# 'Secret(s)' meeting 
**Date:** 2024-12-10  
**Present:** Ronny, Koen, Eric, Richard, Gheorghe, Kevin, Valentin, Robert, Bjorn, Nicolas   

## Goal of this meeting
Decide on how we want to deal with secrets, e.g. passwords for systems.

## Expected end result
At the end of this meeting we have a decision on how to continue with secrets

## Preparations
Please read this:    
https://git.fediversity.eu/Fediversity/meta/src/branch/main/secrets-management.md

## Decision made:  
**For now we wil continue with Agenix & keep our options open. We will also ask the security professionals for a sanity check. NLNet offers support from Radically Open Security for this. Ask them for their input & look into the security options (MFA etc). Please include advice on this for NixOps as well.**

## Actions   
@ronny will contact Radically Open Security (part of the NLNet offerings). This might take a few weeks as Ronny knows that ROS has a bit of backlog.  


### Team members perspectives, thoughts & observations     
* Koen 
	* Passbolt might be an option as well (https://www.passbolt.com). 
	* Vaultwarden is an api compatible reimplementation of Bitwarden.   
	* If fully automated: don't care, but if broken we need to be able to easily fix this
	* Vaultwarden is now used at Procolix. Secrets are now handled manually.  
	* Vaultwarden maintenance is a PITA. Without docker it failed, using it now using Docker. Vaultwarden in Nix works, but still a blackbox. Need to get more info on the internals in case something breaks. 
	* Pref solution: doubting: upfront time investment is not a problem. Is API usage by the Nix developers an obstabcle? Barrier as low as possible.
	* Choose something now, no multiple options.   
* Nicolas
	* agenix prefered when talking about Git type of solutions
	* Big question: git vs application
	* Pref solution: agenix one person setup, bootstrapping would be easier for me. Might need a bit more time to look into applications API's. 
* Eric
	* Secrets for systems & config have diff req vs those for users. One size fits all does not apply here. 
	* Pref solution: the solution with less moving parts.
	* Offers insights into experiences he has
* Valentin
	* Vaultwarden offers all the features we need. 
	* Passbolt needs to be researched to check for feature parity. 
	* Vaultwarden is already used by Procolix. 
	* Secrets application connects to NixOps via a resource provider 
	* Pref solution: application route. 
	* Domain experts have already thought about this. 
* Gheorghe:
	* Backup & restore should be taken into consideration as well. Test restoring with the solution you choose. 
	* Pref solution: keep eye on what to deliver. Nicholas has to deliver, so +1 with Nicolas. 
	* Other solution features need to be taken into account: e.g. MFA etc. 
* Bjorn
	* Using an application has the added benefit: users may use this as part of the services offered by Fediversity.
	* Pref solution: what's the exit plan? Do we have an exit plan? Should check the docs for import/export for both solutions. An application would be my preference. 
* Ronny 
	* Users usecase 
	* Sysadmin usecase 
	* Systems usecase 
	* TIL Agenix,  interesting. 
	* Diff between users facing & systems 
	* Pref solution: for sysadmins/users: app like Vaultwarden & for inter systems git
* Robert
	* In NixOps there's state incl secrets 
	* secrets could also be transferred to the secrets management tool
	* NixOps can call an app to generate secrets. Resource providers can stored this.
	* Pref solution: git based, because Robert is more adapted to git. 
* Kevin
	* Not so aquintainted with this topic
	* If stuff fails it would be  worthwhile to be able to access it. 
	* Pref solution: Vaultwarden. Api looks pretty good. 
* Richard: 
	* Worked with Vaultwarden & Bitwarden. Not nec pref. 
	* Only experienced the UI side not the CLI side. 
	* Pref solution: open to both solutions