This package allows you to encrypt your environment variables in your .env file OR in a custom config file.
This is accomplished through the added helper function secEnv() to replace env() when using
an encrypted value in your configuration file.
Also included is a console command to encrypt the values of all flagged .env or config file variables/keys, and a console command to run other console commands (scheduled tasks, artisan commands, etc) that require the decrypted environment variables to run.
Some setup/configuration is required to get everything working correctly.
Since some components in this package are needed early on in composer's autoload execution, installation steps must be done in this order (below). If you don't follow this order, composer may throw an error and things will break.
$ composer require mrgswift/laravel-encryptenvAdd package provider EncryptEnvServiceProvider to providers in config/app.php (bootstrap/providers.php in Laravel 11)
'providers' => [
...
mrgswift\EncryptEnv\Provider\EncryptEnvServiceProvider::class
],$ php artisan vendor:publish --provider="mrgswift\EncryptEnv\Provider\EncryptEnvServiceProvider"This publishes the following files:
app/Helpers/secEnv.php
config/encryptenv.php
app/Console/Commands/EncryptEnvValues.php
app/Console/Commands/SecEnvConsoleCommand.php
Add the new Helper file app/Helpers/secEnv.php to the files property in the autoload block of your composer.json file
"autoload": {
...
"files": ["app/Helpers/secEnv.php"]
},
Clear out and re-generate your autoload files, otherwise the new files entry you added to composer.json will not be seen by composer
$ composer dump-autoloadAdd the new console commands to the commands array in app/Console/Kernel.php (Not necessary in Laravel 11)
/**
* The Artisan commands provided by your application.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $commands = [
...
'App\Console\Commands\EncryptEnvValues',
'App\Console\Commands\SecEnvConsoleCommand'
];Required Settings in config/encryptenv.php
cipher (default: AES-128-CBC)
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Encryption Cipher
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This package uses Laravel's built-in Encryption API
| Laravel Encrypter supports either AES-128-CBC or AES-256-CBC as a cipher.
|
| If you are concerned about the performance and scalability of your
| application, AES-128-CBC should be more then sufficient to protect your
| environment variables. If you are more paranoid, you can use AES-256-CBC
|
| More on this here:
| https://blog.1password.com/guess-why-were-moving-to-256-bit-aes-keys/
|
| Change 'cipher' below to AES-128-CBC OR AES-256-CBC to encrypt your environment
| variables in your .env or custom config file (set custom config below)
|
*/
'cipher' => 'AES-128-CBC',encrypt_flag (default: !ENC:)
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Encrypt Value Flag
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This will tell the EncryptEnv console command what flag to look for at the
| beginning of each environment variable value, to trigger encrypting the value.
|
| For best results, use a string that has little probability of being inside of
| an actual variable value. Though this package does only check the beginning of
| each variable value, it is still possible to mistakenly choose an encrypt_flag
| that is contained at the beginning of an actual variable value. If you make
| this mistake, this package will partially encrypt the variable value causing
| unexpected results and most likely making the variable unreadable
|
| The default included encrypt_flag should suffice for most setups
|
| NOTE: This cannot be 'ENC:' but you can put anything else here
|
*/
'encrypt_flag' => '!ENC:',Other Settings in config/encryptenv.php
custom_config_file
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Custom Config File
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Set this if you would rather use your own config file and not docroot/.env
| Otherwise leave this blank. Any custom config file must be located in
| the laravel's default config path, which is docroot/config for most Laravel
| environments. Laravel has the helper function config_path() to return this
| path if you are unsure what this path is.
|
| NOTE: If you set this, your .env file will be completely ignored by this
| package
}
*/
'custom_config_file' => '',custom_config_output (default: env)
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Custom Config File Output Format
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This is only applied if custom_config_file (above) is set to a non-blank
| value/filename. Valid output formats are 'env' OR 'array'. Setting to
| 'env' outputs variables in valid .env file syntax, while 'array' outputs
| an array usable by Laravel's Config helper class
|
*/
'custom_config_output' => 'env'This package requires that the environment variable CONFIGKEY be passed by your web service to your Laravel application. Your CONFIGKEY is either 16 characters (for AES-128-CBC cipher) or 32 characters long (for AES-256-CBC cipher)
For best security practices, this should be set up as a conditional pass based on what script is making the request.
