EncryptIfKeySet/DecryptIfKeySet in internal/crypto/encryption.go previously
returned plaintext + wasEncrypted=false when the operator had not configured
CERTCTL_CONFIG_ENCRYPTION_KEY. That produced a data-at-rest confidentiality
bypass (CWE-311): sensitive fields on dynamically-configured issuer and
target rows (source='database') were persisted to PostgreSQL without any
encryption, and no caller could distinguish the encrypted from the plaintext
branch at runtime. The only visible signal was a single warning log line
emitted once at startup.
Fail closed instead:
- EncryptIfKeySet / DecryptIfKeySet now return crypto.ErrEncryptionKeyRequired
(a new exported sentinel, errors.Is-unwrappable) when the key is empty or
nil, rather than silently emitting plaintext. The (result, wasEncrypted,
err) tuple signature is preserved for source compatibility; only the
semantics of the no-key branch changed.
- cmd/server/main.go grows a startup pre-flight check: if no encryption key
is configured the server lists issuers and targets, counts rows with
source='database', and refuses to start (os.Exit(1)) if any exist. Operators
must either configure CERTCTL_CONFIG_ENCRYPTION_KEY or remove the exposed
rows before the control plane can boot. The warning-only path is retained
for the clean-slate case (no database rows).
- internal/service/issuer.go's SeedFromEnvVars now guards the encryption call
with len(s.encryptionKey) > 0 so env-seeded rows (source='env', which are
reconstructable on every boot from process env) continue to persist as
plaintext in the 'config' column when no key is configured. Registry load
already falls through to cfg.Config when EncryptedConfig is nil. GUI/API
write paths (source='database') remain fail-closed via propagation of
ErrEncryptionKeyRequired.
- Integration tests that exercise CreateIssuer via the handler layer now
supply a real 32-byte AES-256 test key so the encrypt path runs instead of
returning ErrEncryptionKeyRequired. Same pattern in internal/service/
testutil_test.go for consolidated service-layer tests.
- internal/crypto/encryption_test.go grows regression guards:
TestEncryptIfKeySet_EmptyKeyFailsClosed (nil_key + empty_key subtests),
TestDecryptIfKeySet_EmptyKeyFailsClosed (nil_key + empty_key subtests),
TestEncryptDecryptIfKeySet_RoundTripProducesDifferentCiphertext,
TestDecryptIfKeySet_RejectsTamperedCiphertext, and
TestEncryptIfKeySet_PreservesErrEncryptionKeyRequiredSentinel (verifies
the sentinel unwraps through fmt.Errorf(%w)-style wrapping).
Wire format is unchanged: AES-256-GCM Encrypt/Decrypt/DeriveKey, the
12-byte nonce prefix, the GCM auth tag, the PBKDF2 salt
('certctl-config-encryption-v1'), and the 100,000 iteration count are all
byte-identical. Ciphertexts produced before this change remain decryptable.
Verified:
- go build ./... : clean
- go vet ./... : clean
- go test -race ./internal/crypto/... ./internal/service/... \
./internal/integration/... ./cmd/server/... : pass
- golangci-lint run ./... : 0 issues
- govulncheck ./... : 0 reachable vulnerabilities
- rg 'return plaintext, false, nil' internal/ : no matches
- Coverage: crypto 85.0% (unchanged), service 67.8% (was 67.9%, noise),
cmd/server 0.0% (unchanged baseline). All above CI thresholds.
See certctl-audit-report.md for the full finding record and resolution log.
Replace static env-var-based issuer wiring with GUI-driven dynamic
configuration stored encrypted in PostgreSQL. Operators can now
configure, test, enable/disable, and manage issuers from the dashboard
without restarting the server.
Key changes:
- AES-256-GCM encryption for sensitive issuer config at rest (PBKDF2
key derivation with 100k iterations)
- Dynamic IssuerRegistry with sync.RWMutex replacing static map
- Connector factory pattern (issuerfactory.NewFromConfig) replacing
140 lines of static wiring in main.go
- Migration 000009: encrypted_config, last_tested_at, test_status,
source columns on issuers table
- Env var seeding on first boot with ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING
- Registry Rebuild() for atomic map swap after CRUD operations
- Issuer type validation against domain constants on Create
- Audit trail for test connection results
- Conditional seeding for step-ca/OpenSSL (only when env vars set)
- GUI: source badge, connection test status on issuer detail page
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
shankar0123