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Kinto signer

Project description

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Kinto signer is a Kinto plugin that signs records with a content signature to guarantee their integrity and authenticity.

How does it work?

Kinto signer uses two collections:

  • The source, where the authors create/update/delete records.

  • The destination, where the clients obtain the records and their signature.

When the source collection metadata status is set to "to-sign", it will:

  1. grab the whole list of records in this source collection

  2. update the destination collection records with the recent changes

  3. serialize the result in a Canonical JSON form (see below)

  4. compute a signature using the configured backend

  5. update the destination collection metadata signature with the information obtain form the signature backend

  6. set the source metadata status to "signed".

A publishing workflow can be enabled (see below).

Content-Signature protocol

Kinto-signer produces signatures for the content of Kinto collections using ECDSA with the P-384 strength.

  • The content is prepended with Content-Signature:\x00 prior to signing.

  • The signature is produced with ECDSA on P-384 using SHA-384.

  • The signature is returned as encoded using URL-safe variant of base-64.

See Content Signature

The content signature is validated in Firefox using the Personal Security Manager.

Notes on canonical JSON

The canonical_json() can be used in projects with:

pip install --no-deps kinto-signer
from kinto_signer.serializer import canonical_json

Specific to Kinto:

  • The payload to be signed has two attributes: last_modified with the current timestamp as a string, data with the array of records.

  • Records are sorted by ascending id

  • Records with deleted: true are omitted

Standard canonical JSON:

  • Object keys are sorted alphabetically

  • No extra spaces in serialized content

  • Double quotes are used

  • Hexadecimal character escape sequences are used

  • The alphabetical hexadecimal digits are lowercase

  • Duplicate or empty properties are omitted

  • NaN and Infinity are serialized as null

About numbers:

  • Scientific notation is used for numbers < 10e-6 and >= 10e21

  • Exponents use a lowercase e and have no leading zeros

  • Only significant numbers are kept (no fractional zeros)

  • Float are serialized with 8 significant numbers at most

>>> canonical_json([{'id': '4', 'a': '"quoted"', 'b': 'Ich ♥ Bücher'},
                    {'id': '1', 'deleted': true},
                    {'id': '26', 'a': ''}])

'[{"a":"","id":"26"},{"a":"\\"quoted\\"","b":"Ich \\u2665 B\\u00fccher","id":"4"}]'

Setup

To install this plugin in a Kinto server, a few configuration variables need to be set.

Here is an example of what a configuration could look like:

kinto.includes = kinto_signer

kinto.signer.resources =
    /buckets/source                         -> /buckets/destination
    /buckets/source/collections/collection1 -> /buckets/destination/collections/collection2
    /buckets/bid/collections/cid            -> /buckets/bid/collections/cid2

Setting name

What does it do?

kinto.signer.resources

The source URIs (bucket or collection) on which signatures should be triggered and the destination where the data and the signatures will end-up.

In the case buckets URIs are specified, every collection in the source bucket will be reviewed/signed, review and destination will keep the same id.

kinto.signer.signer_backend

The python dotted location to the signer to use. By default, a local ECDSA signer will be used. Choices are either kinto.signer.signer.local_ecdsa or kinto.signer.signer.autograph Have a look at the sections below for more information.

Configuration for the (default) ECDSA local signer

Setting name

What does it do?

kinto.signer.ecdsa.private_key

Absolute path to the ECDSA private key to use to apply the signatures

kinto.signer.ecdsa.public_key

Absolute path to the ECDSA private key to use to verify the signature (useful if you just want to use the signer as a verifier)

Configuration for the Autograph signer

Kinto signer can integrate with the Autograph server version 2. To do so, use the following settings:

Setting name

What does it do?

kinto.signer.autograph.server_url

The autograph server URL

kinto.signer.autograph.hawk_id

The hawk identifier used to issue the requests.

kinto.signer.autograph.hawk_secret

The hawk secret used to issue the requests.

Workflows

A workflow can be enabled on the source collection status.

