Quick gem to help with passwords

rubyonrails-talk
1

I’ve created a small gem called multa_arcana (latin for “Many Secrets”) which allows one to store all Rails secrets in one file, which should not be checked into revision control, but other files then can be. Source is on https://github.com/skandragon/multa_arcana

Usage:

add to Gemfile: gem ‘multa_arcana’

Create a file to hold the secrets: config/secrets.yml

While the filename can be changed, it is somewhat hard to do so without modifying a file that is loaded fairly early, like application.rb. I just use the default. Currently to change this, one must pass in a file to load on the first call to retrieve a secret. API suggestions welcome.

Place in this file the various secrets your rails app needs to keep secret:

db_username: john

db_password: my-super-secret-db-password

secret_token: lkasjdlkqjlkas…la9u9203udkd

redis: redis://user:password-for-redis@host

devise_pepper: 239ru2ij3jf9u02dhis…92930d02hdhdlka3

Use it wherever you need to:

config/database.yml:

production:

adapter: postgresql

encoding: unicode

database: thing_production

pool: 5

host: 127.0.0.1

username: <% MultaArcana::secret_for(:db_username) %>

password: <% MultaArcana::secret_for(:db_password) %>

config/initializers/secret_token.rb:

Thing::Application.config.secret_token = MultaArcana::secret_for(:secret_token)

2

Michael Graff wrote in post #1098246:

I've created a small gem called multa_arcana (latin for "Many Secrets") which allows one to store all Rails secrets in one file, which should not be checked into revision control, but other files then can be. Source is on GitHub - skandragon/multa_arcana

Interesting, but what advantage does this have over...

3

Probably none, but “settingslogic” didn’t appear in my search when I looked for ways to store secrets in a single file. :slight_smile:

4

Michael Graff wrote in post #1098252:

Probably none, but "settingslogic" didn't appear in my search when I looked for ways to store secrets in a single file. :slight_smile:

Sure there is advantage to writing your own gem. You wrote it, and shared it with the community. That's AWESOME! I considered doing something similar, until I ran across SettingsLogic.

Posted by unknown (Guest) on 2013-02-22 09:05 Why not just use environment variables?

Yes, environment variables are certainly an option, but I really like the consistent API, and baked-in support for different environments that SettingLogic provides.

5

Because environment variables show up in process lists.

6

If it’s an issue of security…if somebody is already looking at your processes, what’s keeping them from cd’ing to your application’s config directory and reading secrets.yml?