Ideally this should only be public/index.php. By limiting the passing of CONFIGKEY to only index.php, it limits the
ability of non-privileged users to retrieve the CONFIGKEY and your encrypted config values. This otherwise could be
accomplished by simply creating a new console command or php script that can be accessed remotely. You should also make
index.php read-only to non-privileged users. These measures are obviously not full-proof, but it most likely will buy
you more time to mitigate a disaster in the event your server is hacked or a malicious user attempts to retrieve the
CONFIGKEY or one of your config file values.
Your web service configuration files (nginx.conf, /etc/nginx/sites-available/*, httpd.conf, etc) should only be readable by the root user, otherwise your CONFIGKEY can be retrieved by a non-privileged shell user by simply opening the config file. Most apache and nginx setups run their parent process as root, so there should not be an issue of the configuration files being readable by apache/nginx.
An example configuration for nginx and apache are below. Configuration of nginx and apache are beyond the scope of this README. For help with nginx or apache, or for more information refer to:
Apache Configuration Example
VirtualHost block example with example CONFIGKEY
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/path/to/laravel/docroot"
ServerName yourlaravelapp.tld
<If "%{SCRIPT_FILENAME} == '/path/to/laravel/docroot/public/index.php'">
SetEnv CONFIGKEY "51TMszQEvpAlVxbe"
</If>
...
</VirtualHost>
Nginx Configuration Example (using php-fpm)
PHP location block example with example CONFIGKEY
location ~ \.php$ {
set $script_filename $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
set $configkey "";
if ($script_filename = "/path/to/laravel/docroot/public/index.php") {
set $configkey "51TMszQEvpAlVxbe";
}
try_files $uri /index.php =404;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
...
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $script_filename;
fastcgi_param CONFIGKEY $configkey;
include fastcgi_params;
}
The two examples above will pass CONFIGKEY into PHP's $_SERVER array as $_SERVER['CONFIGKEY'].
What about IIS?
Regarding IIS setups. I have no idea how to do this in IIS, though I suspect it is possible. If anyone knows how to accomplish the same thing with the same level of security in an IIS server environment, feel free to do a pull request. Thanks!
The reason for all of this
During execution of this script's decryption sequence, the value of $_SERVER['CONFIGKEY'] is retrieved.
If $_SERVER['CONFIGKEY'] is not empty, the decryption sequence proceeds to decrypt any encrpyted environment
variables (or custom config file values).
To prepare for encryption you should first backup your existing .env (or custom config) file, as this process will overwrite your file with the encrypted values. By design and for security reasons, it is not convenient to decrypt these values after the fact, as there is no console command to do so, and ideally the CONFIGKEY (encryption key) is not even available for decryption
2. Ready your configuration files by using the secEnv helper function for config values you plan to encrypt
Update your Laravel and package-specific config files and change the values of each variable or property that you want to be encrypted to use the secEnv helper function (works exactly like the env() helper function)
Usage: secEnv('name','fallback_value')
Example mail.php config file:
return [
'driver' => env('MAIL_DRIVER', 'smtp'),
'host' => secEnv('MAIL_HOST', 'smtp.somehost.com'),
'port' => env('MAIL_PORT', 587),
'username' => secEnv('MAIL_USERNAME'),
'password' => secEnv('MAIL_PASSWORD'),
...
];In the above example, the the use of the secEnv helper function in the host, username, and password values indicates that
the secEnv function should be used to retrieve the values of each of these keys, checking if the value in your .env or
custom config file should be decrypted. In the case of 'host', the value of MAIL_HOST in your environment file
will be checked for an encrypted value. If it is encrypted, the value will be decrypted to be readable by Laravel's
Config class. If it cannot find an encrypted value, it will assign the fallback value (smtp.somehost.com in the example).
