Introduction
Jobs might require variables for parameterization that hold secrets. We find a number of requirements for management of such variables, see JS7 - How to encrypt and decrypt
The preferred solution with JS7 is to use asymmetric keys, for details see JS7 - Encryption and Decryption.
- Encryption and decryption can be performed directly by related jobs.
- Encryption and decryption can be performed outside of JS7 products.
- This includes that JS7 products have no knowledge of secret keys involved that potentially could be compromised by logging, database persistence etc.
For creation of Encryption Keys see JS7 - How to create X.509 Encryption Keys.
FEATURE AVAILABILITY STARTING FROM RELEASE 2.5.9
FEATURE AVAILABILITY STARTING FROM RELEASE 2.6.6
Download
The solution includes
- the JS7 encryption libraries available for download
- the JS7 - PowerShell Module that includes PowerShell CLI 2.0 - Cmdlets - Encryption and Decryption
The JS7 encryption libraries ship with JS7 Agents. In addition, the libraries are provided for download to perform encryption and decryption outside of JS7 products.
- Download: JS7 - Download (Section: Utililties, Unix:
js7.encryption.tar.gz
, Windows:js7.encryption.zip
), - As an altenative to use of the PowerShell cmdlets
- a command line interface (CLI) is available for Linux, MacOS®, AIX® using bash, zsh, dash shell, see JS7 - How to encrypt and decrypt using Unix Shell
- a CLI is available for Windows® Shell, see JS7 - How to encrypt and decrypt using Windows Shell.
The following platforms are supported:
- PowerShell cmdlets can be used with Linux, MacOS® and Windows®.
- Encryption and decryption with PowerShell cmdlets and with the CLI for Unix Shell and Windows Shell can be used interchangeably across platforms.
Managing the Private Key and Certificate
Asymetric encryption makes use of a Private Key and Certificate/Public Key that can be created in a number of ways:
- Users can create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and ask their Certificate Authority (CA) to sign the CSR and to receive an X.509 Certificate. The Private Key or X.509 Certificate allow to derive the Public Key.
- User can create a CA-signed X.509 Certificate, see JS7 - How to create X.509 SSL TLS Certificates.
- Users can create a Private Key and Certificate as explained in the next chapter.
Note: Private Keys can be protected using a passphrase that acts as a second factor when a human user will access the key: while the Private Key is in the file system, the passphrase is in the user's brains. However, this does not improve security for unattended processing: it's pointless to store a passphrase side-by-side with the Private Key in scripts or configuration files on the same media.
Step 1: Creating the Private Key and Certificate
The following step is performed on the server hosting the Agent that should decrypt secrets using the openssl
utility from the command line. Find more examples and explanations from JS7 - How to create X.509 Encryption Keys.
Step 2: Making the Certificate available
Copy the certificate file to the server(s) hosting the Agent(s) or 3rd-party components that should encrypt secrets:
Encryption
Usage
PowerShell CLI 2.0 - Cmdlets - Invoke-JS7Encrypt
Return Values
The cmdlet returns a single string value that holds the following elements separated by spaces:
- encrypted asymetric key
- initialization vector
- encrypted secret or path to encrypted output file if the
-File
and-OutFile
arguments are used.
Examples
The following examples illustrate typical use cases.
Encrypting Secret using PowerShell
$result = Invoke-JS7Encrypt -CertificatePath agent.crt -Value "secret" -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib Write-Output "$result" # encrypts the given secret using an Agent's X.509 certificate # output includes the encrypted symmetric key, initialization vector and encrypted secret separated by space
Encrypting and forwarding Secret using PowerShell in Jobs
$result = Invoke-JS7Encrypt -CertificatePath agent.crt -Value "secret" -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib "new_var=$result" | Out-File $env:JS7_RETURN_VALUES -Append # encrypts the given secret using an Agent's X.509 certificate # output includes the encrypted symmetric key, initialization vector and encrypted secret separated by spaces # output is stored to the "new_var" variable (key/value pair) that is made available for later jobs in the workflow # for PowerShell version 5.x users have to add the -Encoding OEM option to the Out-File cmdlet
Encrypting File using PowerShell
"secret file" | Out-File /tmp/secret.txt $result = Invoke-JS7Encrypt -File /tmp/secret.txt -OutFile /tmp/secret.txt.enc -CertificatePath agent.crt -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib Write-Output "$result" # encrypts the given file using an Agent's X.509 certificate and creates an encrypted output file # output includes the encrypted symmetric key, initialization vector and path to encrypted file separated by spaces
Decryption
Usage
PowerShell CLI 2.0 - Cmdlets - Invoke-JS7Decrypt
Return Values
The cmdlet returns a single string value holding the following information:
- decrypted secret or path to decrypted output file if the
-File
and-OutFile
arguments are used.
Examples
The following examples illustrate typical use cases.
Decrypting Secret using PowerShell
# assumes that prevous encryption created a "result" variable # $result = Invoke-JS7Encrypt -CertificatePath agent.crt -Value "secret" -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib $secret = Invoke-JS7Decrypt -Value $result -KeyPath agent.key -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib Write-Output "$secret" # decrypts the given encrypted secret using an Agent's private key # initialization vector, encrypted symmetric key and encrypted secret are returned during encryption # output includes the decrypted secret
Decrypting File using PowerShell
# assumes that prevous encryption created a "result" variable and encrypted output file # $result = Invoke-JS7Encrypt -File /tmp/secret.txt -OutFile /tmp/secret.txt.enc -CertificatePath agent.crt -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib Invoke-JS7Decrypt -Value $result -File /tmp/secret.txt.enc -OutFile /tmp/secret.txt.dec -KeyPath agent.key -JavaLib /js7/js7.encryption/lib Get-Content /tmp/secret.txt.dec -Raw # decrypts the given encrypted file using an Agent's private key # creates the decrypted output file