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Identities

SOPS supports PGP, age, various KMSes, and key groups to give access to SOPS encrypted files.

1 - PGP / GnuPG

You can use PGP / GnuPG to encrypt data.

Test with the dev PGP key

If you want to test SOPS without having to do a bunch of setup, you can use the example files and pgp key provided with the repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/getsops/sops.git
$ cd sops
$ gpg --import pgp/sops_functional_tests_key.asc
$ sops edit example.yaml

This last step will decrypt example.yaml using the test private key.

Encrypting with GnuPG subkeys

If you want to encrypt with specific GnuPG subkeys, it does not suffice to provide the exact key ID of the subkey to SOPS, since GnuPG might use another subkey instead to encrypt the file key with. To force GnuPG to use a specific subkey, you need to append ! to the key’s fingerprint.

creation_rules:
    - pgp: >-
        85D77543B3D624B63CEA9E6DBC17301B491B3F21!,
        E60892BB9BD89A69F759A1A0A3D652173B763E8F!

Please note that this is only passed on correctly to GnuPG since SOPS 3.9.3.

Specify a different GPG executable

SOPS checks for the SOPS_GPG_EXEC environment variable. If specified, it will attempt to use the executable set there instead of the default of gpg.

Example: place the following in your ~/.bashrc

SOPS_GPG_EXEC = 'your_gpg_client_wrapper'

2 - Age

You can use age keys to encrypt data.

Encrypting using age

age is a simple, modern, and secure tool for encrypting files. It's recommended to use age over PGP, if possible.

You can encrypt a file for one or more age recipients (comma separated) using the --age option or the SOPS_AGE_RECIPIENTS environment variable:

$ sops encrypt --age age1yt3tfqlfrwdwx0z0ynwplcr6qxcxfaqycuprpmy89nr83ltx74tqdpszlw test.yaml > test.enc.yaml

When decrypting a file with the corresponding identity, SOPS will look for a text file name keys.txt located in a sops subdirectory of your user configuration directory.

  • Linux

    • Looks for keys.txt in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sops/age/keys.txt;
    • Falls back to $HOME/.config/sops/age/keys.txt if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME isn’t set.

  • macOS

    • Looks for keys.txt in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sops/age/keys.txt;
    • Falls back to $HOME/Library/Application Support/sops/age/keys.txt if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME isn’t set.

  • Windows

    • Looks for keys.txt in %AppData%\\sops\\age\\keys.txt.

You can override the default lookup by:

  • setting the environment variable SOPS_AGE_KEY_FILE;
  • setting the SOPS_AGE_KEY environment variable;
  • providing a command to output the age keys by setting the SOPS_AGE_KEY_CMD environment variable. This command can read the age recipient for which to return the private key from the SOPS_AGE_RECIPIENT environment variable.

The contents of this key file should be a list of age X25519 identities, one per line. Lines beginning with # are considered comments and ignored. Each identity will be tried in sequence until one is able to decrypt the data.

Encrypting with SSH keys via age is also supported by SOPS. You can use SSH public keys (ssh-ed25519 AAAA..., ssh-rsa AAAA...) as age recipients when encrypting a file.

When decrypting a file, SOPS will attempt to source the SSH private key as follows:

  • From the path specified in environment variable SOPS_AGE_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE.

  • From the output of the command specified in environment variable SOPS_AGE_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY_CMD.

    📝 Note

    The output of this command must provide a key that is not password protected.

  • From ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.

  • From ~/.ssh/id_rsa.

Note that only ssh-rsa and ssh-ed25519 are supported.

