Managing DPG Applications
An application definition contains necessary configurations that are required for a client to function smoothly. 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:
Prerequisites
Following tasks must be performed on the CipherTrust Manager:
Create access policy on the CipherTrust Manager.
Create character set on the CipherTrust Manager.
Create masking format on the CipherTrust Manager.
Create protection policy on the CipherTrust Manager.
Defining Application
Log on to the CipherTrust Manager GUI as administrator.
Open Application Data Protection.
In the left pane, click Applications. The list of applications is displayed on the screen.
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
On the General Info screen of the Add Application Wizard, specify a unique Name for the application.
Select Connector Type as DPG from the drop-down list.
Click Next to go to the Settings screen.
Configure Parameters
On the Settings screen of the Add Application Wizard, configure the following parameters.
Client Configuration
These parameters are required to initialize DPG clients.
Authentication Method
Field Description Mandatory Default Scheme Name Authentication method used to validate the identity of the application users.
Following methods are allowed:
— Basic: In this scheme, username and password are passed into the authorization request header. The username and password are encoded in Base64 format.
— Bearer: In this scheme, a security token (a cryptic string) is granted to the application users. The application user must send this token in the authorization request header when making any reveal request to DPG.Yes Basic Token Field Name of the field that contains the username in authorization token based on which the level of access control over reveal operation will be identified. Required when Bearer
is selected as the authentication method.No default Logging
Field Description Mandatory Default Log Level The level of logging to determine verbosity of client logs.
Options
— INFO
— WARN
— ERROR
— DEBUGYes WARN Local Encryption
Field Description Mandatory Default Key Cache Expiry Determines the minimum amount of time a key can be cached. Yes 43200 seconds Connection Configuration
Note
If you are using DPG 1.2 and lower versions, configure the following parameters on the CipherTrust Manager UI.
Field Description Mandatory Default Maximum Idle Connection Specifies the maximum number of idle (keep-alive) connections for all hosts. A value of 0 means no limit. Yes 10000 Maximum Idle Connection Per Host Specifies the maximum idle (keep-alive) connections to keep for each host. Yes 10000 Dial Timeout Specifies the maximum duration (in seconds) the DPG server will wait for a connection with the Application Server to succeed. Yes 10 Dial Keep Alive Specifies the interval (in seconds) between keep-alive probes for an active network connection. Yes 10 Connection Idle Timeout Specifies the duration for which a connection is allowed to be idle in the connection pool before it gets automatically closed. Yes 600000 Connection Retry Interval Specifies the time to wait before trying to reconnect to a disabled server. Yes 600000 Connection Timeout Connection timeout value for clients. Yes 60000 Connection Read Timeout Read timeout value for clients. Yes 7000 Size of Connection Pool The maximum number of connections that can persist in a connection pool. Yes 300 Load Balancing Algorithm Determines how the client selects a Key Manager from a load balancing group.
Options
— round-robin
— randomYes round-robin Heartbeat Interval Time interval (in seconds) after which the client needs to send heartbeat notification to the CipherTrust Manager to get updated policies and configurations. Yes 300 seconds Heartbeat Timeout Count Number of continuously missed heartbeats after which a client marks itself as unhealthy. After this count, the CipherTrust Manager revokes the client and the client stops performing any cryptographic operations. Yes 5 minutes Note
If this parameter is set to -1, the client will continue to send the heartbeats until it is alive and the CipherTrust Manager will not revoke the client. The container will never be marked as unhealthy.
The CipherTrust Manager updates status of all the clients after every 5 minutes based on the number of missed heartbeats.
Note
For DPG 1.3 and higher versions, following parameters should be configured on the CipherTrust Manager UI.
Field Description Mandatory Default Connection Timeout Connection timeout value for clients. Yes 60000 Heartbeat Interval Time interval (in seconds) after which the client needs to send heartbeat notification to the CipherTrust Manager to get updated policies and configurations. Yes 300 seconds Heartbeat Timeout Count Number of continuously missed heartbeats after which a client marks itself as unhealthy. After this count, the CipherTrust Manager revokes the client and the client stops performing any cryptographic operations. Yes 5 minutes Note
-1 client will continue to send the heartbeats until it is alive and the CipherTrust Manager will not revoke the client. The container will never be marked as unhealthy.
The CipherTrust Manager updates status of all the clients after every 5 minutes based on the number of missed heartbeats.
