README.md

Conclave Pass Backend Functions - Password Manager implemented using Conclave Cloud

This project implements a module in typescript that is transpiled to JavaScript and uploaded as a set of Conclave Functions serverless functions which provide the privacy-preserving backend for the ConclavePass demonstration password manager.

The project gives a demonstration of a non-trivial implementation that depends on a number of standard packages, installed using npm.

The configuration of the project in package.json, tsconfig.json and webpack.config.js along with the test/template directory can serve as a template for your own projects targetting Conclave Cloud Functions.

Layout

The project consists of a number of directories:

Directory	Description
build	The directory containing the final JavaScript file that should be uploaded to Conclave Cloud.
node_modules	Dependent node modules. Generated during installation.
src	The typescript source code for the module.
test	Code to test the module.
test/template	Conclave Functions require some global objects and functions that are not normally provided in a CommonJS or ES6 module. This template is used to polyfill these into the test environment.
test_run	Test build output folder.

Preparing the source code

The source code in src/index.ts contains the code for all of the functions that we want to upload. This has been written to include a class encompassing all functionality then the functions themselves provided by creating an instance of the class end exporting functions that invoke the instance (at the bottom of the file).

The implementation uses an untrusted backend service to store and retrieve an encrypted database for each user. This can be provided using the demonstration backend project which must be built and hosted on an IP address available on the public Internet. Once the service is hosted, src/index.ts needs to be modified so the serviceURL points to the hosted service:

const serviceURL = "http://20.124.9.121:8080";

Building

The package should be cloned into a new directory, then the dependencies installed with:

npm install

The package can then be built using:

npm run build

The tests can be run with:

npm run test

Uploading the functions

Once the package has been built it needs to be uploaded to a Conclave Cloud project. This is achieved using the Conclave Cloud CLI.

Firstly log in to the Conclave Cloud project:

ccl login

Create a project if you do not already have one and set it as default for the CLI:

ccl projects create --name ConclavePass
ccl save --project [the ID of the project that was just created]

The package.json file includes a script that uploads all of the function code. This can be executed with:

npm run upload

Alternatively you can upload each function individually.

ccl functions upload --code ./build/main.bundle.js --entry=addEntry --name addEntry
ccl functions upload --code ./build/main.bundle.js --entry=query --name query
ccl functions upload --code ./build/main.bundle.js --entry=get --name get
ccl functions upload --code ./build/main.bundle.js --entry=remove --name remove

Implementation Notes

All Conclave Cloud Functions modules must export the function entry points in a global object named `cclexports```. For example:

cclexports = {
    myFunction: () => {
        return "Hello";
    }
}

This package hides that from the source code implementation by providing some configuration in webpack.config.js.

    output: {
        path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'build'),
        filename: 'main.bundle.js',
        library: 'cclexports'
    },

By providing the line library: 'cclexports', webpack automatically populates all exported items into the global cclexports object.

Remember this is a demonstration!!!

This is just a demonstration. As such, errors may not be handled correctly and providing invalid parameters may render a database unusable, requiring it to be cleared and reset. Please feel free to expand the demonstration project and contribute back to this repository to improve the capabilities/error handling.