[chef] Re: populating encrypted_data_bag_secret?

["John E. Vincent (lusis)" < >]

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Brad Knowles 
<
 >
 wrote:
> Folks,
>
> We've recently started using encrypted data bags, and we're stumbling over 
> the problem of how to populate this file early in the chef-client run, so 
> that we don't bomb out on the initial install.
>
> Of course, I've read the posts at <http://jtimberman.github.com/>, as that 
> was one of the primary sources of information I used to help get us 
> bootstrapped on using encrypted data bags to begin with, but one thing that 
> was missing from these posts was any discussion of how to do the population 
> of the /etc/chef/encrypted_data_bag_secret file during an initial install.
>
> Looking through the release notes, I found 
> <http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-2434> which supposedly is fixed in 
> 0.10.6, but it's not clear to me how to make use of this new feature or how 
> to upgrade knife on my workstation to allow me to make use of this new 
> feature.  Is this as simple as doing a "gem upgrade knife"?  Does that also 
> install the new templates that allow me to pre-populate this file during 
> the initial install of a machine?  I'm also curious to learn what happens 
> to the old template files that I've been using (especially omnibus.erb).
>
>
> Any and all assistance you can provide will be appreciated, especially 
> including where in TFM that I should be R'ing.  Thanks!
>
> --
> Brad Knowles 
> <
 >
> SAGE Level IV, Chef Level 0.0.1
>

You could do it the way my original databag_decrypt LWRP worked which
is use a remote host to store the key. We're still using my original
LWRP but I'm pretty sure my patch for the official method got pulled
in quite some time ago. That is, store the key on a private host
accessible only from your servers.

We store the key in a Noah ephemeral but you can store it anywhere
that will respond to HTTP. You can see the source code here:

https://github.com/opscode/chef/blob/master/chef/lib/chef/encrypted_data_bag_item.rb#L105-127

Essentially instead of passing a file path, put an http url.
Technically it doesn't have to be an http endpoint. Anything that
open-uri can handle will work.