Profiles and Authentication

Advanced Connect Parameters

The following sections refer to the management of these fields in each connection properties screen in RED

The fields labelled "Session .." are never stored in the metadata and only persist, in-memory, for the duration of the user's session of RED. 

Additionally the users and passwords entered in the Scheduler Configuration screen in RED are never stored in the metadata and only persist, in-memory, for the duration of the user's session of RED. 

Connection Strings

RED will always construct an ODBC connection string for connecting to any ODBC data source, therefore all ODBC, Database and applicable Extensible Source Connections in RED require a connection string to be entered. If no connection string is provided (such as for upgraded repositories pre RED 10.2) then a default is derived for the session duration based on the presence or absence of the user and password fields.  
When saving a connection from the connection properties screen, the connection string is stored in the metadata and accepts the following RED tokens for automatic replacement at runtime to avoid storing any credentials in the metadata.

• $DSN$ - replaced at runtime with the ODBC Data Source Name of the connection.
• $USER$ - replaced at runtime with the Session User Id of the connection.
• $PASSWORD$ - replaced at runtime with Session Password of the connection.

Profiles and Session Credentials

For each ODBC, Database or Extensible Source Connection RED maintains an in-memory credential set including the username, password, and connection string for each connection. This in-memory credential set is what we term the ‘Profile’ for authentication during the session of RED.

Additionally the Scheduler Configuration credentials are also stored in-memory for the session and included in the Profile when saving it to disk.

The in-memory  profile  is session based and therefore the credentials are specific to the user logged on during that session. The connection string itself is however stored in the metadata so that each RED user still uses the same authentication method as other users while in the RED UI.

Saving Profiles to Disk

Profiles can be saved to disk so that users need not enter usernames and passwords into each of their connections whenever they log in to RED.

To save a Profile including session passwords, right click on the Connections node in the objects tree and select 'Save Profile'

Select a name to save the file as and choose to  Include Session Passwords. To ensure that all credentials are stored then make sure to open each connection and set the session credentials prior to saving the  Profile.

Tips for Using OAuth or similar authentication methods

For some authentication methods you may need to use a script (or web browser) to login to a data source and generate an access token to use in your connection string. The access token could then be added in the  Profile  file as the password for a connection. If you have expiring tokens then you will need to create a script to refresh your tokens and restart your scheduler service to pick up the new tokens.

This would involve the following general steps to be implemented in a script:

1. Log in to a server and get a new token (this should be a non-interactive process for the Scheduler).
2. Encrypt the token with Windows DPAPI ensuring the script is running as the same Windows User as the scheduler service.
3. Create a base64 Unicode string from the encrypted token
4. Modify the Scheduler  Profile  file (which is in .JSON format) replacing the password on the affected connection with the base64 string.
5. Restart the Scheduler service OR select ‘Poll for Status and Refresh  Profile’ from RED for the Scheduler.

Creating Encrypted Base-64 Unicode strings using PowerShell

Example PowerShell script to create an encrypted base-64 Unicode string using Windows DPAPI:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Security

$myPass = "myp@ssw0rd!"

# Convert the pwd string to a byte array.
$bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetBytes($myPass)

# Encrypt the byte array.
$encryptedBytes = [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Protect(
        $bytes, 
        $null, 
        [System.Security.Cryptography.DataProtectionScope]::CurrentUser)

# This is the equivalent form stored in the Profile files for RED
$encryptedProfilePassword=[System.Convert]::ToBase64String($encryptedBytes)

Write-Output $encryptedProfilePassword

If for some reason you need to decrypt the profile file passwords in a script the below method shows how to do this. Note that only the same Windows User that encrypted the password in the first place will be able to decrypt it.

Example PowerShell script to decrypt Windows DPAPI encrypted base64 Unicode string:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Security

# set this to an encrypted string taken from the Profile file
$encryptedProfilePassword=”<YOUR ENCRYPTED STRING>”

# first convert the extracted RED Profile string FromBase64String to Byte array
$encryptedBytes = [System.Convert]::FromBase64String($encryptedProfilePassword)

Write-Host "Encrypted Bytes" -ForegroundColor Cyan
Write-Host ([string] $encryptedBytes) -ForegroundColor DarkGreen

# Unencrypt the data.
$bytes = [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Unprotect(
        $encryptedBytes, 
        $null, 
        [System.Security.Cryptography.DataProtectionScope]::CurrentUser)

$plainTextPwd = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetString($bytes)

Write-Host "Decrypted Data" -ForegroundColor Cyan
Write-Host $plainTextPwd -ForegroundColor Red

Example Profile file

The profile file is a .JSON file which makes it easy to programmatically update any connection attributes it contains.

