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Secret Keys#

Secret Keys Expressions#

In SmallRye Config, a secret configuration may be expressed as ${handler::value}, where the handler is the name of a io.smallrye.config.SecretKeysHandler to decode or decrypt the value separated by a double colon ::.

It is possible to create a custom SecretKeysHandler and provide different ways to decode or decrypt configuration values.

A custom SecretKeysHandler requires an implementation of io.smallrye.config.SecretKeysHandler or io.smallrye.config.SecretKeysHandlerFactory. Each implementation requires registration via the ServiceLoader mechanism, either in META-INF/services/io.smallrye.config.SecretKeysHandler or META-INF/services/io.smallrye.config.SecretKeysHandlerFactory files.

Danger

It is not possible to mix Secret Keys Expressions with Property Expressions.

Crypto#

The smallrye-config-crypto artifact contains a few out-of-the-box SecretKeysHandlers ready for use. It requires the following dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.smallrye.config</groupId>
    <artifactId>smallrye-config-crypto</artifactId>
    <version>3.9.1</version>
</dependency>

AES/GCM/NoPadding ${aes-gcm-nopadding::...}#

  • The encoding length is 128.
  • The secret and the encryption key (without padding) must be base 64 encoded.

Example

application.properties
smallrye.config.secret-handler.aes-gcm-nopadding.encryption-key=DDne5obnfH1RSeTg71xSZg

my.secret=${aes-gcm-nopadding::DLTb_9zxThxeT5iAQqswEl5Dn1ju4FdM9hIyVip35t5V}

The ${aes-gcm-nopadding::...} SecretKeyHandler requires smallrye.config.secret-handler.aes-gcm-nopadding.encryption-key configuration to state the encryption key to be used by the aes-gcm-nopaddin handler.

A lookup to my.secret will use the SecretKeysHandler name aes-gcm-nopadding to decode the value DJNrZ6LfpupFv6QbXyXhvzD8eVDnDa_kTliQBpuzTobDZxlg.

Info

It is possible to generate the encrypted secret with the following JBang script:

jbang https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smallrye/smallrye-config/main/documentation/src/main/docs/config/secret-handlers/encryptor.java -s=<secret> -k=<encryptionKey>`
Configuration#
Configuration Property Type Default
smallrye.config.secret-handler.aes-gcm-nopadding.encryption-key
The encryption key to use to decode secrets encoded by the AES/GCM/NoPadding algorithm.		 String
"smallrye.config.secret-handler.aes-gcm-nopadding.encryption-key-decode"
Decode the encryption key in Base64, if the plain text key was used to encrypt the secret.		 boolean false

Jasypt#

Jasypt is a java library which allows the developer to add basic encryption capabilities. Add the following dependency in your project to use it:

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.smallrye.config</groupId>
    <artifactId>smallrye-config-jasypt</artifactId>
    <version>3.9.1</version>
</dependency>

Jasypt ${jasypt::...}#

Example

application.properties
smallrye.config.secret-handler.jasypt.password=jasypt
smallrye.config.secret-handler.jasypt.algorithm=PBEWithHMACSHA512AndAES_256

my.secret=${jasypt::ENC(wqp8zDeiCQ5JaFvwDtoAcr2WMLdlD0rjwvo8Rh0thG5qyTQVGxwJjBIiW26y0dtU)}
The ${jasypt::...} SecretKeyHandler requires both smallrye.config.secret-handler.jasypt.password and smallrye.config.secret-handler.jasypt.algorithm configurations to state the password and the algorithm to be used by the Jasypt encryptor.

Jasypt encrypted values must be set with the handler expression as ${jasypt::ENC(value)}. Note that the encrypted value must be generated using the proper Jasypt encryptor with the same password and algorithm set in the confguration.

A possible encrypted value for 12345678 is ENC(wqp8zDeiCQ5JaFvwDtoAcr2WMLdlD0rjwvo8Rh0thG5qyTQVGxwJjBIiW26y0dtU)

Lookups to the configuration my.secret will automatically decrypt the value with Jasypt and provide the original 12345678 string.

Info

It is possible to generate the encrypted secret with the following JBang script:

jbang https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smallrye/smallrye-config/main/documentation/src/main/docs/config/secret-handlers/jasypt.java -s=<secret> -p=<password>
Configuration#
Configuration Property Type Default
smallrye.config.secret-handler.jasypt.password
The Jasypt password to use		 String
smallrye.config.secret-handler.jasypt.algorithm
The Jasypt algorithm to use		 String

Secret Keys Names#

When configuration properties contain passwords or other kinds of secrets, Smallrye Config can hide them to prevent accidental exposure of such values.

This is no way a replacement for securing secrets. Proper security mechanisms must still be used to secure secrets. However, there is still the fundamental problem that passwords and secrets are generally encoded simply as strings. Secret Keys provides a way to “lock” the configuration so that secrets do not appear unless explicitly enabled.

To mark specific keys as secrets, register an instance of io.smallrye.config.SecretKeysConfigSourceInterceptor by using the interceptor factory as follows:

public class SecretKeysConfigInterceptorFactory implements ConfigSourceInterceptorFactory {
    @Override
    public ConfigSourceInterceptor getInterceptor(ConfigSourceInterceptorContext context) {
        return new SecretKeysConfigSourceInterceptor(Set.of("secret"));
    }
}

Register the factory so that it can be found at runtime by creating a META-INF/services/io.smallrye.config.ConfigSourceInterceptorFactory file that contains the fully qualified name of this factory class.

From this point forward, every lookup to the configuration name secret will throw a SecurityException.

Access the Secret Keys using the APIs io.smallrye.config.SecretKeys#doUnlocked(java.lang.Runnable) and io.smallrye.config.SecretKeys#doUnlocked(java.util.function.Supplier<T>).

String secretValue = SecretKeys.doUnlocked(() -> {
    config.getValue("secret", String.class);
});

Secret Keys are only unlocked in the context of doUnlocked. Once the execution completes, the secrets become locked again.