Sanctum

The github repository is just a mirror of https://gitlab.com/CorbanR/sanctum please submit all issues and merge requests to gitlab.

Simple and secure filesystem-to-vault KV synchronization. Inspired by constancy. Local files are encrypted using vaults transit backend. This makes maintaining multiple vault secrets for multiple applications simple and secure.

NOTE: If you just starting to use sanctum, and or vault, you should be using API v2 For more info see, Vault kv v2, or Vault kv v1

Lets say you have a vault instance with a generic, or kv v1 enabled backend. if you were to run, vault read secrets/cool-app/dev/env you would see something similar to

Key                 Value
---                 -----
refresh_interval    768h
db_password         heydudeihaveacoolapp
token               myrandomtoken

using the sanctum gem, you could run sanctum pull. Depending on the path you specified in the sanctum.yaml config file; Your local file system would look similar to

<path-specified>/cool-app/dev/env

env would contain a transit encrypted base64 encoded blob, which you could then edit with sanctum edit <path-specified>/cool-app/dev/env. You could then push any changes with sanctum push.

NOTE: V2 Vault API adds /data and /metadata to the mounts endpoints see Vault kv v2

Lets say you have a vault instance with kv v2 enabled backend. if you were to run, vault kv secrets/cool-app/dev/env you may see something similar to

====== Metadata ======
Key              Value
---              -----
created_time     2019-02-17T00:58:51.194452314Z
deletion_time    n/a
destroyed        false
version          1

======= Data =======
Key            Value
---            -----
db_password    heydudeihaveacoolapp
token          myrandomtoken

using the sanctum gem, you could run sanctum pull. Depending on the path you specified in the sanctum.yaml config file; Your local file system would look similar to

<path-specified>/cool-app/dev/env

env would contain a transit encrypted base64 encoded blob, which you could then edit with sanctum edit <path-specified>/cool-app/dev/env. You could then push any changes with sanctum push.

From source:

$ bundle install && bundle exec rake:install

Or install rubygems:

$ gem install sanctum

sanctum check  - Checks differences between local files and vault.
sanctum push   - Push local file changes (if any) to vault.
sanctum pull   - Pull vault secrets to local files (encrypted).
sanctum config - Generate an example config file.
sanctum create - Create an encrypted local file.
sanctum edit   - Edit an encrypted local file.
sanctum import - Import an existing plaintext YAML file.
sanctum view   - View an encrypted local file.
sanctum update - Update secrets backend to v2 API.

sanctum.yaml is required, run sanctum config to generate an example file

Sanctum will use the first sanctum.yaml file it comes across when searching backwards through the directory tree from the current working directory. So, typically you may wish to place the config file in the root of your git repository or the base directory of your config file tree.

You can also specify a config file using the -c,--config command line argument.

The example sanctum.yaml has all options documented, run sanctum config to generate an example file.

The following environment variables are read.

VAULT_ADDR=
VAULT_TOKEN=

Variables order of precedence The higher the number the higher the precedence.(1 is the lowest precedence, 4 is the highest, Command line arguments will always win).

1. Default variables (Documented in sanctum.yaml)
2. Config file
3. Environment variables
4. Command line arguments.

The configuration file is a Hash represented in YAML format with three possible top-level keys: sanctum, vault, and sync.

• The sanctum section sets global defaults.
  • You can choose to set a transit_key default under this section, which can be overridden per target
  • You can choose to set a secrets_version default under this section, which can be overridden per target
• The vault section specifies the url, token, to the Vault REST API endpoint.
  • url, token are required and can be set here or through environment variables.
• The sync section sets the local paths and Vault prefixes you wish to synchronize.
  • At lease one application/target definition is required.
  • If you have not specified a global transit_key in the sanctum section you must add the key for each target

You can get more info by running sanctum config and viewing the generated file.

• Add vault v2 API support
• Add upgrade option for v2 API
• Better/more Tests
• Support for multiple transit_keys
• Support for global secrets_version
• Built in Backup features
• Performance optimizations
• Reorganize/cleanup code(add adapters, etc)
• Add delete command which will delete locally/remote secret

One possible use case for sanctum is for backing up vault secrets. This feature is NOT built in yet. The following instructions are for testing purposes only and are not recommended as an actual backup solution. See the Transit Secrets Engine(API) for command reference.

1. Create a new key with, or enable allow_plaintext_backup and exportable on the transit key you are using for sanctum. Once enabled you cannot disable

• Example: curl -v --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" --request POST --data '{"allow_plaintext_backup": true, "exportable": true}' $VAULT_ADDR/v1/transit/keys/<my_transit_key>/config

2. sanctum pull
3. Get your transit key

• Example: curl -v --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" --request GET $VAULT_ADDR/v1/transit/backup/<my_transit_key>

4. Securely store/ backup your key.

If you ever need to restore the key, you can restore using the restore endpoint

1. curl -v --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" --data @transit_key.json --request POST $VAULT_ADDR/v1/transit/restore/<my_transit_key>

transit_key.json would look something like

{"backup":"<your_long_key>"}

One thing that is nice, is that you can use this method to restore to a locally running vault instance. This would allow you to be able to quickly decrypt local secrets in a disaster recovery event.

1. run vault server -dev
2. export the new VAULT_TOKEN and $VAULT_ADDR variables.
3. Restore the key to your locally running vault instance.

Install docker and docker-compose After checking out the repo, run docker-compose build. To run tests run docker-compose run --rm sanctum bundle exec rspec.

To release a new version, cp docker-compose.override.yml_sample docker-compose.override.yml and add gem credentials. Update the version number in version.rb. then run docker-compose run --rm sanctum bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/CorbanR/sanctum. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.