723328de9e
Updated README file with links to our official docs, as well as links to the different sites and mailing lists available to users and contributors. Change-Id: Ie5d9c68c41a536da77d464bf2173914040b8004d
93 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
93 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
# Barbican
|
|
|
|
Barbican is a REST API designed for the secure storage, provisioning and
|
|
management of secrets. It is aimed at being useful for all environments,
|
|
including large ephemeral Clouds.
|
|
|
|
Barbican is an OpenStack project developed by the [Barbican Project Team
|
|
](https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Barbican) with support from
|
|
[Rackspace Hosting](http://www.rackspace.com/), EMC, Ericsson,
|
|
Johns Hopkins University, HP, Red Hat, Cisco Systems, and many more.
|
|
|
|
The full documentation can be found on the [Barbican Developer Documentation
|
|
Site](http://docs.openstack.org/developer/barbican/).
|
|
|
|
If you have a technical question, you can ask it at [Ask OpenStack](
|
|
https://ask.openstack.org/en/questions/) with the `barbican` tag, or you can
|
|
send an email to the [OpenStack General mailing list](
|
|
http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack/) at
|
|
`openstack@lists.openstack.org` with the prefix `[barbican]` in the
|
|
subject.
|
|
|
|
To file a bug, use our bug tracker on [Launchpad](
|
|
https://bugs.launchpad.net/barbican/).
|
|
|
|
For development questions or discussion, hop on the [OpenStack-dev mailing list
|
|
](http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/)
|
|
at `openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org` and let us know what you think, just add
|
|
`[barbican]` to the subject. You can also join our IRC channel
|
|
`#openstack-barbican` on Freenode.
|
|
|
|
Barbican began as part of a set of applications that make up the CloudKeep
|
|
ecosystem. The other systems are:
|
|
|
|
* [Postern](https://github.com/cloudkeep/postern) - Go based agent that
|
|
provides access to secrets from the Barbican API.
|
|
* [Palisade](https://github.com/cloudkeep/palisade) - AngularJS based web ui
|
|
for the Barbican API.
|
|
* [Python-barbicanclient](https://github.com/openstack/python-barbicanclient) -
|
|
A convenient Python-based library to interact with the Barbican API.
|
|
|
|
## Getting Started
|
|
|
|
Please visit our [Getting Started wiki page
|
|
](https://github.com/cloudkeep/barbican/wiki/Barbican-Getting-Started-Guide)
|
|
for details.
|
|
|
|
## Why Should You Use Barbican?
|
|
|
|
The current state of key management is atrocious. While Windows does have some
|
|
decent options through the use of the Data Protection API (DPAPI) and Active
|
|
Directory, Linux lacks a cohesive story around how to manage keys for
|
|
application use.
|
|
|
|
Barbican was designed to solve this problem. The system was motivated by
|
|
internal Rackspace needs, requirements from
|
|
[OpenStack](http://www.openstack.org/) and a realization that the current state
|
|
of the art could use some help.
|
|
|
|
Barbican will handle many types of secrets, including:
|
|
|
|
* **Symmetric Keys** - Used to perform reversible encryption of data at rest,
|
|
typically using the AES algorithm set. This type of key is required to enable
|
|
features like [encrypted Swift containers and Cinder
|
|
volumes](http://www.openstack.org/software/openstack-storage/), [encrypted
|
|
Cloud Backups](http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/backup/), etc.
|
|
* **Asymmetric Keys** - Asymmetric key pairs (sometimes referred to as [public
|
|
/ private keys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography)) are
|
|
used in many scenarios where communication between untrusted parties is
|
|
desired. The most common case is with SSL/TLS certificates, but also is used
|
|
in solutions like SSH keys, S/MIME (mail) encryption and digital signatures.
|
|
* **Raw Secrets** - Barbican stores secrets as a base64 encoded block of data
|
|
(encrypted, naturally). Clients can use the API to store any secrets in any
|
|
format they desire. The [Postern](https://github.com/cloudkeep/postern) agent
|
|
is capable of presenting these secrets in various formats to ease
|
|
integration.
|
|
|
|
For the symmetric and asymmetric key types, Barbican supports full life cycle
|
|
management including provisioning, expiration, reporting, etc. A plugin system
|
|
allows for multiple certificate authority support (including public and private
|
|
CAs).
|
|
|
|
## Design Goals
|
|
|
|
1. Provide a central secret-store capable of distributing secret / keying
|
|
material to all types of deployments including ephemeral Cloud instances.
|
|
2. Support reasonable compliance regimes through reporting and auditability.
|
|
3. Application adoption costs should be minimal or non-existent.
|
|
4. Build a community and ecosystem by being open-source and extensible.
|
|
5. Improve security through sane defaults and centralized management of
|
|
[policies for all
|
|
secrets](https://github.com/cloudkeep/barbican/wiki/Policies).
|
|
6. Out of band communication mechanism to notify and protect sensitive assets.
|