Moving Secrets to KeyVault

The application configuration file contained sensitive information like Device Provision Service(DPS) Group Enrollment Symmetric Keys and Azure IoT Hub connection strings which is OK for a proof of concept (PoC) but sub-optimal for production deployments.

"DeviceProvisioningService": {
      "GlobalDeviceEndpoint": "global.azure-devices-provisioning.net",
      "ScopeID": "",
      "EnrollmentGroupSymmetricKeyDefault": "TopSecretKey",
      "DeviceProvisioningPollingDelay": 500,
      "ApplicationEnrollmentGroupMapping": {
         "Application1": "TopSecretKey1",
         "Application2": "TopSecretKey2"
      }
   }

The Azure Key Vault is intended for securing sensitive information like connection strings so I added one to my resource group.

I wrote a wrapper which resolves configuration settings based on the The Things Network(TTN) application identifier and port information in the uplink message payload. The resolve methods start by looking for configuration for the applicationId and port (separated by a – ), then the applicationId and then finally falling back to a default value. This functionality is used for AzureIoTHub connection strings, DPS IDScopes, DPS Enrollment Group Symmetric Keys, and is also used to format the cache keys.

public class ApplicationConfiguration
{
const string DpsGlobaDeviceEndpointDefault = "global.azure-devices-provisioning.net";

private IConfiguration Configuration;

public void Initialise( )
{
   // Check that KeyVault URI is configured in environment variables. Not a lot we can do if it isn't....
   if (Configuration == null)
   {
      string keyVaultUri = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("KeyVaultURI");
      if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(keyVaultUri))
      {
         throw new ApplicationException("KeyVaultURI environment variable not set");
      }

      // Load configuration from KeyVault 
      Configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
         .AddEnvironmentVariables()
         .AddAzureKeyVault(keyVaultUri)
         .Build();
   }
}

public string DpsGlobaDeviceEndpointResolve()
{
   string globaDeviceEndpoint = Configuration.GetSection("DPSGlobaDeviceEndpoint").Value;
   if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(globaDeviceEndpoint))
   {
      globaDeviceEndpoint = DpsGlobaDeviceEndpointDefault;
   }

   return globaDeviceEndpoint;
}

public string ConnectionStringResolve(string applicationId, int port)
{
   // Check to see if there is application + port specific configuration
   string connectionString = Configuration.GetSection($"AzureIotHubConnectionString-{applicationId}-{port}").Value;
   if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(connectionString))
   {
      return connectionString;
   }

   // Check to see if there is application specific configuration, otherwise run with default
   connectionString = Configuration.GetSection($"AzureIotHubConnectionString-{applicationId}").Value;
   if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(connectionString))
   {
      return connectionString;
   }

   // get the default as not a specialised configuration
   connectionString = Configuration.GetSection("AzureIotHubConnectionStringDefault").Value;

   return connectionString;
}

public string DpsIdScopeResolve(string applicationId, int port)
{
   // Check to see if there is application + port specific configuration
   string idScope = Configuration.GetSection($"DPSIDScope-{applicationId}-{port}").Value;
   if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(idScope))
   {
      return idScope;
   }

   // Check to see if there is application specific configuration, otherwise run with default
   idScope = Configuration.GetSection($"DPSIDScope-{applicationId}").Value;
   if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(idScope))
   {
      return idScope;
   }

   // get the default as not a specialised configuration
   idScope = Configuration.GetSection("DPSIDScopeDefault").Value;

   if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(idScope))
   {
      throw new ApplicationException($"DPSIDScope configuration invalid");
   }

   return idScope;
}

The values of Azure function configuration settings are replaced by a reference to the secret in the Azure Key Vault.

In the Azure Key Vault “Access Policies” I configured an “Application Access Policy” so my Azure TTNAzureIoTHubMessageV2Processor function identity could retrieve secrets.

I kept on making typos in the secret names and types which was frustrating.

While debugging in Visual Studio you may need to configure the Azure Identity so the application can access the Azure Key Vault.