Confidant

This is a client for Confidant, an open source secret management service.

$ gem install confidant

This client is compatible with the config file format of the official Python client; it should be a drop-in replacement.

The client will automatically look in ~/.confidant and /etc/confidant/config for its configuration. Alternate config files can be specified via the --config-files (Ruby :config_files) option. Config files can be YAML or JSON format.

The configuration file supports profiles, which let you specify multiple environments in the same file. The default profile is default, an alternate profile can be specified with the --profile (Ruby: :profile) option.

The client does not merge config from multiple files; it expects to find a configuration block for the specified profile in the first file it finds.

The following configuration is supported, with the listed defaults. Some defaults differ from the official Python client, namely user_type and region. Additionally, this client supports per-command configuration: options provided within config keys named for a CLI command (or Confidant::Client method) will be used as to configure that command.

default:

  # URL of the confidant server.
  url: nil

  # The KMS auth key to use. i.e. alias/authnz-production
  auth_key: nil

  # Note: unlike the official Python client, this client configures
  # encryption-context-related options in the top-level config.

  # The IAM role or user to authenticate with. i.e. myservice-production or myuser
  from: nil

  # The IAM role name of confidant. i.e. confidant-production
  to: nil

  # The confidant user-type to authenticate as. i.e. user or service
  user_type: service

  # Provided for compatibility with the official Python client.
  # Any configured options in auth_context will be flattened into
  # the top-level config, and will override provided top-level values.
  auth_context:
    from: nil
    to: nil
    user_type: service

  # The token lifetime, in minutes.
  token_lifetime: 10

  # The version of the KMS auth token.
  token_version: 2

  # Use the specified AWS region for authentication.
  region: us-east-1

  # Example of per-command configuration for the get_service command
  # get_service:
  #   service: my-service

  # Not yet implemented in this client, will be ignored if provided:
  # retries: 0
  # backoff: 1
  # token_cache_file: '/run/confidant/confidant_token'
  # assume_role: nil

When using the CLI, CLI-provided option flags are merged with config file options, with CLI options taking precedence.

When using the client as a Ruby library, options passed as parameters to Confidant.configure are merged with config file options, with parameter options taking precedence.

NAME
    confidant - Client for Confidant, an open source secret management system

SYNOPSIS
    confidant [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

VERSION
    0.1.0

GLOBAL OPTIONS
    --config-files=arg       - Comma separated list of configuration files to use (default: ~/.confidant,/etc/confidant/config)
    --from=arg               - The IAM role or user to authenticate with. i.e. myservice-production or myuser (default: none)
    --help                   - Show this message
    -k, --auth-key=arg       - The KMS auth key to use. i.e. alias/authnz-production (default: none)
    -l, --token-lifetime=arg - The token lifetime, in minutes. (default: none)
    --log-level=arg          - Logging verbosity. (default: info)
    --profile=arg            - Configuration profile to use. (default: default)
    --region=arg             - Use the specified region for authentication. (default: none)
    --to=arg                 - The IAM role name of confidant. i.e. confidant-production (default: none)
    --token-version=arg      - The version of the KMS auth token. (default: none)
    -u, --url=arg            - URL of the confidant server. (default: none)
    --user-type=arg          - The confidant user-type to authenticate as. i.e. user or service (default: none)
    --version                - Display the program version

COMMANDS
    get_service - Get credentials for a service
    help        - Shows a list of commands or help for one command
    show_config - Show the current config

The CLI returns JSON to STDOUT, for drop-in compatibility with the official Python client.

Logs are written to STDERR by default. To write logs to a file, redirect STDERR output:

confidant 2>/some/log/file

Require the client.

require 'confidant'

Configure the library via Confidant.configure.

An insufficiently-specified config, or any errors during configuration, will raise Confidant::ConfigurationError

# Configure Confidant using options from the first default config file only:
Confidant.configure

# Or provide options as parameters, which will be merged onto
# the options from the config file, with parameter options
# taking precedence:
Confidant.configure(
    auth_key: 'alias/authnz-production',
    from: 'myservice-production',
    to: 'confidant-production',
    get_service: {
        service: 'myservice-production'
    }
)

# Or use a config file from a non-default location:
Confidant.configure(config_files: ['/some/config/file'])

Get credentials for a service from the Confidant server via Confidant.get_service

JSON responses from the server are returned as Ruby Hashes.

# If a service name was provided in config,
# i.e. `get_service: { service: 'my-service' }`,
# `get_service` will get that service's credentials:
Confidant.get_service
=> {"account"=>nil,
 "blind_credentials"=>[],
 "credentials"=>
  [{"credential_pairs"=>{"my_fancy_secret"=>"I love cats!", "something_is"=>"A super secret!"},
<SNIP>

# Or, provide a service name via parameter:
Confidant.get_service('my-service')

Use multiple client instances with different configurations simultaneously by instantiating Confidant::Configurator and Confidant::Client directly:

# Configurator using options from default config files only:
default_config = Confidant::Configurator.new
default_client = Confidant::Client.new(default_config)
default_client.get_service('my-service')

# Configurator with some options provided as parameters
production_config = Confidant::Configurator.new(profile: 'production')
production_client = Confidant::Client.new(production_config)
production_client.get_service('my-service-production')

This client is pre-alpha, and does not have feature parity with the official Python client!

• The get_service CLI command (Client.get_service) can fetch service credentials from a Confidant server using a v2 KMS authentication token.
• All currently-available CLI options are correctly configurable.

• Any other CLI command, notably everything to do with server-blinded credentials
• API retries/backoff
• The confidant-format formatter
• KMS v1 auth tokens
• Token caching
• Assuming an IAM role
• MFA tokens

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/mgreensmith/confidant-client-ruby.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.