path: root/README

Keyringer
=========

Keyringer lets you manage and share secrets using GPG and git in a distributed
fashion. It has custom commands to encrypt, decrypt, recrypt, create key pairs,
etc.

Requirements
------------

Keyringer needs:

  - Bash - http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/bash/bashtop.html
  - Git - http://git-scm.com
  - GNU Privacy Guard - http://gnupg.org
  - OpenSSL - http://www.openssl.org
  - Grep, awk, tail, cut, sed and other GNU tools

Installation
------------

Just clone

    git clone git://git.sarava.org/keyringer.git

And then leave it somewhere, optionally adding it to your $PATH environment variable.
You can also package it to your preferred distro.

Creating a keyringer repository
-------------------------------

The first step is to setup a keyring.

Keyringer supports management of multiple isolated keyrings.  To start
a new keyring (or register an existing one with your config file),
run:

    keyringer <keyring> init <path> [remote]

This will 

  1. Add an entry at $HOME/.keyringer/config aliasing 'keyring' to 'path'.
  2. Initialize a git repository if needed.

For example,

    keyringer friends init $HOME/keyrings/friends

will create an alias "friends" pointing to $HOME/keyrings/friends. Call all
other keyring actions using this alias.

If there is an existing remote keyring git repository and you just
want to checkout it, use

    keyringer friends init $HOME/keyrings/friends <repository-url>

Managing recipients
-------------------

Your next step is tell keyringer the GPG key ids to encrypt files to:

    keyringer <keyring> recipients edit
    keyringer <keyring> recipients ls

Managing keys
----------------

Each key has a corresponding file in your keys subdirectory.

keyringer is agnostic about how you store your secrets. You may choose to have
one key file that contains one line for each secret, e.g. a single file called
secrets with lines such as:

emma : root : secret1
emma - /dev/hda : : secret2

Or you may also have a different key file for each secret, e.g. a file called
emma.root that contains the root passphrase for the server named emma and
another called emma.hda with the passphrase to decrypt /dev/hda on emma.

Encrypting a key

    keyringer <keyring> encrypt <file>

Decrypting a key (only to stdout)

    keyringer <keyring> decrypt <file>

Re-encrypting a key

    keyringer <keyring> recrypt <file>

Appending information to a key

    keyringer <keyring> append <file>

Editing a key

To edit a key, use

    keyringer <keyring> edit <file>

Use this option with caution as it keeps temporary unencrypted data
into keyringer temp folder and at your editor's temp files.

Listing keys

    keyringer <keyring> ls [arguments]

Git wrapper
-----------

Keyringer comes with a simple git wrapper to ease common management tasks:

    keyringer <keyring> git remote add keyringer <url>
    keyringer <keyring> git push keyringer master
    keyringer <keyring> git pull

Managing puppet node keys
-------------------------

Keyringer is able to manage node keys for puppet nodes. First add the puppet
main and key folders into your keyring configuration:

    keyringer <keyring> preferences add PUPPET=/path/to/puppet/config
    keyringer <keyring> preferences add PUPPET_KEYS=/path/to/puppet/keys

Then you just need to issue the following command every time you have to create
keys for new nodes:

    keyringer <keyring> newkeys puppet

Configuration files, preferences and options
--------------------------------------------

  1. Main config file: $HOME/.keyringer/config: store the location of
     each keyring.

  2. User preferences per keyring: $HOME/.keyringer/<keyring>: managed by
     "keyringer <keyring> preferences".

  3. Custom keyring options: $KEYRING_FOLDER/config/options: managed by
     "keyringer <keyring> options".

Notes
-----

  1. The <file> is any file inside the keys/ folder of your
     keyring directory.

  2. Never decrypt a key and write it to the disk, except
     if you're adding it to your personall keyring.

  3. Recipients are defined at file config/recipients.
     Please add just trustable recipients.

Concepts
--------

Basic idea is:

  - Encrypt stuff with ppl's gpg pubkeys and push the output
    in a git repo.

  - Let ppl keep it in sync with the repo and the keys are
    shared :)

For "key" it's meant anything as the script work with stdin and output things to
files, so it can be passphrases, private keys or other kind of info.

It's possible to share keys using an encrypted mailing list, but the main
difficulty is to track the message where the keys are.

With theses scripts, the workflow is more or less like this:

  - You have a git repo for secret keys.

  - You run the "encrypt" command and paste your private key to this
    command (so no plaintext disk write).

  - The encrypt command writes an encrypted file to the repo.

  - You manually add it to git and push it to remote repositories.

  - Optionally, other ppl pulls the changes but they dont need to
    decrypt anything until they need to use the keys.

So it's just gpg-encrypted data atop of a git repository (one can think of a
kind of distributed encrypted filesystem).

Git was chosen to host encrypted info mostly for two reasos: easy to distribute
and its the only VCS known to make easier repository history manipulation.

One possible drawback: the repo has pubkey information attached, which can be
linked to real ppl (and then disclose the information about who has access to a
given key), but it's possible to:

  - Keep the repo just atop of an encrypted and non-public place.        

  - Or to consider an integration with gpg's --hidden-recipient option.

Notes: Using with GNU Privacy Guard
-----------------------------------

Exporting public keys:

    gpg --armor --export <keyid>

Exporting private keys (take care):

    gpg --armor --export-secret-keys

TODO
----

There are lots of things that can be enhanced, like:

  - Enhanced documentation.

  - Interface with ssss where the scripts automatically splits passphrases
    into ssss tokens and encrypt those to different groups of users.

  - Hidden recipient support (including recipients file).

  - Rewrite using an object-oriented programming language?

  - Tab completion subcommand support for popular shells like bash.

  - Recipient check support, handling non-existing or revoked keys.

  - Encrypted and signed configuration files such as "recipients" and "options".

Development
-----------

Developers needed! :)