A list of age recipients can be added to the .sops.yaml:

creation_rules:
    - age: >-
        age1s3cqcks5genc6ru8chl0hkkd04zmxvczsvdxq99ekffe4gmvjpzsedk23c,
        age1qe5lxzzeppw5k79vxn3872272sgy224g2nzqlzy3uljs84say3yqgvd0sw

It is also possible to use updatekeys, when adding or removing age recipients. For example:

$ sops updatekeys secret.enc.yaml
2022/02/09 16:32:02 Syncing keys for file /iac/solution1/secret.enc.yaml
The following changes will be made to the file's groups:
Group 1
    age1s3cqcks5genc6ru8chl0hkkd04zmxvczsvdxq99ekffe4gmvjpzsedk23c
+++ age1qe5lxzzeppw5k79vxn3872272sgy224g2nzqlzy3uljs84say3yqgvd0sw
Is this okay? (y/n):y
2022/02/09 16:32:04 File /iac/solution1/secret.enc.yaml synced with new keys

3 - Amazon AWS KMS

You can use Amazon AWS’ KMS to encrypt data.

KMS AWS Profiles

If you want to use a specific profile, you can do so with `aws_profile`:

sops:
    kms:
        - arn: arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:656532927350:key/920aff2e-c5f1-4040-943a-047fa387b27e
          aws_profile: foo

If no AWS profile is set, default credentials will be used.

Similarly the --aws-profile flag can be set with the command line with any of the KMS commands.

Assuming roles and using KMS in various AWS accounts

SOPS has the ability to use KMS in multiple AWS accounts by assuming roles in each account. Being able to assume roles is a nice feature of AWS that allows administrators to establish trust relationships between accounts, typically from the most secure account to the least secure one. In our use-case, we use roles to indicate that a user of the Master AWS account is allowed to make use of KMS master keys in development and staging AWS accounts. Using roles, a single file can be encrypted with KMS keys in multiple accounts, thus increasing reliability and ease of use.

You can use keys in various accounts by tying each KMS master key to a role that the user is allowed to assume in each account. The IAM roles documentation has full details on how this needs to be configured on AWS's side.

From the point of view of SOPS, you only need to specify the role a KMS key must assume alongside its ARN, as follows:

sops:
    kms:
        - arn: arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:656532927350:key/920aff2e-c5f1-4040-943a-047fa387b27e
          role: arn:aws:iam::927034868273:role/sops-dev-xyz

The role must have permission to call Encrypt and Decrypt using KMS. An example policy is shown below.

{
  "Sid": "Allow use of the key",
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Action": [
    "kms:Encrypt",
    "kms:Decrypt",
    "kms:ReEncrypt*",
    "kms:GenerateDataKey*",
    "kms:DescribeKey"
  ],
  "Resource": "*",
  "Principal": {
    "AWS": [
      "arn:aws:iam::927034868273:role/sops-dev-xyz"
    ]
  }
}

You can specify a role in the --kms flag and SOPS_KMS_ARN variable by appending it to the ARN of the master key, separated by a + sign:

<KMS ARN>+<ROLE ARN>
arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:927034868273:key/fe86dd69-4132-404c-ab86-4269956b4500+arn:aws:iam::927034868273:role/sops-dev-xyz

AWS KMS Encryption Context

SOPS has the ability to use AWS KMS key policy and encryption context to refine the access control of a given KMS master key.

When creating a new file, you can specify the encryption context in the --encryption-context flag by comma separated list of key-value pairs:

$ sops edit --encryption-context Environment:production,Role:web-server test.dev.yaml

The format of the Encrypt Context string is <EncryptionContext Key>:<EncryptionContext Value>,<EncryptionContext Key>:<EncryptionContext Value>,...

The encryption context will be stored in the file metadata and does not need to be provided at decryption.

Encryption contexts can be used in conjunction with KMS Key Policies to define roles that can only access a given context. An example policy is shown below:

{
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Principal": {
    "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/RoleForExampleApp"
  },
  "Action": "kms:Decrypt",
  "Resource": "*",
  "Condition": {
    "StringEquals": {
      "kms:EncryptionContext:AppName": "ExampleApp",
      "kms:EncryptionContext:FilePath": "/var/opt/secrets/"
    }
  }
}

4 - Azure KMS

You can use Azure’s KMS to encrypt data.