SSL Configuration
Field Description Mandatory Default TLS Enabled Determines whether to enable TLS. If check-box is selected, DPG will communicate with the upstream server over TLS else, TCP will be used. Yes Not selected (not configurable) TLS Skip Verify This field is always selected; DPG doesn't verify the upstream server certificates. Yes Always selected (not configurable) Performance Metrics
Field Description Mandatory Default Enable Performance Metrics When the Enable Performance Metrics toggle is turned on, the administrators can generate metrics logs for DPG. No By default, the toggle is on.
Network Configuration
Note
This step is only required for DPG 1.2 and lower versions, skip this for DPG 1.3 and higher versions.
Ensure the NAE interface with TLS, verify client cert, user name taken from client cert, auth request is optional mode is created on the CipherTrust Manager. Refer to CipherTrust Manager Interfaces for detailed instructions.
Field Description Mandatory Default Select Interface Select interface name form the available list. The firewall rules must allow communication for the selected NAE Interface port.
Selecting or unselecting the NAE Interface port will reset the Common Name in CSR parameters.No No default Server Configuration
These parameters are required to configure server settings such as CA, CSR, and Connection configurations.
Group Permissions
Field Description Mandatory Default Client Groups Clients associated with the application will get permissions based on the selected groups. Optional No Default CA Parameter
Field Description Mandatory Default Local CA Local trusted Certificate Authority on the CipherTrust Manager that issues and signs the certificates for SSL. Yes CipherTrust Root CA Note
Local CA should be added in the Local Trusted CAs of the Web interface on the CipherTrust Manager.
CSR Parameters
Field Description Mandatory Default Common Name This is the DPG user who will interact with CM.
— For DPG 1.2 and lower versions, NAE-XML interface is used.
— For DPG 1.3 and higher versions, REST interface is used.Yes No default City Name of the city. Yes No default Country Name of the country. Yes No default State Name of the state. Yes No default Organization Name Organization name. Yes No default Organization Unit Organization unit. Yes No default Email Valid email id. Yes No default Certificate Duration Validity period of a client certificate. Yes 730 days Certificate auto renewal Turn on the Certificate auto renewal toggle to automatically renew the CA certificate before it expires in the user environment. By default, the toggle is off. The process of certificate auto renewal is explained here. Click Next to go to the Policy page.
Note
Before moving to next step, we recommend you to read about DPG Policies.
Create and Associate Policy
On the DPG Policy page, click Add Endpoint.
On the Create Endpoint screen, perform the following steps:
Enter the API URL. This is the URL of the application for which the DPG will protect the data.
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.
Click Add Token to configure JSON path/URL. For same method, you can configure Request and Response simultaneously.
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
— RevealProtection 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:
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.
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
On the Add Application page, verify the application details. The Confirmation screen displays general information, settings, and DPG policy.
If you want to modify any detail, click Edit and update the details.
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.
Click Close to exit the setup. The newly defined application is added to the list of Applications.
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:
State | Description |
---|---|
Healthy | A healthy client sends heartbeat on regular heartbeat_interval . |
Errors | Client notifies the CipherTrust Manager that it is in error state and it can't process any request. |
Warnings | The CipherTrust Manager moves a client to warning whenever the client skips sending heartbeat based on the defined heartbeat_interval . The client can continue performing the cryptographic operations. |
Revoked | CipherTrust Manager will revoke a client if the number of missed heartbeat count = Heartbeat Timeout Count *heartbeat_interval . The client can no longer perform any cryptographic operations. |
The Clients tab also shows the following details:
Column | Description |
---|---|
Status | Health status of the clients. Click here for details. |
Name | Name of the client. |
Client Version | The version of the client protecting the application. |
Last Connection | Date and time when the CipherTrust Manager received the last heartbeat from the client. |
Creation Date | Date and time when the client was registered on the CipherTrust Manager. |
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:
Open Application Data Protection.
In the left pane, click Applications. The list of applications is displayed on the screen.
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.
Click the Settings tab. You can modify the client, server, and network configurations.
Click the Policy tab. You can add/delete endpoints.
Click Update. A message Application updated successfully is displayed.
Deleting Application
Open Application Data Protection.
In the left pane, click Applications. The list of applications is displayed on the screen.
Click the overflow icon (
) corresponding to the application that you want to delete.
Click Delete. A dialog box appears prompting to confirm the action.
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.
After the DPG application is created, perform the following actions:
Register DPG Connector on the CipherTrust Manager