mesh-controller/internal/secrets/seal.go

package secrets

import (
	"crypto/rand"
	"encoding/base64"
	"fmt"
	"strings"

	"golang.org/x/crypto/nacl/box"
)

// Secrets the mesh delivers and cannot read.
//
// **What this is not.** The obvious arrangement is a credentials column, encrypted at rest. It
// has been built, in another mesh, and that mesh's own tooling records what it bought: a query
// against the encrypted column returns zero rows and proves nothing, so auditing moved to the
// decrypted copies on the nodes; and the tool for finding a secret has to search **by value**
// rather than by name, because the same password sits in the provisions table, in the environment
// table, in each node's environment file in plain text, and inside every connection string
// composed from it — copies its own documentation calls "often the only copies actually in use".
//
// Two faults there, and encryption at rest addresses neither. **The control plane can read what
// it stores**, so a copy of its database is a copy of every credential in the mesh. And **one
// secret has many homes with nothing tracking them.**
//
// So here the value is sealed to the node that will use it before it is stored, with a key that
// node generated and whose private half the mesh has never seen. What gets written is unusable by
// whoever holds it, the mesh included. And nothing is composed centrally — a connection string is
// assembled on the machine that needs one, so the mesh never mints a second copy in a shape
// nothing tracks.

// Sealed is one value, closed to both ends of a provision.
//
// Two blobs of the same secret rather than one shared key: a key both ends hold is a key the mesh
// would have to distribute, which is this problem again one level down.
type Sealed struct {
	ForConsumer string
	ForProvider string
	// Which key each was sealed to, kept so a node that regenerated its key can be told what it
	// can no longer open rather than discovering it as a service that will not start.
	ConsumerKey string
	ProviderKey string
}

// Make generates a secret and seals it to both ends, keeping no readable copy.
//
// The plaintext exists for the length of this call. Rotation is therefore generating a new one
// rather than reading the old one back — the only version of rotation that is honest about what
// the mesh knows.
func Make(consumerKey, providerKey string) (Sealed, error) {
	if consumerKey == "" || providerKey == "" {
		// Sealing to an empty key would produce a blob nobody can open, stored as though it were
		// a working credential. The caller knows which node is which and says so.
		return Sealed{}, fmt.Errorf("both ends need a sealing key before a secret can be made")
	}

	value := make([]byte, 32)
	if _, err := rand.Read(value); err != nil {
		return Sealed{}, err
	}
	// Base64 without padding, because it lands in a configuration file something else parses and
	// a password containing a newline or a quote is a support call.
	password := base64.RawURLEncoding.EncodeToString(value)

	forConsumer, err := Seal(consumerKey, []byte(password))
	if err != nil {
		return Sealed{}, err
	}
	forProvider, err := Seal(providerKey, []byte(password))
	if err != nil {
		return Sealed{}, err
	}
	return Sealed{
		ForConsumer: forConsumer, ForProvider: forProvider,
		ConsumerKey: consumerKey, ProviderKey: providerKey,
	}, nil
}

// Accept seals a value somebody supplied, rather than one the mesh made.
//
// **The mesh generates most of what it hands out and discards the plaintext.** An API key for a
// hosted service does not work that way: it comes from a person, and the mesh's job is to carry it
// to the machines that need it without being able to read it afterwards
// (novox/hq ADR 0024).
//
// So the value is sealed on the way in and **the plaintext is not kept**. That is the whole of the
// difference from the arrangement this replaces, where an operator-supplied key sits in a column
// the control plane can read — which makes a copy of the database a copy of every account the mesh
// touches.
//
// The consequence is deliberate and worth stating: **the mesh cannot show it back.** Somebody who
// loses the key gets a new one from wherever it came from; there is no "reveal" and there cannot
// be one, because a mesh that can reveal a secret is a mesh that holds it.
func Accept(value string, consumerKey, providerKey string) (Sealed, error) {
	if strings.TrimSpace(value) == "" {
		return Sealed{}, fmt.Errorf("there is nothing to seal")
	}
	if consumerKey == "" || providerKey == "" {
		return Sealed{}, fmt.Errorf("both ends need a sealing key before a secret can be kept")
	}
	forConsumer, err := Seal(consumerKey, []byte(value))
	if err != nil {
		return Sealed{}, err
	}
	forProvider, err := Seal(providerKey, []byte(value))
	if err != nil {
		return Sealed{}, err
	}
	return Sealed{
		ForConsumer: forConsumer, ForProvider: forProvider,
		ConsumerKey: consumerKey, ProviderKey: providerKey,
	}, nil
}

// Seal closes a value to a node's public sealing key.
func Seal(publicKey string, value []byte) (string, error) {
	public, err := base64.StdEncoding.DecodeString(publicKey)
	if err != nil || len(public) != 32 {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("%q is not a sealing key", publicKey)
	}
	var pub [32]byte
	copy(pub[:], public)
	sealed, err := box.SealAnonymous(nil, value, &pub, rand.Reader)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	return base64.StdEncoding.EncodeToString(sealed), nil
}