Encrypting using Azure Key Vault

The Azure Key Vault integration uses the default credential chain which tries several authentication methods, in this order:

  1. Environment credentials

    1. Service Principal with Client Secret
    2. Service Principal with Certificate
    3. User with username and password
    4. Configuration for multi-tenant applications

  2. Workload Identity credentials

  3. Managed Identity credentials

  4. Azure CLI credentials

For example, you can use a Service Principal with the following environment variables:

AZURE_TENANT_ID
AZURE_CLIENT_ID
AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET

You can create a Service Principal using the CLI like this:

$ az ad sp create-for-rbac -n my-keyvault-sp

{
    "appId": "<some-uuid>",
    "displayName": "my-keyvault-sp",
    "name": "http://my-keyvault-sp",
    "password": "<random-string>",
    "tenant": "<tenant-uuid>"
}

The appId is the client ID, and the password is the client secret.

Encrypting/decrypting with Azure Key Vault requires the resource identifier for a key. This has the following form:

https://${VAULT_URL}/keys/${KEY_NAME}/${KEY_VERSION}

You can omit the version, and have just a trailing slash, and this will use whatever the latest version of the key is:

https://${VAULT_URL}/keys/${KEY_NAME}/

To create a Key Vault and assign your service principal permissions on it from the commandline:

# Create a resource group if you do not have one:
$ az group create --name sops-rg --location westeurope
# Key Vault names are globally unique, so generate one:
$ keyvault_name=sops-$(uuidgen | tr -d - | head -c 16)
# Create a Vault, a key, and give the service principal access:
$ az keyvault create --name $keyvault_name --resource-group sops-rg --location westeurope
$ az keyvault key create --name sops-key --vault-name $keyvault_name --protection software --ops encrypt decrypt
$ az keyvault set-policy --name $keyvault_name --resource-group sops-rg --spn $AZURE_CLIENT_ID \
    --key-permissions get encrypt decrypt
# Read the key id:
$ az keyvault key show --name sops-key --vault-name $keyvault_name --query key.kid

https://sops.vault.azure.net/keys/sops-key/some-string

📝 Note

The get key permission is required when the key version is ommited (for example if the URL ends with a trailing slash). In that case SOPS calls the Azure Key Vault API to resolve the latest key version, which requires the get permission. If you specifty an explicit key version in the URL you can omit get, but this means you will need to update your configuration every time the key is rotated.

Now you can encrypt a file using:

$ sops encrypt --azure-kv https://sops.vault.azure.net/keys/sops-key/some-string test.yaml > test.enc.yaml

or, without the version:

$ sops encrypt --azure-kv https://sops.vault.azure.net/keys/sops-key/ test.yaml > test.enc.yaml

And decrypt it using:

$ sops decrypt test.enc.yaml

5 - Google Cloud KMS

You can use Google Cloud’s KMS to encrypt data.

Encrypting using GCP KMS

GCP KMS has support for authorization with the use of Application Default Credentials and using an OAuth 2.0 token. Application default credentials precedes the use of access token.

Using Application Default Credentials you can authorize by doing this:

$ gcloud auth login

you can enable application default credentials using the sdk:

$ gcloud auth application-default login

Using OAauth tokens you can authorize by doing this:

$ export GOOGLE_OAUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN=<your access token>

Or if you are logged in you can authorize by generating an access token:

$ export GOOGLE_OAUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN="$(gcloud auth print-access-token)"

By default, SOPS uses the gRPC client to communicate with GCP KMS. You can optionally switch to the REST client by setting the SOPS_GCP_KMS_CLIENT_TYPE environment variable:

$ export SOPS_GCP_KMS_CLIENT_TYPE=rest  # Use REST client
$ export SOPS_GCP_KMS_CLIENT_TYPE=grpc  # Use gRPC client (default)