Just like the env() helper function, the fallback value for secEnv is optional.
By default this package overwrites your .env file if custom_config_file is not defined/blank. If you don't want
to use .env to store your environment variables, define a filename for custom_config_file. This file must reside in your
Laravel config path, and the file must contain an array with the keys and values of your configuration (like all other
Laravel config files).
Comments at the top of your custom configuration file
If you use a custom configuration file and wish to preserve a comment block at the top of the file, you must use the
opening doc block convention /** instead of a normal opening comment /*.
This tells the encryption sequence to preserve your comment block at the top of the file.
Example:
/**
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Encrypted Environment Variables
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Keep encrypted env variables here.
| These Environment Variables will be replaced and assigned to readable
| env values given the correct Config encryption key is provided to
| the application
|
*/
Edit the environment variables file you are using and add the encryption flag defined in
config/encryptenv.php as a prefix to each value you want to encrypt
Example .env File with default Encrypt Flag !ENC:
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_KEY=!ENC:65UMszZRvpAPVxba
MYSQL_HOST=db.somehost.net
MYSQL_USER=!ENC:webapp_mysql
MYSQL_PASS=!ENC:Secure.P4ssW0rd!
SERVICE_API_KEY=!ENC:qZXFuZWh0NFE9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoidmNpRUV5em
It works the same in a php configuration file that you define for custom_config_file in config/encryptenv.php
<?php
return [
'APP_ENV' => 'production',
'APP_DEBUG' => false,
'APP_KEY' => '!ENC:65UMszZRvpAPVxba',
'MYSQL_HOST' => 'db.somehost.net',
'MYSQL_USER' => '!ENC:webapp_mysql',
'MYSQL_PASS' => '!ENC:Secure.P4ssW0rd!',
'SERVICE_API_KEY' => '!ENC:qZXFuZWh0NFE9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoidmNpRUV5em'
];In both examples (above) the values for APP_KEY, MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_PASS, and SERVICE_API_KEY are flagged for encryption and will be replaced with the encrypted string when running the console command (below).
php artisan encryptenv:encrypt
This command will run the encryption sequence in your environment variables file, execute the artisan console command included with this package
There is one optional argument configkey. Having the config key as an optional
argument allows you to add this console command to your own scripts for things like automation in your deployment process.
If you do use the configkey argument, it is recommended that you include safeguards to prevent this console command from
being recorded in your shell's history (to protect your Config Key).
More on protecting your config key here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6475524/how-do-i-prevent-commands-from-showing-up-in-bash-history
You will need to generate a new CONFIGKEY if you don't already have one.
If you put generate-key in the optional configkey argument, the encryptenv:encrypt artisan command will automatically
generate a new CONFIGKEY and encrypt the flagged values in your environment variables file.
Upon completion of the encryption, it will display your new CONFIGKEY (See example below)
$ php artisan encryptenv:encrypt generate-key
Done!
Your new generated CONFIGKEY is: UQvq72E7ZFXE2sUvW2QsaXGCEgXav2jK
DO NOT lose this key if you want to use the encrypted config values you just encrypted.
You will need to update your web service configuration file with this new CONFIGKEY
Refer to the Install [Configure your web service] section in the README for more infoIf you already have a CONFIGKEY set up and configured for your web service, simply run the encryptenv:encrypt artisan command as follows:
Without the optional configkey argument
$ php artisan encryptenv:encryptWith the optional configkey argument
$ php artisan encryptenv:encrypt UQvq72E7ZFXE2sUvW2QsaXGCEgXav2jKIf you do not provide the configkey argument, you will be prompted for your Config Key,
either 16 characters or 32 characters long depending on which cipher you defined in config/encryptenv.php
Enter your Config Key into the prompt and press Enter when you are ready to start the encryption sequence
Example with Config Key prompt:
Config Key (16 char key):
> 95UMleZOvpAPVyba
Done!When the command has completed the encryption sequence it will display "Done!"
