Secrets:SqlitePath is now validated at startup by SecretsOptionsValidator using two rules in the new public SecretsStorePathRules. Both come from production incidents and neither implies the other. Must be absolute: a relative value resolves against the process working directory, which for a Windows service is C:\Windows\System32, so the store lands outside the installation; in a dev loop it lands in the source tree (a gateway was observed writing its secrets database into src/, tripping that repo's own tree-hygiene test). Must not be inside the content root: an absolute path can still point into the directory every deployment procedure in this family renames on upgrade. On 2026-08-09 a gateway's credential store sat inside its Server\ directory; the deploy renamed Server to Server.bak.*, the database went with it, and the process created a fresh empty one at the same path. Every consumer lost its credential, silently, for two days. The existing "must be absolute" convention did not help — the path was absolute. The rules reject rather than relocate. Silently moving a credential store presents later as an authentication failure pointing nowhere near the configuration that caused it; a boot error is seen immediately by whoever caused it. Validation is deliberately not exempted in Development: a guard that never runs in a dev loop or in CI rots, and the configuration behind the outage looked entirely reasonable. BREAKING for configuration, not API. SecretsOptions.SqlitePath now defaults to an absolute per-user path under LocalApplicationData; it was "secrets.db", which the new rules reject. An application configuring a relative path will fail to boot — remove the key or set an absolute one outside the content root. All five deployed instances of this family were checked first and already set an absolute path outside their content root, so the migration edge (a host relying on the OLD default now finding nothing and creating an empty store — this bug, re-introduced by its own fix) does not apply to any of them. Per-user rather than machine-wide is deliberate: CommonApplicationData is /usr/share on Linux and macOS, which a normal user cannot write, so a machine-wide library default would fail every consuming application's boot on a developer machine. An application may compute its own default; the configured value always wins. Validator registration is idempotent. AddZbSecrets is legitimately called more than once in real compositions, and TryAddEnumerable cannot de-duplicate a factory-built descriptor — it de-duplicates on implementation type, which a factory does not carry, so it throws on the second call rather than skipping. The existing suite caught this. Tests cover both rules including the segment-boundary case (/srv/app-data must not read as inside /srv/app — a false positive on a fail-closed startup rule is an application that will not boot), that the shipped default satisfies the rules it ships with, that the default is not machine-wide, idempotent registration, and — most importantly — that a bad path actually throws when IOptions is resolved, since a correctly implemented validator that is never invoked is the same "guard that does not fire" failure this change exists to prevent. Family bumps to 0.6.0. Adds a dependency on ZB.MOM.WW.Configuration 0.1.0 for the shared OptionsValidatorBase/ValidationBuilder vocabulary, which every consumer already references.
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets
A reusable, envelope-encrypted secrets manager for the ZB.MOM.WW.* SCADA family:
store secrets (SQL passwords, API tokens, connection strings) encrypted at rest and get the
plaintext back on demand — from application code, from configuration, or from an operator UI.
Packages
| Package | Purpose |
|---|---|
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets.Abstractions |
Contracts only (ISecretStore, ISecretResolver, IMasterKeyProvider, ISecretCipher, ISecretReplicator, ISecretCacheInvalidator, ISecretActorAccessor), value types, exceptions. Dependency-light. |
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets |
Implementation: AES-256-GCM envelope cipher, env/file/DPAPI master-key providers, SQLite store, TTL resolver (audited), ${secret:} config expander, AddZbSecrets. |
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets.Ui |
Blazor RCL on ZB.MOM.WW.Theme: list / add / rotate / delete + policy-gated, audited reveal. |
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets.Replicator.SqlServer |
Cluster-wide secrets via SQL Server — as one shared store, or as a hub each node syncs against. |
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets.Replicator.AkkaDotNet |
Peer-to-peer replication over an Akka.NET cluster — partition-tolerant, no shared database. |
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets.Replicator.Grpc |
Central-hosted secrets_hub.v1 gRPC hub, pull-only (sites sync from central; central never accepts a write over this channel) — for topologies where sites talk only to central, never a shared DB. |
A secret CLI (set / get / list / rm / rotate / rewrap-all) ships in the repo (not packed).
