Class: Secrets

The built-in functions in the Secrets package allow you to store and retrieve secrets in storages that are managed by Content Server. There are two types of secrets: local and global. In general, local secrets apply to specific Content Server hosts only. However, not all secrets stored with PutLocal() are really local. Whether a specific secret is really local should be determined case by case according to the nature of that secret. For example, the Content Server database password is not local in nature; its change requires restarting all Content Server hosts after the change has been synchronized among them. The Web Administrator password is not local as well; otherwise the Content Server administrators have to use different passwords on different hosts to configure the same Content Server system. This is no different from the settings in the opentext.ini file. Some are local and some are not. If not really local to a specific host, then a change will require synchronization and restarting all hosts afterwards.

Depending on the running environment, some secrets may be read only. For example, not all secrets can be stored or updated using this package's Put() and PutLocal() methods in the container environment. Overall, the methods for global secrets are similar to CAPI's IniDelete(), IniGet() and IniPut() and the methods for local secrets are similar to the corresponding functions provided by $KERNEL.SystemPreferences. The big differences are that secret values are of type String rather than Dynamic; section and keyword are always case sensitive, even for the local versions; and the return value is Undefined if there is no secret for the section/keyword specified. Most importantly, the passed secret is automatically encrypted when stored and decrypted before it is returned. It is guaranteed that the retrieved secret is exactly the same as it was passed into the Put() or PutLocal() method.

The major functionalities offered in the Secrets package are the following:

• GetLocal(), Get() get local and global secrets, respectively.
• PutLocal(), Put() store local and global secrets, respectively.
• DeleteLocal(), (Delete()) delete local and global secrets, respectively.
• IsReadOnlyLocal(), IsReadOnly() check if the secret is read only or not.
• GetKeys() returns a RecArray with a row for each defined secret.
• ValidateName() checks if a string would be valid as a Secrets section or keyword name.

The majority of these functions require a pair of String parameters, section and keyword, and for each of these parameters, the content of the String is limited as follows:

• It must be composed solely of the basic alphanumeric characters { A-Za-z0-9 } plus the underscore { _ }, hyphen or minus sign { - }, and the period or full stop { . }.
• It must begin with an alphabetic character { A-Za-z }.
• The minimum length is 1 character and the maximum length is 128 characters.
• As mentioned above, it is treated in a case-sensitive manner. For example, "KEYWORD1", "Keyword1", and "keyword1" are all distinct and would refer to different secrets within a given section.