Managing DPG Applications

An application definition contains necessary configurations that are required for a client to function smoothly. A registration token generated while defining the application is used to register the clients with the CipherTrust Manager.

The application definition includes:

• Configuration parameters: required to initialize and configure the client.

• CSR parameters: required to create or renew client certificates and keys.

• CA parameters: required to issue and install digital certificates and CSR.

• DPG policy: determines when and how to protect data moving through DPG.

In this article, you will learn how to:

• Define application

• View application

• Edit application

• Deleting application

Defining Application

1. Log on to the CipherTrust Manager GUI as administrator.

2. Open Application Data Protection.

3. In the left pane, click Applications. The list of applications is displayed on the screen.

4. On the Applications page, click Add Application. The Add Application wizard is displayed.

Follow the steps to define an application for your DPG client.

Add General Info

1. On the General Info screen of the Add Application Wizard, specify a unique Name for the application.

2. Select Connector Type as DPG from the drop-down list.

3. Click Next to go to the Settings screen.

Configure Parameters

On the Settings screen of the Add Application Wizard, configure:

• Client configurations

• Server configurations

Client Configuration

These parameters are required to initialize DPG clients.

a. Authentication Method

b. Logging

c. Local Encryption

d. Connection Configuration

e. SSL Configuration

f. Performance Metrics

Network Configuration

Server Configuration

These parameters are required to configure server settings such as CA, CSR, and Connection configurations.

a. Group Permissions

b. CA Parameter

c. CSR Parameters

• Click Next to go to the Policy page.

Before moving to the next step, we recommend you read about DPG policies. For a detailed overview, expand the DPG Policies section below.

DPG policy is a set of rules that determines when and how to protect/reveal sensitive data moving through DPG. DPG can protect/reveal any data that is transferred through HTTP with REST architecture in the JSON format. The sensitive data is specified at JSON path or in URL parameters. DPG allows you to configure on which data cryptographic operations is to be performed in HTTP methods. Protection of the sensitive data is governed by the Protection Policy associated with the DPG policy. At the time of reveal operation, DPG reads the access policy and displays the data according to the rules configured for the user set. The DPG policy is created and managed from the CipherTrust Manager UI or API playground.

DPG policy specifications

• DPG allows association of different protection policies based on sensitive data. Each sensitive data to be protected/revealed will have their own protection policy.

• DPG allows you to reveal the output in different formats for different user sets.

• A user can choose the data to be protected or revealed in any combination of URL path, the REST methods, and their request/response.

• Each application has its own DPG policy.

• DPG can be configured to perform cryptographic operations for these methods.

  • PUT

  • POST

  • GET

  • PATCH

  • DELETE

Create and Associate Policy

1. On the DPG Policy page, click Add Endpoint.

2. On the Create Endpoint screen, perform the following steps:

   1. Enter the API URL. This is the URL of the application for which the DPG will protect the data.

   2. Select Method from the drop-down list. Supported methods are:

      • POST

      • GET

      • PUT

      • PATCH

      • DELETE

      Note

      You must configure JSON path/URL parameters separately for each method.

   3. Click Add Token to configure JSON path/URL. For same method, you can configure Request and Response simultaneously.

   4. On the Create Token in Request screen, enter/select the following details.

      Field	Description
      Name	Specify the complete JSON path/URL parameters to be protected/revealed.
      Location	Location of the data to be protected/revealed. Possible options are: — JSON: If data to be protected is in JSON body. — URL: If data to be protected is in URL parameters.
      Operation	Cryptographic operation to be performed. Possible options — Protect — Reveal
      Protection Policy	Select the protection policy form the drop-down list. If protection policy doesn't exist, click Add Protection Policy and click Select. Refer to Managing Protection Polices for details.
      External Version Header	Specify the name of the parameter that will store the version header details (type, protection policy version, and key version). This parameter appears on the UI only when the selected protection policy uses external version header.
      Access Policy	This parameter appears on the UI if operation type is Reveal. Select the access policy from the drop-down list. If access policy doesn't exist, click Add Access Policy and click Select. Refer to Managing Access Policies for details.

      If the JSON body has an array of objects, specify the sensitive tokens in the format shown in the below example:

          {
              "Name": "John",
              "CreditCard":[
              {
                  "CCNumber": "1234-5678-9012-3456",
                  "CVV": "123",
                  "Expiry": "12/03"
              }
              ],
              "Amount" : "250"
          }
      

      In this example, CreditCard is the array of objects (CCNumber, CVV, Expiry). To protect/reveal CCNumber, specify the token as CreditCard.[*].CCNumber in the request/response of the DPG policy. Similarly, to protect/reveal CVV, use the following format: CreditCard.[*].CVV.

      Note

      If a set of data is already protected with a protection policy, ensure to reveal the data with the same protection policy.

   5. Click Create. The newly created policy is listed on the DPG Policy page.

   Now, to configure JSON path/URL parameters for other methods, click Add Endpoint and repeat steps a to g else, click Next to go to the Confirmation screen.

   The below diagrams show that different methods require separate endpoint configurations.

   

   

Confirmation

1. On the Add Application page, verify the application details. The Confirmation screen displays general information, settings, and DPG policy.

2. If you want to modify any detail, click Edit and update the details.

3. Click Add. A message stating, Application created successfully is displayed on the screen. At this step, a Registration Token is generated. The clients will use this token to get registered on the CipherTrust Manager.

4. Click Close to exit the setup. The newly defined application is added to the list of Applications.

After defining the application, register your DPG client with the CipherTrust Manager using the generated registration token, as detailed in its Quick Start.

Viewing Application

The Applications page shows the unified view for all the applications defined on the CipherTrust Manager. Refer to Single Pane of Glass for details.

Viewing details of application

Click application name to view its details. The detailed view shows:

• Clients tab: provides insight into details of clients registered within an application.

• Settings tab: provides information about the parameters that were used to define application for a client.

• Policy Tab: Shows the policy associated with the client.

Clients tab

The Clients tab displays the list of clients registered with an applications, their status, version, name, and so on. It provides the count of:

• The Total Active clients.

• The number of clients in Error state.

• The number of clients in Warning state.

• The number of clients in Healthy state.

• The number of Revoked clients.

Click each tab to filter the clients by their status.

Client status

The CipherTrust Manager updates status of all the DPG clients after every 5 minute based on the number of missed heartbeats. A client can be in one of the following states:

The Clients tab also shows the following details:

Settings tab

The Settings tab shows the configuration details for client. Refer to Managing DPG Applications.

Policy tab

The policy tab shows the DPG policies associated with the application. ()

On the detailed view of applications page, you can also:

• Refresh clients

• Remove revoked clients

Modifying Application

To modify settings and of an application:

1. Open Application Data Protection.

2. In the left pane, click Applications. The list of applications is displayed on the screen.

3. Click the name of the application that you want to modify. The <Application-name> screen shows the clients, settings, and policy associated with the application.

4. Click the Settings tab. You can modify the client, server, and network configurations.

5. Click the Policy tab. You can add/delete endpoints.

6. Click Update. A message Application updated successfully is displayed.

Deleting Application

1. Open Application Data Protection.

2. In the left pane, click Applications. The list of applications is displayed on the screen.

3. Click the overflow icon () corresponding to the application that you want to delete.

4. Click Delete. A dialog box appears prompting to confirm the action.

5. Click Delete. A message, <Application_name> has been deleted appears on screen.

   Warning

   Deleting an application also deletes all the associated clients. This action may impact the operations performed by the clients. So, before deleting an application, ensure all the mapped clients are not in use.