Interactive console
Run secret with no arguments in a real terminal and it opens an interactive console
instead of printing usage — a menu-driven session for an operator sitting at a deployment,
rather than a scripted one-shot verb. The launch condition is exact: no verb and neither
stdin nor stdout is redirected. Any redirection (a pipe, | cat, CI, a script) falls straight
through to the headless usage/exit-2 behavior above, so nothing scripted ever hangs on a
prompt.
The first screen picks a store target — recent targets (persisted to
~/.zb-secrets/recent-targets.json, names + paths only, never key material), an app's
appsettings.json (the console composes base + appsettings.<env>.json + environment
variables and binds Secrets exactly like the app itself, so every operation hits precisely
the store the app reads), or manual entry (a raw SQLite path + a master-key environment
variable name). If the configured KEK cannot be resolved in the operator's shell, the session
still opens — degraded, metadata-only — and any flow that needs the key prompts for one
(masked paste or a key file) to upgrade it in place.
Once a target is open, the menu offers:
- List secrets — metadata table (name, content type, KEK id, revision, updated); no KEK needed.
- Set / rotate a secret — masked value prompt, seals a fresh row under the session KEK.
- Get (reveal) a secret — confirm-gated; prints the plaintext once, never cached or logged.
- Delete a secret — confirm-gated tombstone; no KEK needed.
- Reference audit & seed — scans the target's composed configuration for
${secret:NAME}tokens, classifies each Ok / Missing / Tombstoned / Undecryptable / InvalidName, and walks the gaps through a seed prompt. This is the deployment-setup flow. - KEK doctor (lockout recovery) — per-row diagnosis (Ok / WrongKek / Corrupt, with the foreign KEK id) plus a guided remedy: rewrap every row from an old KEK, or re-set individual rows when the old KEK is unrecoverable.
- Export bundle (ciphertext-only) / Import bundle — move rows between stores. Bundles carry name + metadata + wrapped DEK + ciphertext, never plaintext; importing across KEKs verifies the pasted source key against the bundle's KEK id before re-wrapping, conflicts resolve last-writer-wins (with an optional per-row prompt), and the format is versioned.
There is no login — the console runs locally with direct file/DB access, the same trust model
as any other admin CLI. New to it? Start with the task-first
quickstart (seed a new deployment; recover a KEK
lockout). For the full flow catalogue, exit-code/Ctrl-C semantics, and security model, see the
operator runbook: docs/operations/interactive-console.md.
How it protects secrets
Each value is encrypted with a fresh data key (DEK) using AES-256-GCM; the DEK is then
wrapped by a master KEK that never touches the database. The AAD binds the ciphertext
to the secret's name and the wrapped DEK to the KEK id, so rows can't be swapped and a
tampered/mis-keyed row fails closed (SecretDecryptionException) rather than returning a
wrong value. The master KEK is resolved through a pluggable IMasterKeyProvider
(environment variable, key file, or Windows DPAPI).
Wiring it up
builder.Services.AddZbSecrets(builder.Configuration, "Secrets");
// After config load, BEFORE options validation — expand ${secret:...} references:
var expander = new SecretReferenceExpander(app.Services.GetRequiredService<ISecretResolver>());
await expander.ExpandConfigurationAsync((IConfigurationRoot)builder.Configuration, ct);
// appsettings.json
"Secrets": {
"SqlitePath": "secrets.db",
"MasterKey": { "Source": "Environment", "EnvVarName": "ZB_SECRETS_MASTER_KEY" },
"RunMigrationsOnStartup": true,
"ResolveCacheTtl": "00:00:30"
},
// Keep plaintext out of config — reference a stored secret instead:
"ConnectionStrings": {
"Historian": "Server=...;User Id=sa;Password=${secret:sql/historian-password}"
}
The master key is 32 bytes, provided base64 in ZB_SECRETS_MASTER_KEY (Environment source).
A missing/invalid key fails closed at startup (MasterKeyUnavailableException).
Rotating the master KEK
Because each row is a body sealed under a per-secret DEK that is wrapped by the KEK, rotating
the master key only re-wraps DEKs — bodies are never re-encrypted and no value history changes.
