primary motivators for writing python_secrets, which could eventually replace security-setup.
At this point, the Mantl security.yml file can be read in and values can be manually set, as seen here:
$ psec -d ~/git/mantl --secrets-file security.yml secrets show -f yaml secrets descriptions directory not found - Value: admin:password Variable: chronos_http_credentials - Value: chronos Variable: chronos_principal - Value: S0JMz5z8oxQGQXMyZjwE0ZCmu4zeJV4oWDUrdc25MBLx Variable: chronos_secret - Value: 88821cbe-c004-4cff-9f91-2bc36cd347dc Variable: consul_acl_agent_token - Value: f9acbe14-28d3-4d06-a1c9-c617da5ebb4e Variable: consul_acl_mantl_api_token - Value: de54ae85-8226-4146-959f-8926b0b8ee55 Variable: consul_acl_marathon_token - Value: dfc9b244-5140-41ad-b93a-ac5c2451fb95 Variable: consul_acl_master_token - Value: e149b50f-cb5c-4efe-be96-26a52efdc715 Variable: consul_acl_secure_token - Value: 719f2328-6446-4647-adf6-310013bac636 Variable: consul_acl_vault_token - Value: Z0niD1jeiTkx7xaoewJm2A== Variable: consul_gossip_key - Value: true Variable: do_chronos_auth - Value: true Variable: do_chronos_iptables - Value: true Variable: do_chronos_ssl - Value: true Variable: do_consul_auth - Value: true Variable: do_consul_ssl - Value: true Variable: do_mantl_api_auth - Value: true Variable: do_mantlui_auth - Value: true Variable: do_mantlui_ssl - Value: true Variable: do_marathon_auth - Value: true Variable: do_marathon_iptables - Value: true Variable: do_marathon_ssl - Value: true Variable: do_mesos_auth - Value: true Variable: do_mesos_follower_auth - Value: true Variable: do_mesos_framework_auth - Value: true Variable: do_mesos_iptables - Value: true Variable: do_mesos_ssl - Value: false Variable: do_private_docker_registry - Value: mantl-api Variable: mantl_api_principal - Value: Se4R9nRy8WTAgmU9diJyIPwLYsBU+V1yBxTQumiOriK+ Variable: mantl_api_secret - Value: admin:password Variable: marathon_http_credentials - Value: marathon Variable: marathon_principal - Value: +Y5bvIsWliFvcWgbXGWa8kwT6Qf3etogQJe+cK+IV2hX Variable: marathon_secret - Value: - principal: marathon secret: +Y5bvIsWliFvcWgbXGWa8kwT6Qf3etogQJe+cK+IV2hX - principal: chronos secret: S0JMz5z8oxQGQXMyZjwE0ZCmu4zeJV4oWDUrdc25MBLx - principal: mantl-api secret: Se4R9nRy8WTAgmU9diJyIPwLYsBU+V1yBxTQumiOriK+ Variable: mesos_credentials - Value: follower Variable: mesos_follower_principal - Value: Q53uAa2mNM0UNe2RUjrX6k7QvK6ojjH1gHXYLcm3Lmfr Variable: mesos_follower_secret - Value: password Variable: nginx_admin_password - Value: true Variable: security_enabled - Value: chronos Variable: zk_chronos_user - Value: JWPO11z4lU5qeilZ Variable: zk_chronos_user_secret - Value: hsr+R6YQBAOXoY84a8ne8bU0opg= Variable: zk_chronos_user_secret_digest - Value: marathon Variable: zk_marathon_user - Value: UBh77ok2svQAqWox Variable: zk_marathon_user_secret - Value: mo2mQGXcsc21zB4wYD18jn+Csks= Variable: zk_marathon_user_secret_digest - Value: mesos Variable: zk_mesos_user - Value: L3t9FEMsXehqeBvl Variable: zk_mesos_user_secret - Value: bHYvGteRBxou4jqJ8XWAYmOmzxs= Variable: zk_mesos_user_secret_digest - Value: super Variable: zk_super_user - Value: 2DyL/n/GLi3Q0pa75z9OjODGZKC1RCaEiKNV1ZXo1Wpk Variable: zk_super_user_secret $ psec -d ~/git/mantl --secrets-file security.yml secrets show -f csv | grep nginx_admin_password secrets descriptions directory not found "nginx_admin_password","password" $ psec -d ~/git/mantl --secrets-file security.yml secrets set nginx_admin_password=newpassword secrets descriptions directory not found $ psec -d ~/git/mantl --secrets-file security.yml secrets show -f csv | grep nginx_admin_password secrets descriptions directory not found "nginx_admin_password","newpassword"
There are a few things that can be done to use psec as a replacement for the security-setup script. These include:
Produce secrets descriptions in a security.d directory.
Remove the variables that are not secrets requiring regeneration for rotation or “break-glass” procedures (e.g., like chronos_principal, which is a userID value, and do_mesos_auth, which is a boolean flag).
Break down more complex data structures (specifically, the mesos_credentials list of dictionaries with keys principal and secret). These could instead be discrete variables like marathon_secret (which appears to be the secret associated with the invariant “variable” marathon_principal).
Credits
Tools used in rendering this package:
Development of this program was supported in part under an Open Source Development Grant from the Comcast Innovation Fund.
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