Polysecrets (v2.0.0)

A completely randomized order of secrets; built for security.

Secrets can be generated on an interval or once per request. Polysecrets keeps the guessing away from the human in exchange for a securely randomized signature. With MongoDB you can persist the generated secrets. Instead maintaining an environment file or hardcoding secrets, let Polysecrets handle that for you.

Install

Locally

git clone https://github.com/ableinc/polysecrets-js.git
cd polysecrets-js
npm install

Npm

npm install --save polysecrets

Command Line Tool

npm install -g polysecrets
polysecrets

How To Use

ATTENTION: This document uses the latest version for usage examples. Please refer to sections labeled for versions <= 2.0.0

Polysecrets can be used manually or automated. Automated use can be provided a time (in seconds) for how often a new secret should be generated, the default time is set to 30 seconds. You do not have to provide a secret to Polysecrets class, but you can if you'd like certain characters in your secret. Reminder, the secret is a collection of randomly ordered characters, so the secret you provide will not be used entirely. You can choose whether or not to have a mix of upper and lower case letters in the final secret output. By default the case is kept how ever its provided.

Manual

const { Polysecrets, Config } = require("polysecrets");

config = Config();
config.automated = true;
config.verbose = true;
config.interval = 5;

const polysecret = new Polysecrets();
async function polysecrets_manual() {
  const secret = await polysecret.execute();
  console.log(secret);
}
polysecrets_manual();

Automated (this will add the secret to your environment)

const { Polysecrets, Config } = require("polysecrets");

config = Config();
config.automated = true;
config.verbose = true;
config.interval = 5;

function polysecrets_automated() {
  const polysecrets = new Polysecrets(config);
  polysecrets.execute();

  process.on("SIGINT", () => {
    polysecrets.terminate();
  });
}

polysecrets_automated();

Examples

For examples you can run the files found in the /examples folder. If you've installed Polysecrets via git then cd into the repo directory and run either of the following commands:

npm run manual

npm run automated

Options

You can do the following with Polysecrets-js:

• Manually or Automatically generate new secrets
• Change time interval for new secret generation (for Automated feature)
• Change the length of the final Polysecrets secret (refer to Notes at end of README)
• Choose whether to generate secrets with just UUIDs, Alphanumeric characters or both
• Choose whether to mix the case of each letter in the secret. i.e. a mix of upper and lower case letters (hELlO).
• Persist generated secrets to ensure the same secret isn't used twice

Polysecrets-js CLI

**Version: >= 2.0.0

Usage: polysecrets [options]

A completely randomized order of secrets, with security in mind.

Options:
  -v                         output the version number
  -a, --automated [value]    Whether automatically produce secrets after every interval (default: false)
  -i, --interval [value]     How frequently should a new secret be generated (seconds) (default: 30)
  -l, --length [value]       Length of the secret. Secret has a minimum length of 10 (default: 15)
  -vV, --verbose [value]     Feedback through console. (default: true)
  -p, --persistence [value[  Persist generated secrets to a MongoDB database (default: null)
  -h, --help                 output usage information

**Version <= 2.0.0

Usage: polysecrets [options]

A completely randomized order of secrets, with security in mind.

Options:
  -v                         output the version number
  -s, --secret [value]       The secret string (default: "rAnd0m_s3cr3+")
  -a, --automated [value]    Whether automatically produce secrets after every interval (default: false)
  -i, --interval [value]     How frequently should a new secret be generated (seconds) (default: 30)
  -l, --length [value]       Length of the secret. Secret has a minimum length of 10 (default: 10)
  -u, --uuid [value]         Whether to use UUIDs or Alphanumeric characters for secret generation - [true, false, "Both"] (default: true)
  -m, --mixcase [value]      Decide whether or not to mix the case of alpha characters in secret string (default: false)
  -vV, --verbose [value]     Feedback through console. (default: true)
  -p, --persistence [value[  Persist generated secrets to avoid duplicates. (default: {})
  -h, --help                 output usage information

Benefits

• JSON Web Tokens
• Certificate Signing
• Hashing
• Various scenarios of Cryptography
• Blockchain signing

Notes

• If you change the length of the secret via the 'length' parameter, you will notice that the secret string you provided will not contain all the characters provided. If you want the final secret to contain all the exact same characters, then provide the exact string length to Polysecrets 'length' field.

• The secret provided in the config is just used as reference characters and are not guaranteed to be a part of the final secret. If you would like to use the secret you provide I would recommend going the traditional route; add secret to your project .env file and use the dotenv package library.

• You cannot run manual and automated in the same file. You will throw an error.

Persistence

• A MongoDB connection string is the only accepted format for version 2.0.0 or greater.
• MongoDB is the only supported database. If you'd like SQL, create a PR.
• Do not include persistence as an empty object. Omit if you're not using it and set flag usePersistence to false. - Version < 2.0.0

Default Configuration Options

NOTE: This documentation prioritizes Polysecrets version 2.0.0 or greater

// Versions: >= 2.0.0
{
  automated: false,
  interval: 30, // seconds
  length: 15,
  verbose: false,
  persistence: null  // or MongoDB connection string (mongodb://[username:password@]host1[:port1][,...hostN[:portN]][/[defaultauthdb][?options]])
}

Below are the default configuration options. You'll notice that usePersistence is false, but we're setting persistence. This is for the programs use only. If you are providing your own config and usePersistence is false, DO NOT set persistence

// Versions: < 2.0.0
{
    automated: false,
    interval: 30, // seconds
    length: 10,
    uuid: true, // (options: true, false, "Both")
    mixcase: false,
    secret: 'rAnd0m_s3cr3+',
    verbose: false,
    usePersistence: false,
    persistence: {host: 'localhost', port: 27017, db: 'polysecrets', collection: 'secrets'}
  }

You can also import the Config function as such:

const { Config } = require("polysecrets");

const config = Config(); // returns an Object

Changelog

July 2023 v2.0.0

• Removed Math.random(), replaced with crypto
• Removed deprecated substr, replaced with subString method
• Persistence will use ISO date format when creating document
• You must now use a MongoDB connection string for persistence. The database name is "polysecrets" and the collection name is "secrets". For now these values are not customizable.
• Removed mixcase options from config object
• Removed uuid options from config object
• Removed secret option from config object
• Polysecrets will no longer check for duplicates when persisting secrets
• If an error occurs trying to persist to MongoDB, it will no longer throw an error. It will log the message to the console and contiue.
• Upgraded any packages will known vulnerabilities
• Bug fixes

February 2022 v1.0.3

• Updated CLI tool
• Fixed automated bug binding issue
• Updated examples/ folder
• Updated documentation

February 2022 v1.0.2

• Simplified code in main module
• Simplified code in CLI tool
• Fixed bug with secret being displayed during automated call
• The secret will now only be removed when clearing env variables, instead of clearing all variables
• Fixed bug with persistence where secret was being added before the duplication check
• Updated verbose messages
• Command line tool will be added to path automatically
• Updated documentation

February 2022 v1.0.1

• Fixed bug related to persistence (MongoDB is still the only supported DB)
• Fixed bug related to the default configuration and how they are set
• The CLI tool was updated to address bugs and removed redundant code
• bson is installed as a dependency of another library required by Polysecrets. There is a security vulnerability in bson that is addressed by updating the library. This has been done for Polysecrets.
• README documentation has been updated for clarity, as well as the examples in the examples/ directory