Check your environment variables file to make sure the values you want encrypted are as you expect.
Your .env file (or custom config) will look similar to this:
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_KEY=ENC:eyJpdiI6ImpBMlE0Q1VNK2J3MEdlWU9peSs0TFE9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiNUpsbDNzVUw2RWpWUE1rXC9xQTliNjltT3hLZWNZS1JqTVNRWGZ6cjBNaUFQc3FrUVJObENWNW1SaTlOaTVKdVUiLCJtYWMaUFQc3FrUVJObENWNWDJhNjZhMmE3NmUyYmJkYjQ3ODMxZmFiNmQ0ZTgxZTkxZDA5N2RhMjk2MGZmYzM5NTY4ZjcyIn0=
MAILCHIMP_API_KEY=ENC:eyJpdiI6IkUzK0c2QmdIMlkwQW56MEtYd3o5ZGc9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiTWRhZ1gxenZzUENaTFZCcVFJWmZIeTJ6NnpjZitzODVYMjROd2xyR295UTFXNhMWU3Y2xyR295UTFXbWkxZ3YrRnExNyIsIm1hYyI6IjM4N2MxZjM5MjIyMjRlZjAxZjc4xMnZ4TmRIODVYMjROd2xyR295UTFXNhMWU3YzZiZmNmY2JiYTQwNDQ1NmRjOTI4OTEifQ==
MAIL_USERNAME=ENC:eyJpdiMjkzMDkxOTY4MzY5OTUxMmFlMmYSIsInZhbHVlIjoieEo5ZjBzckRORnBQRlFTMDlQRkxlUXpXWjg0ME8zUFZvRHBCekhBXC9rXC9NPSIsIm1hYyI6IjFkZmJlMjQ5OWUxNGI0NWVkMTg4Yzk1ODE2OWU0YTJhZjQzMjkzMDkxOTY4MzY5OTUxMmFlMmY0MmMyZmIzNzMifQ==
MAIL_PASSWORD=ENC:eyJpdiI6IlU4a2lhMEFqa3hlcWZyQTlyOXd1c2c9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiVENPRFwvUldBNDRMUzZGeHNvT1lsSlQzcU41bWsyZ25HcW8zdTJYKytkTVU9IiwibWFjIjoiYWY5MGIwMGJjMDk5MTJiNTcxYzQzODIyODZiMjEyOXd1c2c9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiVENPRFwvU0OTMyMjUyZGVjOWUyNyJ9If you set everything up correctly, Laravel should now be working with your encrypted config values.
Note: You should run php artisan config:clear to clear your config cache just to be sure everything is truly working.
php artisan encryptenv:console
This command exists to allow you to run console commands that require your environment variables to be decrypted during execution.
For example php artisan encryptenv:console 'php artisan migrate'
The first required argument console_command, must be wrapped in single quotes or regular quotes
The second optional argument is configkey. This allows you to add console commands that require the CONFIGKEY to deployment scripts or cron jobs.
If you do not provide the configkey argument, you will be prompted for your Config Key,
either 16 characters or 32 characters long depending on which cipher you defined in config/encryptenv.php
Enter your Config Key into the prompt and press Enter when you are ready to execute your console command
Example with Config Key prompt:
Config Key (16 char key):
> 95UMleZOvpAPVybaOnce the Config key is set, the console command you entered into the console_command argument will be executed with decrypted access to your environment variables until execution is completed.
As noted above, you should do your due diligence to protect your config key from being saved in your shell's history.
You should make public/index.php read-only to non-privileged users. This prevents a malicious user from adding code to
index.php in order to retrieve decrypted config values or the decryption key itself (assuming conditional CONFIGKEY pass
explained in Install [Configure Your Web Service] section was followed).
Your web service configuration files should only be readable by the root user, otherwise a non-privileged user can read the CONFIGKEY (encryption key) by opening the configuration file in an editor like vim, emacs, nano, or simply using the cat command in a shell.
Most apache and nginx setups run their parent process as root, so there should not be an issue of the configuration files being readable by apache/nginx.