For sovereign cloud environments that expose a GCP-compatible KMS API at a non-standard endpoint (e.g. S3NS/Thales TPC: cloudkms.s3nsapis.fr), you can override the endpoint or the universe domain:

# Override the KMS endpoint directly
$ export SOPS_GCP_KMS_ENDPOINT=cloudkms.example.com:443

# Or derive the endpoint from the universe domain (cloudkms.<domain>:443)
$ export SOPS_GCP_KMS_UNIVERSE_DOMAIN=example.com

📝 Note

SOPS_GCP_KMS_ENDPOINT takes precedence over SOPS_GCP_KMS_UNIVERSE_DOMAIN if both are set.

Encrypting/decrypting with GCP KMS requires a KMS ResourceID. You can use the cloud console the get the ResourceID or you can create one using the gcloud sdk:

$ gcloud kms keyrings create sops --location global
$ gcloud kms keys create sops-key --location global --keyring sops --purpose encryption
$ gcloud kms keys list --location global --keyring sops

# you should see
NAME                                                                   PURPOSE          PRIMARY_STATE
projects/my-project/locations/global/keyRings/sops/cryptoKeys/sops-key ENCRYPT_DECRYPT  ENABLED

Now you can encrypt a file using:

$ sops encrypt --gcp-kms projects/my-project/locations/global/keyRings/sops/cryptoKeys/sops-key test.yaml > test.enc.yaml

And decrypt it using:

$ sops decrypt test.enc.yaml

6 - HashiCorp Vault / OpenBao

You can use HashiCorp Vault or OpenBao to encrypt data.

Encrypting using Hashicorp Vault

We assume you have an instance (or more) of Vault running and you have privileged access to it. For instructions on how to deploy a secure instance of Vault, refer to Hashicorp's official documentation.

To easily deploy Vault locally: (DO NOT DO THIS FOR PRODUCTION!!!)

$ docker run -d -p8200:8200 vault:1.2.0 server -dev -dev-root-token-id=toor

$ # Substitute this with the address Vault is running on
$ export VAULT_ADDR=http://127.0.0.1:8200 

$ # this may not be necessary in case you previously used `vault login` for production use
$ export VAULT_TOKEN=toor 

$ # to check if Vault started and is configured correctly
$ vault status
Key             Value
---             -----
Seal Type       shamir
Initialized     true
Sealed          false
Total Shares    1
Threshold       1
Version         1.2.0
Cluster Name    vault-cluster-618cc902
Cluster ID      e532e461-e8f0-1352-8a41-fc7c11096908
HA Enabled      false

$ # It is required to enable a transit engine if not already done (It is suggested to create a transit engine specifically for SOPS, in which it is possible to have multiple keys with various permission levels)
$ vault secrets enable -path=sops transit
Success! Enabled the transit secrets engine at: sops/

$ # Then create one or more keys
$ vault write sops/keys/firstkey type=rsa-4096
Success! Data written to: sops/keys/firstkey

$ vault write sops/keys/secondkey type=rsa-2048
Success! Data written to: sops/keys/secondkey

$ vault write sops/keys/thirdkey type=chacha20-poly1305
Success! Data written to: sops/keys/thirdkey

$ sops encrypt --hc-vault-transit $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sops/keys/firstkey vault_example.yml

$ cat <<EOF > .sops.yaml
creation_rules:
    - path_regex: \.dev\.yaml$
      hc_vault_transit_uri: "$VAULT_ADDR/v1/sops/keys/secondkey"
    - path_regex: \.prod\.yaml$
      hc_vault_transit_uri: "$VAULT_ADDR/v1/sops/keys/thirdkey"
EOF

$ sops encrypt --verbose prod/raw.yaml > prod/encrypted.yaml

Restricting HC Vault servers that SOPS can talk to

If you want to restrict which HC Vault servers SOPS is allowed to talk to, you can set the SOPS_HC_VAULT_ALLOWLIST environment variable. When set to all (the default value), there is no restriction. When set to none, SOPS will not allow any access to HC Vault servers for decryption or encryption.

