Cinchy secrets manager

Overview

The Cinchy platform provides a built-in solution for securely storing secrets known as the Cinchy Secrets Table. Built with adherence to Cinchy’s Universal Access Controls, this table functions as a key vault similar to services like Azure Key Vault or AWS Secrets Manager. It allows you to store sensitive data that's accessible only to specific user groups with authorized access.

Within the Connections UI, you can use variables stored in this table, which then resolve as secrets. This approach ensures careful handling of confidential information. Some common use cases include:

• Including them in a connection string.
• Using them in REST Headers, URLs, or the request body.
• Configuring the Listener via the Listener Config table.

Cinchy has an API endpoint for retrieving your stored secrets.

Creating a secret

To create a secret in Cinchy:

1. Navigate to the [Cinchy].[Secrets] table on your platform.
2. Provide the following details for your secret:

Field	Description	Example
Secret Source	The location where the secret is stored. This field supports only 'Cinchy' as a source.	Cinchy
Domain	The domain name of the location where the secret is stored.	QA
Name	The identifier for your secret.	Password
Secret Value	The actual secret content.	YourSecretValueHere
Description	A brief explanation of the secret's purpose.	This secret contains the password for logging into the QA environment.
Read Groups	A list of User Groups with read access to the secret. These groups can access the secret via the API, table, Connections UI, or CQL.	GroupA, GroupB
Write Groups	A list of User Groups with write access to configure the secret.	GroupC, GroupD

Call a secret via API

Cinchy has anAPI endpoint designed for retrieving secrets. By utilizing the endpoint provided below, you can specify the <base-url>, <secret-name>, and <domain-name> to retrieve the desired secret.

This endpoint functions seamlessly with Cinchy’s Personal Access Token capability, along with Access Tokens obtained from your Identity Provider (IDP).

Blank Example:

<base-url>/api/v1.0/secrets-manager/secret?secretName=<secret-name>&domain=<domain-name>

Populated Example:

The example below uses ExampleSecret as a secretName and Sandbox as the domain:

Cinchy.net/api/v1.0/secrets-manager/secret?secretName=<ExampleSecret>&domain=<Sandbox>

The API response will be in the following format:

{
    "secretValue": "password123"
}

Use a secret as a connections variable

You can use secrets stored in the Cinchy Secrets table as variables for your data syncs, wherever you use a variable. For instance, you can incorporate them within a connection string, an access key ID, or within a REST Source or Destination in the Header.

To use a Secret within Connections:

1. In the Connections UI, navigate to Info > Variables.
2. Under the Variables section, select Secret.
3. Enter the name of your variable.
4. Under the Value dropdown, select the secret you want to assign from the Secrets table.

Use a secret in real-time syncs

You can also use your Cinchy Secrets when configuring your Listener for real-time syncs.

info

If the value of your secret changes, an automatic restart of the Listener Config will not be triggered. The old value will continue to be used until the Listener Config is disabled and re-enabled.

To use a secret in real-time syncs:

1. When configuring your sync, navigate to the Info Tab > Variables.

2. Under the Variables section, choose Secret.

3. Input the name of your variable.

4. Under the Value dropdown, choose the secret you intend to assign from the Secrets table.

5. Go to the Source tab.

6. Within the Listener section, input the secret variables as values for the relevant property in your Topic or Connection Attribute fields.

   For example:

   {
     "InstanceAuthUrl": "@Url",
     "ApiVersion": 41.0,
     "GrantType": "@GrantType",
     "ClientId": "@ClientId",
     "UserName": "@Username",
     "Password": "@Password"
   }

Use a secret in the Listener Config table

You can also add a secret that's attached to a variable to the Topic or Connection Attributes in the Listener Config table.

1. Open the Listener Config table.
2. Select the row that corresponds to your data sync.
3. Select the Topic or Connection Attribute cell you want to change.
4. Replace the value for a property with the variable assigned to a secret.

For example, in the JSON code below, the Connection Attribute property connectionString is replaced with the @connectionString variable defined in the data sync.

{
  "connectionString": "@connectionString",
  "retryConfiguration": {
    "retryMaxAttempts": "2",
    "retryDelayStrategy": "Linear"
  }
}

Listener Config parameters

The following table provides an overview of which parameters you can use as secrets for each event connector type.

Event Connector Type	Topic	Connection Attributes	Value as Parameter/Secrets
Cinchy CDC	tableGuid		No
	filter		Yes
	messageKeyExpression		Yes
	batchSize		No
Salesforce Push Topic	Name		Yes
	Id		Yes
	Query		Yes
		InstanceAuthUrl	Yes
		GrantType	Yes
		ClientId	Yes
		ClientSecret	Yes
		UserName	Yes
		Password	Yes
		ApiVersion	No
MongoDB Event	database		Yes
	collection		Yes
	pipelineStage		Yes
		connectionString	Yes
Data Polling	FromClause		Yes
	CursorColumn		Yes
	FilterCondition		Yes
	CursorColumnDataType		Yes
	Columns		Yes
	BatchSize		No
	Delay		No
		databaseType	Yes
		connectionString	Yes
Kafka Topic	topicName		Yes
		bootstrapServers	Yes
Salesforce Platform Event	Name		Yes
		InstanceAuthUrl	Yes
		GrantType	Yes
		ClientId	Yes
		ClientSecret	Yes
		UserName	Yes
		Password	Yes
		ApiVersion	No
Amazon SQS	deleteMessages		No
		awsRegion	No
		awsAccessKey	Yes
		awsSecret	Yes
		queueUrl	Yes