{
 "connections": [{
   "connectionName": "Tutorial (OLTP)",
   "connectionString": "dsn=$DSN$;uid=$USER$;pwd=$PASSWORD$;database=WslTutorial_DataSeq;",
   "password": "AQAAANCMnd8BFdERjHoAwE/Cl+sBAAAAK9Z1yRvrzEOIvwCfKZ96UAAAAAACAAAAAAAQZgAA",
   "userId": "red1"
  }, {
   "connectionName": "SQL_Target",
   "connectionString": "dsn=$DSN$;uid=$USER$;pwd=$PASSWORD$;database=sql15_9010_pg;",
   "password": "AQAAANCMnd8BFdERjHoAwE/Cl+sBAAAAK9Z1yRvrzEOIvwCfKZ96UAAAAAACAAAAAAAQZgAA",
   "userId": "red1"
  }, {
   "connectionName": "PostgreSQL_Target",
   "connectionString": "dsn=$DSN$;uid=$USER$;pwd=$PASSWORD$;database=pg15_9010;",
   "password": "AQAAANCMnd8BFdERjHoAwE/Cl+sBAAAAK9Z1yRvrzEOIvwCfKZ96UAAAAAACAAAAAAAQZgAA",
   "userId": "reduser_user"
  }, {
   "connectionName": "WslTutorial_DataSeq",
   "connectionString": "dsn=$DSN$;uid=$USER$;pwd=$PASSWORD$;",
   "password": "AQAAANCMnd8BFdERjHoAwE/Cl+sBAAAAK9Z1yRvrzEOIvwCfKZ96UAAAAAACAAAAAAAQZgAA",
   "userId": "red1"
  }
 ],
 "redConnectionMethod": "Advanced Connect",
 "redConnectionString": "dsn=$DSN$;uid=$USER$;pwd=$PASSWORD$;database=sql15_9010_pg;",
 "redDatabase": "sql15_9010_pg",
 "redDsn": "sql15",
 "redDsnArchitecture": "64",
 "redServer": "",
 "redServerPort": "",
 "redUserId": "red1",
 "redUserPwd": "AQAAANCMnd8BFdERjHoAwE/Cl+sBAAAAK9Z1yRvrzEOIvwCfKZ96UAAAAAACAAAAAAAQZgAA"
}

Using Profiles

The following Environment Variables are created at run-time for Scripts associated to ODBC, Database and Extensible Source Connections:
Where User, Password and Connection Strings are set from the current RED session credentials in the in-memory Profile.
WSL_<META|TGT|SRC>_CONSTRING contains the complete connection string with tokens $DSN$, $USER$, $PASSWORD$ replaced.
 

Using Advanced Connect with Command Line Tools

Dedicated Command Line Interface (RedCli.exe)

For RedCli commands that only perform RED Metadata operations use:
--meta-con-string "<connection string>"
For 'RedCli Deployment' commands a full Profile file will be required since both Metadata and Target connections will need to be established
--red-profile "<full path to Profile file>"

RED Client Command Line (med.exe)

For med.exe batch commands the connection string can be provided using:
--meta-con-string "<connection string>"
Batch documentation creation example:

med.exe --create-docs --output-dir "C:\temp\my_doco" --meta-dsn "sql15" --meta-dsn-arch "64" 
--meta-user-name "red1" --meta-password "mypass" --meta-con-string 
"dsn=$DSN$;uid=$USER$;pwd=$PASSWORD$;database=sql15;"

Enabling Advanced Connect on Extensible Source Connections

To enable Advanced Connect on an Extensible Source Connection you need to edit the UI Configuration for the connection. The new fields are shown below which enables the session credentials and connection string fields, enabling either of these fields will flag the connection as Advanced Connect. See the section Creating the Example Extensible Source Connection Set for more information.