When set to any other value, this value will be interpreted as a comma-separated list of strings. If SOPS attempts to contact a vault URL that starts with one of these strings, SOPS will attempt to contact that URL. If there is no matching prefix in SOPS_HC_VAULT_ALLOWLIST, SOPS will not contact that URL.

7 - HuaweiCloud KMS

You can use HuaweiCloud’s KMS to encrypt data.

Encrypting using HuaweiCloud KMS

The HuaweiCloud KMS integration uses the default credential provider chain which tries several authentication methods, in this order:

  1. Environment variables: HUAWEICLOUD_SDK_AK, HUAWEICLOUD_SDK_SK, HUAWEICLOUD_SDK_PROJECT_ID
  2. Credentials file at ~/.huaweicloud/credentials
  3. Instance metadata (when running on HuaweiCloud instances)

For example, you can use environment variables:

export HUAWEICLOUD_SDK_AK="your-access-key"
export HUAWEICLOUD_SDK_SK="your-secret-key"
export HUAWEICLOUD_SDK_PROJECT_ID="your-project-id"

Alternatively, you can create a credentials file at ~/.huaweicloud/credentials:

$ cat ~/.huaweicloud/credentials
[default]
ak = your-access-key
sk = your-secret-key
project_id = your-project-id

Encrypting/decrypting with HuaweiCloud KMS requires a KMS key ID in the format region:key-uuid. You can get the key ID from the HuaweiCloud console or using the HuaweiCloud API. The key ID format is region:key-uuid where:

  • region is the HuaweiCloud region (e.g., tr-west-1, cn-north-1)
  • key-uuid is the UUID of the KMS key (e.g., abc12345-6789-0123-4567-890123456789)

Now you can encrypt a file using:

$ sops encrypt --hckms tr-west-1:abc12345-6789-0123-4567-890123456789 test.yaml > test.enc.yaml

Or using the environment variable:

$ export SOPS_HUAWEICLOUD_KMS_IDS="tr-west-1:abc12345-6789-0123-4567-890123456789"
$ sops encrypt test.yaml > test.enc.yaml

And decrypt it using:

$ sops decrypt test.enc.yaml

You can also configure HuaweiCloud KMS keys in the .sops.yaml config file:

creation_rules:
    - path_regex: \.hckms\.yaml$
      hckms:
        - tr-west-1:abc12345-6789-0123-4567-890123456789,tr-west-2:def67890-1234-5678-9012-345678901234

8 - Key groups

Key groups allow to require multiple identities together to edit or decrypt a file.

Key groups

By default, SOPS encrypts the data key for a file with each of the master keys, such that if any of the master keys is available, the file can be decrypted. However, it is sometimes desirable to require access to multiple master keys in order to decrypt files. This can be achieved with key groups.

When using key groups in SOPS, data keys are split into parts such that keys from multiple groups are required to decrypt a file. SOPS uses Shamir's Secret Sharing to split the data key such that each key group has a fragment, each key in the key group can decrypt that fragment, and a configurable number of fragments (threshold) are needed to decrypt and piece together the complete data key. When decrypting a file using multiple key groups, SOPS goes through key groups in order, and in each group, tries to recover the fragment of the data key using a master key from that group. Once the fragment is recovered, SOPS moves on to the next group, until enough fragments have been recovered to obtain the complete data key.

By default, the threshold is set to the number of key groups. For example, if you have three key groups configured in your SOPS file and you don't override the default threshold, then one master key from each of the three groups will be required to decrypt the file.

Management of key groups is done with the sops groups command.

