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Challenge 7 - Dapr Secrets Management

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Introduction

In this challenge, you're going to add the Dapr secrets management building block.

Description

Almost all non-trivial applications need to securely store secret data like API keys, database passwords, and more. As a best practice, secrets should never be checked into the version control system. But at the same time, they need to be accessible to code running in production. This is generally a challenging requirement, but critical to get right.

Dapr provides a solution to this problem: The Dapr secrets building block. It includes an API and a secrets store.

Here's how it works:

  • Dapr exposes a secret store - a place to securely store secret data.
  • Dapr provides an API that enables applications to retrieve secrets from the store.

Popular secret stores include Kubernetes, Hashicorp Vault, and Azure KeyVault.

The following diagram depicts an application requesting the secret called "mysecret" from a secret store called "vault" from a configured cloud secret store:

Note the blue-colored Dapr secrets building block that sits between the application and secret stores.

For this challenge you'll use a file-based local secret store component. Local stores are meant for development or testing purposes. Never use them in production!

Alternatively, you can implement Azure KeyVault as your secret store in this challenge.

Another way of using secrets, is to reference them from Dapr configuration files. You will use both approaches in this challenge.

To learn more about the secrets building block, read the introduction to this building block in the Dapr documentation. Also, checkout the secrets chapter in the Dapr for .NET Developers guidance eBook.

Update the services to use a Dapr secrets buildling block.

  • Create a local JSON file & add the following credentials:
    • SMTP credentials (from the email* Dapr component configured in Challenge-05).
    • License key (from the Resources\FineCollectionService\Controllers\CollectionController.cs code file).
  • Create a Dapr configuration file for the local secret store JSON file.
  • Modify the email Dapr component configured in Challenge-05 to use this new secret store instead of having the SMTP credentials hard-coded in the configuration file.
  • Modify the FineCollectionService (CollectionController class) to pull the license key secret from the Dapr secret component instead of being hard-coded.
  • Restart all services & run the Simulation application.
  • Once you have the solution running locally, modify the Dapr configuration files to use an Azure KeyVault instead.

Success Criteria

This challenge targets the operation labeled as number 6 in the end-state setup:

Local

Azure

  • Validate that the credentials used by the SMTP output binding to connect to the SMTP server are retrieved using the Dapr secrets management building block.
  • Validate the FineCollectionService retrieves the license key for the FineCalculator component it uses from the Dapr secrets management building block.

Tips

  • Use a flat file to store secrets when working locally.
  • Use Azure KeyVault when deploying to Azure.

Learning Resources