The workflow is basically work-in-progressto-reviewto-signsigned and makes sure that:

  • the collection is reviewed before being signed

  • the user asking for review is the not the one approving the review

  • the user asking for review belongs to a group editors and the one approving the review belongs to reviewers.

Setting name

Default

What does it do?

kinto.signer.to_review_enabled

false

If true, the collection status must be set to to-review by a different user before being set to to-sign.

kinto.signer.group_check_enabled

false

If true, the user setting to to-review must belong to the editors group in the source bucket, and the one setting to to-sign must belong to reviewers.

kinto.signer.editors_group

editors

The group id that is required for changing status to to-review

kinto.signer.reviewers_group

reviewers

The group id that is required for changing status to to-sign

See Kinto groups API for more details about how to define groups.

The above settings can be set or overriden by bucket using the <bucket_id>_ prefix or by collection using the <bucket_id>_<collection_id>_ prefix. For example:

kinto.signer.staging.group_check_enabled = true
kinto.signer.staging.to_review_enabled = true
kinto.signer.staging.certificates.group_check_enabled = false
kinto.signer.staging.certificates.to_review_enabled = false
kinto.signer.staging.certificates.reviewers_group = certificates-reviewers

If the review process is enabled, it is possible to configure a preview collection, that will be updated and signed when the status is set to to-review. This preview collection can be used by clients to test and validate the changes before approving them.

If a resources entry contains a semi-column separated triplet, then a preview collection will be enabled.

kinto.signer.resources =
    /buckets/staging            -> /buckets/preview            -> /buckets/blog
    /buckets/bid/collections/c1 -> /buckets/bid/collections/c2 -> /buckets/bid/collections/c3
workflow.png

The editors and reviewers groups are automatically created when the source collection is created.

Multiple certificates

Using above settings, every collections is signed with the same key. But it is also possible to define multiple signers, per bucket or per collection.

Settings can be prefixed with bucket id:

kinto.signer.signer_backend = kinto_signer.signer.autograph
kinto.signer.autograph.server_url = http://172.11.20.1:8888

kinto.signer.<bucket-id>.autograph.hawk_id = bob
kinto.signer.<bucket-id>.autograph.hawk_secret = a-secret

Or prefixed with bucket and collection:

kinto.signer.<bucket-id>.<collection-id>.signer_backend = kinto_signer.signer.local_ecdsa
kinto.signer.<bucket-id>.<collection-id>.ecdsa.private_key = /path/to/private.pem
kinto.signer.<bucket-id>.<collection-id>.ecdsa.public_key = /path/to/public.pem

Cloudfront CDN invalidation

When a request for review or approval is done, the changes are pushed to the preview or destination collection.

For the setups where those public collections are served behind a Cloudfront CDN, kinto-signer can take care of invalidating some paths.

kinto.signer.distribution_id = E155JIFUEHFGY

By default, it invalidates the whole CDN (/v1/*). But paths can be configured:

kinto.signer.invalidation_paths = /v1/buckets/{bucket_id}/collections/{collection_id}*
                                  /v1/buckets/monitor/collections/changes*
                                  /v1/blocklist/*

Usage

Suppose we defined the following resources in the configuration:

kinto.signer.resources = /buckets/source -> /buckets/destination

First, if necessary, we create the appropriate Kinto objects, for example, with httpie:

$ http PUT http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/source --auth user:pass
$ http PUT http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/source/collections/collection1 --auth user:pass
$ http PUT http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/destination --auth user:pass
$ http PUT http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/destination/collections/collection1 --auth user:pass

Create some records in the source collection.