For example, you can add a new key group with 3 PGP keys and 3 KMS keys to the file my_file.yaml:

$ sops groups add --file my_file.yaml --pgp fingerprint1 --pgp fingerprint2 --pgp fingerprint3 --kms arn1 --kms arn2 --kms arn3

Or you can delete the 1st group (group number 0, as groups are zero-indexed) from my_file.yaml:

$ sops groups delete --file my_file.yaml 0

Key groups can also be specified in the .sops.yaml config file, like so:

creation_rules:
    - path_regex: .*keygroups.*
      key_groups:
          # First key group
          - pgp:
                - fingerprint1
                - fingerprint2
            kms:
                - arn: arn1
                  role: role1
                  context:
                      foo: bar
                - arn: arn2
                  aws_profile: myprofile
          # Second key group
          - pgp:
                - fingerprint3
                - fingerprint4
            kms:
                - arn: arn3
                - arn: arn4
          # Third key group
          - pgp:
                - fingerprint5

Given this configuration, we can create a new encrypted file like we normally would, and optionally provide the --shamir-secret-sharing-threshold command line flag if we want to override the default threshold. SOPS will then split the data key into three parts (from the number of key groups) and encrypt each fragment with the master keys found in each group.

For example:

$ sops edit --shamir-secret-sharing-threshold 2 example.json

Alternatively, you can configure the Shamir threshold for each creation rule in the .sops.yaml config with shamir_threshold:

creation_rules:
    - path_regex: .*keygroups.*
      shamir_threshold: 2
      key_groups:
          # First key group
          - pgp:
                - fingerprint1
                - fingerprint2
            kms:
                - arn: arn1
                  role: role1
                  context:
                      foo: bar
                - arn: arn2
                  aws_profile: myprofile
          # Second key group
          - pgp:
                - fingerprint3
                - fingerprint4
            kms:
                - arn: arn3
                - arn: arn4
          # Third key group
          - pgp:
                - fingerprint5

And then run sops edit example.json.

The threshold (shamir_threshold) is set to 2, so this configuration will require master keys from two of the three different key groups in order to decrypt the file. You can then decrypt the file the same way as with any other SOPS file:

$ sops decrypt example.json

9 - Config file

How to use .sops.yaml config files to select which identities to use for new files.

Using .sops.yaml conf to select KMS, PGP and age for new files

It is often tedious to specify the --kms --gcp-kms --hckms --pgp and --age parameters for creation of all new files. If your secrets are stored under a specific directory, like a git repository, you can create a .sops.yaml configuration file at the root directory to define which keys are used for which filename.

📝 Note

The file needs to be named .sops.yaml. Other names (i.e. .sops.yml) won’t be automatically discovered by sops. You’ll need to pass the --config .sops.yml option for it to be picked up.

Let's take an example:

  • file named something.dev.yaml should use one set of KMS A, PGP and age
  • file named something.prod.yaml should use another set of KMS B, PGP and age
  • other files use a third set of KMS C and PGP
  • all live under mysecretrepo/something.{dev,prod,gcp}.yaml

Under those circumstances, a file placed at mysecretrepo/.sops.yaml can manage the three sets of configurations for the three types of files:

# creation rules are evaluated sequentially, the first match wins
creation_rules:
    # upon creation of a file that matches the pattern *.dev.yaml,
    # KMS set A as well as PGP and age is used
    - path_regex: \.dev\.yaml$
      kms: 'arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:927034868273:key/fe86dd69-4132-404c-ab86-4269956b4500,arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:361527076523:key/5052f06a-5d3f-489e-b86c-57201e06f31e+arn:aws:iam::361527076523:role/hiera-sops-prod'
      pgp: 'FBC7B9E2A4F9289AC0C1D4843D16CEE4A27381B4'
      age: 'age129h70qwx39k7h5x6l9hg566nwm53527zvamre8vep9e3plsm44uqgy8gla'