The secret rewrap-all CLI verb (backed by KekRotationService) migrates every row from the
old KEK to the new one; it is idempotent and safe to re-run:
# New KEK defaults to the configured Secrets:MasterKey; supply the OLD key by env-var name or path.
ZB_SECRETS_MASTER_KEY=<new-base64> ZB_SECRETS_OLD_KEY=<old-base64> \
secret rewrap-all --old-key-env ZB_SECRETS_OLD_KEY
# → {"action":"rewrap-all","total":N,"rewrapped":N,"alreadyCurrent":0}
Run it with resolve traffic quiesced and once per independent store (once for a shared
SQL-Server store; once per node for per-node SQLite on a shared KEK). See the operator runbook:
docs/operations/kek-rotation.md.
Runtime + human access
- App code: inject
ISecretResolverand callGetAsync(name, ct). Every resolve is audited viaZB.MOM.WW.Audit(name + outcome only — the value is never logged). - Operators: mount the
ZB.MOM.WW.Secrets.Ui/admin/secretspage. The list shows metadata only; revealing a value requires thesecrets:revealauthorization policy and is audited. Add/rotate/delete requiresecrets:manage.
Clustered deployments
Storage is local SQLite by default, which is correct for a single-process app and wrong the moment a secret written on one node has to be readable on another. Three topologies are supported; pick the least complicated one that meets the requirement.
Every topology requires the same master KEK on every node. The database and the wire carry ciphertext only, so a node with a different key cannot decrypt what another wrote — it fails closed on a
kek_idmismatch, which looks like corruption but is a deployment mistake. Mount the same key file, or supply the same key environment variable, everywhere.
1. Shared SQL-Server store — the default choice
Every node points at one database. There is exactly one copy of each row, so there is no replication, no reconciliation, no split-brain, and no clock skew to reason about.
builder.Services.AddZbSecretsSqlServerStore(builder.Configuration);
"Secrets": {
"MasterKey": { "Source": "File", "FilePath": "/run/secrets/zb-kek" },
"SqlServer": {
"ConnectionString": "Server=sql01;Database=ZbSecrets;...",
"SchemaName": "zbsecrets"
}
}
Trade-off: availability is coupled to that database. A node cut off from it falls back only to
the resolver's short in-memory cache. Rotation (rewrap-all) runs once, against the one store.
2. SQL-Server hub replication
Each node keeps its local store and stays converged with a shared hub: writes publish immediately, and a background sweep reconciles both directions on an interval (default 30s).
builder.Services.AddZbSecretsSqlServerReplication(builder.Configuration);
Choose this over (1) when a node must keep resolving secrets while cut off from the hub — reads never leave the node, so a hub outage degrades propagation rather than availability.
3. Akka cluster peer-to-peer
No shared database at all. Nodes broadcast writes over distributed pub/sub and repair divergence with a periodic manifest exchange.
builder.Services.AddZbSecretsAkkaReplication(builder.Configuration);
// Recommended — pins the serializer that carries ciphertext:
Config config = AkkaSecretsReplication.SerializationConfig.WithFallback(myAppConfig);
Requires the application to register its ActorSystem in DI. The local store is SQLite. This is
the right answer for air-gapped or intermittently-connected sites; it is the wrong answer if every
node can always reach a shared database, because you pay real distributed-systems behaviour for it.
What replication costs you (2 and 3)
- Eventual consistency. Rows converge within the sweep interval, not instantly.
- Last-writer-wins. Two nodes writing the same secret concurrently: the later
updated_utcwins and the other write is discarded. There is no merge and no conflict report. - Publishing is best-effort. A failed broadcast is logged, not thrown — the local write is already durable and anti-entropy repairs it. Writes never fail because a peer was unreachable.
- KEK rotation does not replicate. A re-wrap deliberately leaves the revision untouched so it
stays invisible to last-writer-wins. Run
rewrap-allagainst each independent store.
See docs/operations/clustered-secrets.md for operator
setup, docs/operations/kek-rotation.md for rotation, and
docs/operations/interactive-console.md for the
secret interactive console (deployment seeding, lockout recovery, bundles).