$ echo '{"data": {"article": "title 1"}}' | http POST http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/source/collections/collection1/records --auth user:pass
$ echo '{"data": {"article": "title 2"}}' | http POST http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/source/collections/collection1/records --auth user:pass

Trigger a signature operation, set the status field on the source collection metadata to "to-sign".

echo '{"data": {"status": "to-sign"}}' | http PATCH http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/source/collections/collection1 --auth user:pass

The destination collection should now contain the new records:

$ http GET http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/destination/collections/collection1/records --auth user:pass
{
    "data": [
        {
            "article": "title 2",
            "id": "a45c74a4-18c9-4bc2-bf0c-29d96badb9e6",
            "last_modified": 1460558489816
        },
        {
            "article": "title 1",
            "id": "f056f42b-3792-49f3-841d-0f637c7c6683",
            "last_modified": 1460558483981
        }
    ]
}

The destination collection metadata now contains the signature:

$ http GET http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/destination/collections/collection1 --auth user:pass
{
    "data": {
        "id": "collection1",
        "last_modified": 1460558496510,
        "signature": {
            "mode": "p384ecdsa",
            "x5u": "https://bucket.example.net/appkey1.pem",
            "signature": "Nv-EJ1D0fanElBGP4ZZmV6zu_b4DuCP3H7xawlLrcR7to3aKzqfZknVXOi94G_w8-wdKlysVWmhuDMqJqPcJV7ZudbhypJpj7kllWdPvMRZkoWXSfYLaoLMc8VQEqZcb"
        }
    },
    "permissions": {
        "read": [
            "system.Everyone"
        ]
    }
}

Tracking fields

During the review process, the source collection metadata will receive the following read-only fields:

  • last_edit_by: last user to perform change on records in the source collection

  • last_edit_date: date of the last records change

  • last_review_request_by: last user to request a review

  • last_review_request_date: date of the last review request

  • last_review_by: last user to approve a review

  • last_review_date: date of the last review approval

  • last_signature_by: last user to trigger a signature

  • last_signature_date: date of the last signature

Refresh signature

In order to refresh the signature, set the source to to-resign, the content signature metadata will be recomputed and updated and the status restore to its previous value (eg. signed or to-review…).

This is useful when the signer certificates are rotated etc.

echo '{"data": {"status": "to-resign"}}' | http PATCH http://0.0.0.0:8888/v1/buckets/source/collections/collection1 --auth user:pass

Events

Pyramid events are sent for each review step of the validation workflow.

Events have the following attributes:

  • request: current Pyramid request object

  • payload: same as kinto.core.events.ResourceChanged

  • impacted_records: same as kinto.core.events.ResourceChanged

  • resource: dict with details about source, preview and destination collection

    (as in capability).

  • original_event: original ResourceChanged event that was caught to

    detect step change in review workflow.

The following events are thrown:

  • kinto_signer.events.ReviewRequested

  • kinto_signer.events.ReviewRejected

  • kinto_signer.events.ReviewApproved

Validating the signature

With kinto.js, it is possible to define incoming hooks that are executed when the data is retrieved from the server.

const kinto = new Kinto({
  remote: "https://mykinto.com/v1",
  bucket: "a-bucket"
});
const collection = kinto.collection("a-collection", {
  hooks: {
    "incoming-changes": [validateCollectionSignature]
  }});
function validateCollectionSignature(payload, collection) {
  // 1 - Fetch signature from collection endpoint
  // 2 - Fetch public key certificate
  // 3 - Merge incoming changes with local records
  // 4 - Serialize as canonical JSON
  // 5 - Verify the signature against the content with the public key
  // 6 - Return `payload` if valid, throw error otherwise.
}

The content of the demo/ folder implements the signature verification with kinto.js and the WebCrypto API. It is published online but relies on a semi-public server instance.

See also the complete integration within Firefox using the Network Security Services.

Generating a keypair

To generate a new keypair, you can use the following command:

$ python -m kinto_signer.generate_keypair private.pem public.pem

Running the tests

In order to contribute and run the full functional test suite locally you need to have the Go language executables (e.g. sudo apt-get install golang) and a testdb PostgreSQL database like for the Kinto server.

The rest of installation and setup process is taken care of automatically.

To run the unit tests:

$ make tests

For the functional tests, run these two services in separate terminals:

$ make run-kinto
$ make run-autograph

And start the test suite:

$ make functional

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