10.11. Password Vaults for Sensitive Strings

10.11.1. About Securing Sensitive Strings in Clear-Text Files

Web applications and other deployments often include clear-text files, such as XML deployment descriptors, which include sensitive information such as passwords and other sensitive strings. JBoss EAP 6 includes a password vault mechanism which enables you to encrypt sensitive strings and store them in an encrypted keystore. The vault mechanism manages decrypting the strings for use with security domains, security realms, or other verification systems. This provides an extra layer of security. The mechanism relies upon tools that are included in all supported Java Development Kit (JDK) implementations.

Warning

Problems have been encountered when using the Vault security feature with JBoss EAP 6. It has been found that the vault.keystore generated the Sun/Oracle keytool is not a valid keystore when used with an IBM JDK. This is due to the fact that the JCEKS keystore implementations differ across Java vendors.
The issue presents when a keystore generated by Oracle Java is used in a JBoss EAP instance on an IBM Java installation. In these cases the server will not start and throws the following exception:
java.io.IOException: com.sun.crypto.provider.SealedObjectForKeyProtector
At the moment, the only workaround is to avoid attempting to use a keystore generated with an Oracle keytool in an environment using an IBM Java implementation.