NAME
sekrets.rb
SYNOPSIS
sekrets is a command line tool and library used to securely manage encrypted
files and settings in your rails' applications and git repositories.
INSTALL
gem install sekrets
gem 'sekrets'
DESCRIPTION
TL;DR
# create an encrypted config file
ruby -r yaml -e'puts({:api_key => 1234}.to_yaml)' | sekrets write config/settings.yml.enc --key 42
# display it
sekrets read config/settings.yml.enc --key 42
# edit it
sekrets edit config/settings.yml.enc --key 42
# see that it's encrypted
cat config/settings.yml.enc
# commit it
git add config/settings.yml.enc
# put the decryption key in a file
echo 42 > .sekrets.key
# ignore this file in git
echo .sekrets.key >> .gitignore
# you now no longer need to provide the --key argument to commands
sekrets read config/settings.yml.enc
sekrets edit config/settings.yml.enc
# make sure this file gets deployed on your server
echo " require 'sekrets/capistrano' " >> Capfile
# commit and deploy
git add config/settings.yml.enc
git commit -am'encrypted settings yo'
git pull && git push && cap staging deploy
# access these settings in your application code
settings = Sekrets.settings_for('./config/settings.yml.enc')
RAILS
gem 'sekrets' # Gemfile
bundle install
rake sekrets:generate:key
rake sekrets:generate:editor
rake sekrets:generate:config
DESCRIPTION
sekrets provides commandline tools and a library to manage and access
encrypted files in your code base.
it allows one to check encrypted infomation into a repository and to manage
it alongside the rest of the code base. it elimnates the need to check in
unencrypted information, keys, or other sensitive infomation.
sekrets provides both a general mechanism for managing arbitrary encrypted
files and a specific mechanism for managing encrypted config files.
KEY LOOKUP
for *all* operations, from the command line or otherwise, sekrets uses the
following algorithm to search for a decryption key:
- any key passed directly as a parameter to a library call will be preferred
- otherwise the code looks for a companion key file. for example, given the
file 'config/sekrets.yml.enc' sekrets will look for a key at
config/.sekrets.yml.enc.key
if either of these is found to be non-empty the contents of the file will
be used as the decryption key for that file. you should *never* commit
these key files and also add them to your .gitignore - or similar.
- next a project key file is looked for. the path of this file is
./.sekrets.key
normally and, in a rails' application
RAILS_ROOT/.sekrets.key
- if that is not found sekrets looks for the key in the environment under
the env var
SEKRETS_KEY
the env var used is configurable in the library
- next the global key file is search for, the path of this file is
~/.sekrets.key
- finally, if no key has yet been specified or found, the user is prompted
to input the key. prompt only occurs if the user us attached to a tty.
so, for example, no prompt will hang and application being started in the
background such as a rails' application being managed by passenger.
see Sekrets.key_for for more details
KEY DISTRIBUTION
sekrets does *not* attempt to solve the key distribution problem for you,
with one exception:
if you are using capistrano to do a 'vanilla' ssh based deploy a simple
recipe is provided which will detect a local keyfile and scp it onto the
remote server(s) on deploy.
sekrets assumes that the local keyfile, if it exists, is correct.
in plain english the capistrano recipe does:
scp ./sekrets.key deploy@remote.host.com:/rails_root/current/sekrets.key
it goes without saying that the local keyfile should *never* be checked in
and also should be in .gitignore
distribution of this key among developers is outside the scope of the
library. encrypted email is likely the best mechanism for distribution,
but you've still got to sovle this problem for yourself ;-/