Using CSMS to Prevent AK and SK Leakage
CSMS is a secure, reliable, and easy-to-use credential hosting service. Users or applications can use CSMS to create, retrieve, update, and delete credentials in a unified manner throughout the credential lifecycle. CSMS can help you eliminate risks incurred by hardcoding, plaintext configuration, and permission abuse.
Scenario
Save the AK and SK to prevent leakage.
How It Works
You can use Identity and Access Management (IAM) to obtain temporary access keys for Elastic Cloud Server (ECS) to protect AKs and SKs.
Access credentials can be classified into permanent credentials and temporary credentials based on their validity periods. Permanent access credentials include usernames and passwords. Temporary access keys have a shorter validity period, are updated frequently, thus are more secure. You can assign an IAM agency to an ECS instance, so that applications in the ECS instance can use the temporary AK, SK, and security token to access CSMS. The temporary access keys are dynamically obtained every time they are required. They can also be cached in the memory and updated periodically.
Process Flow

Constraint
Only the administrator or an IAM user with the ECS permission can configure an agency for an ECS instance.
Procedure
- Create an ECS agency on IAM.
- Log in to the management console.
- Click
on the left of the page and choose Management & Governance > Identity and Access Management. The Users page is displayed.
- In the navigation pane, choose Agencies.
- Click Create Agency in the upper right corner.
- Configure parameters in the Create Agency dialog box. For more information, see Agency parameters.
Figure 2 Creating an agency
Table 1 Agency parameters Parameter Name
Description
Agency Name
Enter an agency name. Example: ECS_TO_CSMS
Agency Type
Select Cloud service.
Cloud Service
Select Elastic Cloud Server (ECS) and Bare Metal Server (BMS).
Validity Period
Select a duration. The value can be Unlimited, 1 day, or Custom.
Description
(Optional) Enter agency description.
- Click Next to go to the authorization page.
- Click Create Policy in the upper right corner. If you already have a policy, skip this step.
- Configure policy parameters. For more information, see Policy parameters.
Figure 3 Creating a policy
Table 2 Policy parameters Parameter Name
Description
Policy Name
Enter a policy name.
Policy View
Select Visual editor.
Policy Content
- Allow: Select Allow.
- Select service: Select Cloud Secret Management Service (CSMS).
- Select action: Select read and write permissions as required.
- (Optional) Select resource: Select the scope of resources.
- Specific: Access specific credentials.
NOTE:
You can select Specify resource path, and then click Add Resource Path to specify an accessible credential.
- All: Access all credentials.
- Specific: Access specific credentials.
- (Optional) Add request condition: Click Add Request Condition, select a condition key and an operator, and enter values as required.
Description
(Optional) Enter policy description.
- Configure policy parameters. For more information, see Policy parameters.
- Select a policy for the agency. Click Next.
- Select a scope and click OK.
- All resources: IAM users will be able to use all resources, including those in enterprise projects, region-specific projects, and global services under your account based on assigned permissions.
- Enterprise projects: The selected permissions will be applied to resources in the enterprise projects you select.
- Region-specific projects: The selected permissions will be applied to resources in the region-specific projects you select.
- Assign an agency (for example, ECS_TO_CSMS) to an ECS instance.
- To create an ECS instance, perform the operations described in Creating an ECS. In Step 3: Configure Advanced Settings, select the new agency (for example, ECS_TO_CSMS).
- To use an existing ECS instance, perform the following steps:
- Click
on the left of the page and choose Management & Governance > Identity and Access Management. Go to the ECS page.
- Click the name of an ECS instance to go to the Summary page.
- In the Management Information area, click
and select an agency (for example, ECS_TO_CSMS).
Figure 4 Selecting an agency
- Click
- In an application running on the ECS instance, call an API to obtain the temporary agency credentials, including the temporary AK, SK, and security token, to access CSMS.
- Obtain the temporary AK and SK (in the Security Key directory). For details, see Obtaining Metadata.
- URI
- Method
- The following data is returned:
{ "credential":{ "access": "LDHZK30XXXXXXXXXXXXV", "secret":"gyqcdzVXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXMl6", "securitytoken": "El9FI2C65qXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXnkcaoV", "expires_at": "2022-07-14T12:09:24.147000Z" } }
- Extract the values of access, secret, and securitytoken to access CSMS.
- ECS automatically rotates temporary credentials to ensure that they are secure and valid.
- Use the temporary AK, SK, and security token to access CSMS.
- An example of the credential list is as follows. For details, see CSMS.
package com.huaweicloud.sdk.test; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.core.auth.ICredential; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.core.auth.BasicCredentials; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.core.exception.ConnectionException; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.core.exception.RequestTimeoutException; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.core.exception.ServiceResponseException; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.csms.v1.region.CsmsRegion; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.csms.v1.*; import com.huaweicloud.sdk.csms.v1.model.*; public class ListSecretsSolution { public static void main(String[] args) { String ak = "<YOUR AK>"; String sk = "<YOUR SK>"; String securitytoken = "<YOUR SecurityToken>"; ICredential auth = new BasicCredentials() .withAk(ak) .withSk(sk) .withSecurityToken(securitytoken); CsmsClient client = CsmsClient.newBuilder() .withCredential(auth) .withRegion(CsmsRegion.valueOf("cn-north-1")) .build(); ListSecretsRequest request = new ListSecretsRequest(); try { ListSecretsResponse response = client.listSecrets(request); System.out.println(response.toString()); } catch (ConnectionException e) { e.getMessage(); } catch (RequestTimeoutException e) { e.getMessage(); } catch (ServiceResponseException e) { e.getMessage(); System.out.println(e.getHttpStatusCode()); System.out.println(e.getErrorCode()); System.out.println(e.getErrorMsg()); } } }
- An example of the credential list is as follows. For details, see CSMS.
- Obtain the temporary AK and SK (in the Security Key directory). For details, see Obtaining Metadata.
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