secure-data-hub-client

JavaScript Secure Data Hub Client (secure-data-hub-client)

A JavaScript library for Web and node.js apps for interfacing with a remote Secure Data Hub server

Table of Contents

• Background
• Install
• Usage
• API
• Contribute
• Commercial Support
• License

Background

This library provides a client that Web and node.js apps can use to interface with remote Secure Data Hub servers.

It consists of one main class:

1. DataHubClient - instances provide a CRUD (+ find) interface to a specific configured Data Hub server and ensure appropriate database indexes are set up. Static methods allow for the creation of data hubs with a remote storage service, e.g. Data Hub storage server.

Install

To install locally (for development):

git clone https://github.com/digitalbazaar/secure-data-hub-client.git
cd secure-data-hub-client
npm install

Usage

Creating and registering a secure data hub

First, create a key agreement key and an HMAC (hash-based message authentication code) key for encrypting your documents and blinding any indexed attributes in them. This requires creating some cryptographic key material which can be done locally or via a KMS system. The current example shows using a KMS system (TODO: show a simpler local example):

import {ControllerKey, KmsClient} from 'web-kms-client';
import {DataHubClient} from 'secure-data-hub-client';

Although Secure Data Hubs are not bound to any particular key management system, we recommend that you set up a Key Management Service using an implementation such as web-kms-switch which you can connect to using web-kms-client.

Optional:

// Create a Controller Key (via a key management service)
const kmsService = new KmsService();
const controllerKey = await ControllerKey.fromSecret({secret, handle});

// TODO: create keystore for controllerKey and update
// controllerKey.kmsClient.keystore, or improve API to do this automatically

// Use the Controller Key to create key agreement and HMAC keys
const keyAgreementKey = await controllerKey.generateKey({type: 'keyAgreement'});
const hmac = await controllerKey.generateKey({type: 'hmac'});

Now you can create and register a new data hub configuration:

// TODO: explain data hub service must be able to authenticate user against this
// using http signatures
const controller = 'account id goes here';

const config = {
  sequence: 0,  // TODO: is sequence required?
  controller,
  // TODO: Explain what 'referenceId' is
  referenceId: 'primary',
  keyAgreementKey: {id: keyAgreementKey.id, type: keyAgreementKey.type},
  hmac: {id: hmac.id, type: hmac.type}
};

// sends a POST request to the remote service to create a data hub
const remoteConfig = await DataHubClient.createDataHub({config});

// connect to the new data hub via a `DataHubClient`
const hub = new DataHubClient({id: remoteConfig.id, keyAgreementKey, hmac});

Loading a saved data hub config

If you have previously registered a data hub config (via createDataHub()), and you know its id, you can fetch its config via get():

// registered config
const {id} = await DataHubClient.createDataHub({config});

// later, it can be fetched via the id
const remoteConfig = await DataHubClient.getConfig({id});

// connect to the existing data hub via a `DataHubClient` instance
const hub = new DataHubClient({id: remoteConfig.id, keyAgreementKey, hmac});

If you know a controller/accountId but do not know a specific hub id, you can request a data hub by a controller-scoped custom referenceId:

// get the account's 'primary' data hub config to connect to the data hub
// note that a referenceId can be any string but must be unique per controller
const config = await DataHub.findConfig(
  {controller: accountId, referenceId: 'primary'});
const hub = new DataHubClient({id: config.id, keyAgreementKey, hmac});

Using a DataHubClient instance for document storage

See the API section below.

API

DataHubClient

constructor

insert

get

update

delete

find

ensureIndex

updateIndex

Contribute

Please follow the existing code style.

PRs accepted.

If editing the Readme, please conform to the standard-readme specification.

Commercial Support

Commercial support for this library is available upon request from Digital Bazaar: [e-mail]

License

BSD-3-Clause © Digital Bazaar