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:

• Define application

• View application

• Edit application

• Deleting application

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

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

1. On the Settings screen of the Add Application Wizard, configure the following parameters.

   1. 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 — DEBUG	Yes	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

        DPG 1.2 and lower versions

        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 — random	Yes	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 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.

        DPG 1.3 and higher versions

        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 -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.

   2. 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

   3. 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

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.

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.

After the DPG application is created, perform the following actions:

• Register DPG Connector on the CipherTrust Manager

• Protect and reveal data

Next Topic

DPG Policy