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Hey Sam,Keyring is already in the distros? So I can go ahead and add it as a hard dependency to the build when I get this in?
About your question,,, The basic idea is that you can define config keys a 'secure', and *if* you provide a 'secure_source', then cfg.py will use *your* code to get the value for that key. (See the blueprint mentioned in my original message for details.) That means that your nova.conf can have something like this:
sql_connection = mysql://nova:$nova_db_password@dbhost:3306/novaYou would then have a plugin that defines nova_db_password as 'secure' and your 'secure_source' code can do whatever you wish to return the password. It could pull it from some other clear text source (which would be kind of silly; we're trying to get away form that sort of thing) or it could extract and decrypt it from someplace else. Yes, using keyring's CryptedFileKeyring as your secure_source wouldn't be a good idea since it does need human interaction to get a password. The good news is that there are other ways to get and decrypt passwords...
For example, we've got a proprietary secure password package that we use throughout our company and we're planning on having a thin layer that implements KeyringBackend and talks to that code. It makes our security folks happy because it moves the clear text passwords out of nova.conf, etc., but will still allow nova to access to passwords to set up things like db connections. I'm afraid I can't go into any details about how it does this without human intervention, because (1) I personally don't know the details, and (2) if I did, our security team would have to shoot me. ;-)
The whole point of this is to provide the flexibility to choose to move your passwords elsewhere if you wish. If you do nothing, then it behaves exactly as to does today.
Hope that helps! Ken On 12/12/2012 9:26 PM, Sam Morrison wrote:
Hi Ken, Yeah OK I agree it doesn't make it that much more complex as long as the dependancy is packaged in the distos which it is. I'm still a little confused though. If nova needs a clear text password to be able to talk to the DB for example then it's going to be needing to access this keyring somehow without human interaction to obtain the password. How does it do this? Sorry if I'm missing something obvious here. Cheers, SamOn 13/12/2012, at 10:16 AM, Ken Thomas <krt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:The short answer is that it gives you extra security... if you wish to use it. If you're fine with relying on the file permission of nova.conf, glance.conf, etc. to keep any baddies from seeing the clear text passwords in there, then you're right, it doesn't give you anything. If, on the other hand, you have a large security group that nearly faints when they see clear text passwords, no matter what the file permission are, this allows you to move your password into an encrypted store of your choosing. Just specify a secure_source that implements KeyringBackend and you can be as secure as you wish. The main point is that you don't have to use it and the default behavior (don't specify a 'secure_source') will be that things behave exactly as before. The only real extra complexity is that we'd add an additional package (keyring) to the dependency list. As I mentioned originally, there's already some optional keyring usage in keystone client. It seems like we could have *less* complexity if it were a hard dependency instead of having the code check if the import worked or not. Ken On 12/12/2012 2:46 PM, Sam Morrison wrote:My question is what does this extra dependancy give us apart from extra complexity? I can't see any enhancement in security with this method? Cheers, Sam On 13/12/2012, at 4:44 AM, Ken Thomas <krt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Greetings all! I'm look into using keyring as a way to (optionally) remove clear text passwords from the various config files. (See https://blueprints.launchpad.net/oslo/+spec/pw-keyrings for details.) One of the comments I got back is that I should have the oslo build dependency on keyring be optional until a consensus is reached that it's okay to add it. I see that keystoneclient is already doing an "import keyring" and catching the exception if it's not there. I can certainly do something similar, but it seems like it would simplify things if we did just have keyring as a regular hard dependency. You don't have to use it, but it's there if you want it. So, is this the proper forum to bring this up? And if so, can we start the ball rolling to get a decision on getting that dependency approved? Thanks, Ken _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openstack Post to : openstack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openstack More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
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