spps-jbc

Simple Password Protection Solution for Java with Bouncy Castle

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The SPPS is a lightweight solution to protect / hide your password or anything else from your code.

Features

• AES 256 GCM en-/decryption
• Cross programming languages support
  • Java with Bouncy Castle
  • Java with Apache Shiro
  • Python
  • Node.js
• Apache Tomee - DataSource password cipher support

Concept

This solution helps you to accidentally publish secrets unintentionally by splitting the secret into an encrypted part and a private key. The private key is kept separately from the rest, in a secure location for the authorized user only.

The private key is randomized for each user on each system and is therefore unique. This means that if someone has the encrypted secret, they can only read it if they also have the private key. You can check this by trying to decrypt the encrypted secret with another user or another system. You will not succeed.

A symmetrical encryption based on the AES-GCM 256 method is used. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois/Counter_Mode

By default, the private key is stored in a file "/.spps/settings" of the user home folder.

Keep in mind that anyone who has access to the user home or relocation folder also has access to the private key !!!!

Using in your Maven project

Add following dependency to your project

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">

    ...

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>de.elomagic</groupId>
            <artifactId>spps-jbc</artifactId>
            <version>1.3.0</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    
    ...
    
</project>

Example

import de.elomagic.spps.bc.SimpleCrypt;

class Sample {

    void testEncryptDecryptWithString() throws Exception {
        String value = "My Secret";

        String encrypted = SimpleCrypt.encrypt(value);

        System.out.println("My encrypted secret is " + encryptedSecret);

        String decrypted = SimpleCrypt.decryptToString(encrypted);

        System.out.println("...and my secret is " + decrypted);
    }
    
}

How to create a private key file

Create a private in your home folder:

Enter following command in your terminal:

java -jar spps-jbc-1.0.0.jar -CreatePrivateKey

The settings file '~/.spps/settings' in your home folder will look like:

key=5C/Yi6+hbgRwIBhXT9PQGi83EVw2Oe6uttRSl4/kLzc=
relocation=

Alternative, create a private key file on a removable device:

Enter following command in your terminal:

java -jar spps-jbc-1.0.0.jar -CreatePrivateKey -Relocation /Volumes/usb-stick

The settings file '~/.spps/settings' in your home folder will look like:

key=
relocation=/Volumes/usb-stick

...and in the relocation folder look like:

key=5C/Yi6+hbgRwIBhXT9PQGi83EVw2Oe6uttRSl4/kLzc=
relocation=

How to create an encrypted password

Enter following command in your terminal:

java -jar spps-jbc-1.0.0.jar -Secret YourSecret 

Output should look like:

{MLaFzwpNyKJbJSCg4xY5g70WDAKnOhVe3oaaDAGWtH4KXR4=}

How can my application use an alternative settings file instead of the default

Supported since version 1.1.0

The method SimpleCrypt.setSettingsFile([file]) can be used to set application wide an alternative settings file instead of "/.spps/settings" in the users home folder.

import de.elomagic.spps.bc.SimpleCrypt;

import java.nio.file.Paths;

class Sample {

    void testEncryptDecryptWithString() throws Exception {
        
        SimpleCrypt.setSettingsFile(Paths.get("./configuration/privateKey"));

        String decrypted = SimpleCrypt.decryptToString(SimpleCrypt.encrypt("secret"));
        System.out.println("...and my secret is " + decrypted);
        
    }

}

Apache Tomee integration

Supported since version 1.3.0

Note if your Tomee run with a different account then yours. In this case you have to encrypt your secret in context of the account which will run the service in the future. One solution idea is to provide a webservice which will do this job.

Set spps as password cipher and the encrypted secret in property password WITHOUT the surrounding brackets in the [tomme_inst_folder]\conf\tomee.xml file.

For some unknown reason, Tomee removes the closing bracket from the encrypted SPPS secret when try to decrypt, so we have to remove the brackets in the tomee.xml file.

Example resource in the tomee.xml

<Resource id="MySQL Database" type="DataSource">
    #  MySQL example
    #
    #  This connector will not work until you download the driver at:
    #  https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

    JdbcDriver  com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
    JdbcUrl jdbc:mysql://localhost/test
    UserName    test

    # Use "spps" as password cipher and remove the brackets from the encrypted password.
    Password    1K2UqEGtaz1xktKScCvRLHmPjNe1tE51Clt+2prUn/nonA7yvF0bhw==
    PasswordCipher spps
</Resource>

For more information see https://tomee.apache.org/latest/docs/datasource-password-encryption.html or

Requirements

Put all JAR file in latest version into the lib folder of your Tomee

• spps-jbc-1.x.x.jar - https://github.com/elomagic/spps-jbc
• bcprov-jdk15on-170.jar - https://www.bouncycastle.org/latest_releases.html
• log4j-core-2.x.x.jar - https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/download.html
• log4j-api-2.x.x.jar - https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/download.html
• disruptor-3.x.x.jar - https://github.com/LMAX-Exchange/disruptor/releases

Contribution

Releasing new version / hotfix (Only for users who have repository permissions)

Steps for release a new version / hotfix

mvn clean install release:prepare -P release
mvn release:perform -P release