    # prod files use KMS set B in the PROD IAM, PGP and age
    - path_regex: \.prod\.yaml$
      kms: 'arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:361527076523:key/5052f06a-5d3f-489e-b86c-57201e06f31e+arn:aws:iam::361527076523:role/hiera-sops-prod,arn:aws:kms:eu-central-1:361527076523:key/cb1fab90-8d17-42a1-a9d8-334968904f94+arn:aws:iam::361527076523:role/hiera-sops-prod'
      pgp: 'FBC7B9E2A4F9289AC0C1D4843D16CEE4A27381B4'
      age: 'age129h70qwx39k7h5x6l9hg566nwm53527zvamre8vep9e3plsm44uqgy8gla'
      hc_vault_uris: "http://localhost:8200/v1/sops/keys/thirdkey"

    # gcp files using GCP KMS
    - path_regex: \.gcp\.yaml$
      gcp_kms: projects/mygcproject/locations/global/keyRings/mykeyring/cryptoKeys/thekey

    # hckms files using HuaweiCloud KMS
    - path_regex: \.hckms\.yaml$
      hckms: tr-west-1:abc12345-6789-0123-4567-890123456789,tr-west-2:def67890-1234-5678-9012-345678901234

    # Finally, if the rules above have not matched, this one is a
    # catchall that will encrypt the file using KMS set C as well as PGP
    # The absence of a path_regex means it will match everything
    - kms: 'arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:927034868273:key/fe86dd69-4132-404c-ab86-4269956b4500,arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:142069644989:key/846cfb17-373d-49b9-8baf-f36b04512e47,arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:361527076523:key/5052f06a-5d3f-489e-b86c-57201e06f31e'
      pgp: 'FBC7B9E2A4F9289AC0C1D4843D16CEE4A27381B4'

When creating any file under mysecretrepo, whether at the root or under a subdirectory, SOPS will recursively look for a .sops.yaml file. If one is found, the filename of the file being created is compared with the filename regexes of the configuration file. The first regex that matches is selected, and its KMS and PGP keys are used to encrypt the file. It should be noted that the looking up of .sops.yaml is from the working directory (CWD) instead of the directory of the encrypting file (see Issue 242).

The path_regex checks the path of the encrypting file relative to the .sops.yaml config file. Here is another example:

  • files located under directory development should use one set of KMS A
  • files located under directory production should use another set of KMS B
  • other files use a third set of KMS C
creation_rules:
    # upon creation of a file under development,
    # KMS set A is used
    - path_regex: .*/development/.*
      kms: 'arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:927034868273:key/fe86dd69-4132-404c-ab86-4269956b4500,arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:361527076523:key/5052f06a-5d3f-489e-b86c-57201e06f31e+arn:aws:iam::361527076523:role/hiera-sops-prod'
      pgp: 'FBC7B9E2A4F9289AC0C1D4843D16CEE4A27381B4'

    # prod files use KMS set B in the PROD IAM
    - path_regex: .*/production/.*
      kms: 'arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:361527076523:key/5052f06a-5d3f-489e-b86c-57201e06f31e+arn:aws:iam::361527076523:role/hiera-sops-prod,arn:aws:kms:eu-central-1:361527076523:key/cb1fab90-8d17-42a1-a9d8-334968904f94+arn:aws:iam::361527076523:role/hiera-sops-prod'
      pgp: 'FBC7B9E2A4F9289AC0C1D4843D16CEE4A27381B4'

    # other files use KMS set C
    - kms: 'arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:927034868273:key/fe86dd69-4132-404c-ab86-4269956b4500,arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:142069644989:key/846cfb17-373d-49b9-8baf-f36b04512e47,arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:361527076523:key/5052f06a-5d3f-489e-b86c-57201e06f31e'
      pgp: 'FBC7B9E2A4F9289AC0C1D4843D16CEE4A27381B4'

Creating a new file with the right keys is now as simple as

$ sops edit <newfile>.prod.yaml

Note that the configuration file is ignored when KMS or PGP parameters are passed on the SOPS command line or in environment variables.