Secrets management and encryption

Automation honors the following principles with regard to passwords and secrets:

Automation never exposes secrets in clear text in its UI or log files.
Automation never transmits secrets in clear text over networks. This includes localhost connections.
Automation does not rely on encryption keys that are built into the software (as these can be extracted by reverse compilation). These are always used in combination with a user-supplied secrets password that is used to salt the encryption.
Secrets passwords are never stored by Automation but instead supplied by the user when required.

Secret types

Automation needs to store various secrets depending on the type of connection.

Passwords are required for Salesforce, secured websites, Email and Database connections.
Security Tokens and Client Secrets are required for certain types of Salesforce connection.

Browser providers

User account passwords are required to connect to third-party browser and mobile device hosting services such as Perfecto Mobile and SauceLabs.

Test environments

Test Environments allow you to specify alternate details for connections in Provar:

The Test Environment is built into the tool.
Additional Test Environments can be defined in the Test Settings view.

When a new connection is created, details are always supplied for the Test Environment. Alternate details can then be supplied for specific Test Environments, if desired.

For example, a SalesUser connection can be defined that:

Connects using UatSalesUser / password1 for the Test Environment
Connects using ProdSalesUser / password2 for the PROD Test Environment.

At runtime, Provar uses any specific connection details for the active Test Environment, failing which the connection details are used.

Storage

Provar stores all secrets in centralized .secrets files. These are stored at the root of the Test Project and can either be encrypted or in plain text.

The main .secrets file contains all secrets for the Test Environment and also the secrets for Test Environments that do not have their own encryption passwords.

Where Test Environments have been encrypted with their own passwords, their secrets are stored in a separate .secrets file.

External secrets management

Some customers would prefer not to store their .secrets files in their Source Control Repositories (e.g. GitHub).

To accommodate this, Provar’s ANT task allows secrets to be supplied via specially named environment variables. This allows the secrets to be managed outside of Provar, for example, by the password plugin for Jenkins.

Encryption

Provar allows secrets to be encrypted for entire Test Projects and also for individual Test Environments. This allows a PROD Test Environment, for example, to have its own secrets password that is only known to selected Provar users.

These approaches can be mixed and matched as follows:

All secrets can be unencrypted. This is the default state for newly created Test Projects.
The main .secrets file can be unencrypted and selected Test Environments encrypted with their own secrets passwords.
The main .secrets file can be encrypted with the main secrets password and selected Test Environments encrypted with their own secrets passwords.

Encryption scheme

The encryption is done via the Jasypt open-source library using the user-supplied secrets password as the encryption salt:

If the Test Project is encrypted then all secrets for the Test Environment are encrypted in the main .secrets file together with the secrets for any unencrypted Test Environments.
If a Test Environment is encrypted then its secrets are encrypted in a separate .secrets file.

Secrets Password Requirements

Secrets passwords need to meet the following requirements.

Must be at least 8 characters long
Must contain an uppercase character
Must contain a lowercase character
Must contain a numeric character
May contain special characters.

Enabling encryption

Newly created (and pre-existing) Test Projects are not encrypted by default:

The Encrypt Secrets context menu item against the Test Project’s entry in the Navigator view allows the Test Project to be encrypted.

After selecting ‘Encrypt Secrets’, a modal will appear asking for your password for encryption.

Once your password is confirmed, you should see a success message.

After successfully Encrypt .secrets file looks like this with encrypted format.

The Encrypt context menu item against Test Environments in the Test Settings view allows individual Test Environments to be encrypted.

After selecting ‘Encrypt Secrets’, a modal will appear asking for your password for encryption.

After entering a password, an entry will be created under test project file with the name of [Test Environment].secrets.

Encryption management

Once encrypted, the following context menus are available against the Test Project’s entry in the Navigator view and Test Environments in the Test Settings view.

Change Secrets Password

Change Secrets Password allows the secrets to be re-encrypted with a new password. Change Secrets Password requires the existing password to be entered.

Unencrypt Secrets

For Test Environments, Unencrypt Secrets moves the secrets into the main .secrets file. For the main .secrets file, it decrypts the secrets and stores the .secrets file as plain text.

Unencrypt Secrets requires the existing password to be entered.

The .Secrets file comes in original format (un-encrypted format) with all the values except if there is any test environment encrypted value present.

Reset Secrets Encryption

For Test Environments, Reset Secrets Encryption moves all the secrets into the main .secrets file and sets them to empty values. For Test Projects, it removes the encryption and sets all secrets to empty values.

The existing password is not required for Reset Secrets Encryption.

Secrets password entry in Automation

When a Test Project is opened in Automation:

The user is prompted for the main secrets password if the Test Project is encrypted. Automation shuts down if no valid password is supplied after three attempts.
If the pre-selected Test Environment (in Automation’s Settings Toolbar) is encrypted, the user is then prompted for the Test Environment’s secrets password. The Test Environment is automatically selected after three unsuccessful attempts.

Switching to encrypted test environments

The user is subsequently prompted for Test Environment passwords if:

They select an encrypted Test Environment in the Settings Toolbar. The Test Environment is automatically selected after three unsuccessful attempts.
They attempt to edit the alternate connection details for an encrypted Test Environment. The edit dialog does not open after three unsuccessful attempts.
When they change the Test Environment on for an alternate connection to an encrypted one.

Invalid password attempts

Automation shuts down if the main secrets password is not supplied within 3 attempts.

Automation automatically switches to the Test Environment if the password for an encrypted Test Environment is not supplied within three attempts.
Automation does not allow alternate connection details to be modified if the password for an encrypted Test Environment is not supplied within three attempts.
Automation prevents the Test Environment for alternate connection details being modified if the password for an encrypted Test Environment is not supplied within three attempts.

Note:

Because Automation has no reliable way of storing invalid password attempt counters, these counters are reset when Test Projects are re-opened.
The number of unsuccessful password attempts is tracked independently for each Test Environment until the Test Project is reopened.
Secrets password entry under ANT