Using RSTUF

RSTUF allows organizations to easily integrate the robust TUF metadata along the existing content repositories using the RSTUF API.

Adding or removing artifacts to the content repository to protect the user must be added to TUF metadata, enabling the TUF Client to fetch the new artifact using the trusted metadata.

@startuml
    agent release
    folder content_repository as "Content Repository" {
        artifact vxyz as "downloads/release/project/artifact-vX.Y.Z"
    }
    folder metadat as "TUF Metadata" #DodgerBlue {
        rectangle vxyz_metadata as "release/project/artifact-vX.Y.Z"
    }
    release --> vxyz
    release --> vxyz_metadata
@enduml

Releasing the artifact in the content repository does not require changes to the existing process.

To manage artifacts in the TUF metadata, use HTTP requests to the RSTUF API. The main actions are adding or removing artifacts to the metadata.

A successful RSTUF deployment will have an RSTUF HTTP(S) API service

http://<IP ADDRESS>/api/v1/

Assuming a successful Repository Service for TUF (RSTUF) Deployment and Service Setup is complete.

Looking for a quick try-out? See the Quick Start (Demo deployment).

Main RSTUF usage:

Adding/Removing artifacts to TUF Metadata

Adding artifacts

Send requests to http://<IP ADDRESS>/api/v1/artifacts with method POST with a JSON payload.

Note

See the complete API documentation

Add artifacts payload

 1{
 2    "artifacts": [
 3        {
 4            "info": {
 5                "length": "<LENGTH>",
 6                "hashes": {
 7                    "<HASH-NAME>": "<HASH>"
 8                },
 9                "custom": {
10                    "key": "value"
11                }
12            },
13            "path": "<PATH>"
14        }
15    ]
16}
Artifacts parameters

Parameters

Details

Example

INFO

Artifacts Info parameters

{"length": 48365, "hashes": {"sha256": "95cef21e0d8707e4b46c85cd130a37c5c03f747f140b7d9e2bd817b7fcc13511"}, "custom" : {"key": "value"}}

PATH

The full artifact path, excluding the Base URL. If clients will look for artifacts in http://example.com/download/release/projectA/file1.tar.gz the path should exclude the Base URL http://example.com/download/

release/projectA/file1.tar.gz

Artifacts Info parameters

Parameters

Details

Example

LENGTH

An integer length in bytes of the artifact

48365

HASH-NAME

A hash algorithm names

sha256

HASH

The hash output, such as shasum -a 256 <artifact>

95cef21e0d8707e4b46c85cd130a37c5c03f747f140b7d9e2bd817b7fcc13511

CUSTOM

Custom key-value pairs

{"key": "value"}

Removing artifacts

Send requests to http://<IP ADDRESS>/api/v1/artifacts/delete with method POST with a JSON payload.

Note

See the complete API documentation

Remove artifacts payload

1{
2    "artifacts": ["<PATH>"]
3}
Required parameters

Parameters

Details

Example

PATH

The full artifact path, excluding the Base URL. If clients will look for artifacts in http://example.com/download/release/projectA/file1.tar.gz the path should exclude the Base URL http://example.com/download/

release/projectA/file1.tar.gz

Advanced Usage

Managing adding/removing artifacts tasks – call-backs

Adding/removing artifacts to Repository Service for TUF (RSTUF) is an asynchronous process.

Submitting a request for adding/removing will return an HTTP status code 202, meaning the task is submitted. As part of the body, there is the task id.

Response body adding/removing artifacts, task id:

{
    "data": {
        "task_id": "<TASK ID>",
    },
}

This body has more details such as artifacts, last_update, etc. See the endpoint response documentation

To retrieve the task status, send requests to http://<IP ADDRESS>/api/v1/task?task_id=<TASK ID> with method GET.

The response will have a body with all task details

{
    "data": {
        "task_id": "<TASK ID>",
        "state": "<STATE>",
        "result": {
        "status": "Task finished.",
        "details": {
            "key": "value"
        }
    },
    "message": "Task state."
}

See the endpoint task documentation for more details.

Adding artifacts for back-signing

Repository Service for TUF (RSTUF) allows adding artifacts without publishing immediately to the TUF Metadata.

As example, an organization adds and removes artifacts while batch publishing daily.

This feature requires adding the publish_artifacts parameter to Add artifacts payload or Remove artifacts payload.

Examples:

Adding artifacts without publishing

 1{
 2    "artifacts": [
 3        {
 4            "info": {
 5                "length": "<LENGTH>",
 6                "hashes": {
 7                    "<HASH-NAME>": "<HASH>"
 8                },
 9            },
10            "path": "<PATH>"
11        }
12    ],
13    "publish_artifacts": false
14}

Removing artifacts without publishing

1{
2    "artifacts": ["<PATH>"],
3    "publish_artifacts": false
4}

To publish all artifacts added/removed without publishing, send a request to http://<IP ADDRESS>/api/v1/artifacts/publish with method POST.

Note

See the complete API documentation

Recovering a compromised key

The Repository Service for TUF (RSTUF) can help to replace the compromised keys.

If an offline (Root) key is compromised (a threshold of keys belonging to the metadata to the Root metadata) is required a Metadata Update.

If the online key is compromised, it requires a Metadata Update to replace the online key.

Metadata Update

The Metadata Update ceremony is a guided process allowing you to:

  • add or remove key(s)

  • change the Root role key threshold

  • change the Root expiration

The changes a user is allowed to make are not limited to the Root role, but also include the keys used by all other roles as well.

When the ceremony is complete, the CLI can send the new information directly to an RSTUF API instance or save it locally into a JSON file.

The Metadata Update ceremony could be used for multiple use cases as for example:

  • recover from a compromised key

  • remove a key for a person leaving the organization

  • add a new key to be used by a new employee

  • improve the security of a repository by increasing the Root role threshold

Importing existing artifacts

When adopting Repository Service for TUF (RSTUF), with a large number of artifacts (artifacts/packages/files/etc.), using the “import artifacts” feature is recommended.

Existing artifacts can be sent using the REST API, however it will be slower than using the “import artifacts” feature.

The “import artifacts” feature can be used to add artifacts directly to the RSTUF database skipping the standard processing of the API. Normally, when adding an artifact through the API there will be an overhead of multiple additional operations which for a large number of artifacts can prove to be significant.

Below are sample benchmarks of the “import artifacts” feature:

  • Running in a Macbook Pro (2019) 2,4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9/32GB 2667 MHz DDR4:

    • Adding 500,000 artifacts: ~40 minutes
      • Loaded 1 of 1 file with 500,000 artifacts

    • Adding 1,000,000 artifacts: ~55 minutes
      • Loaded 1 of 2 file with 500,000 artifacts

      • Loaded 2 of 2 file with 500,000 artifacts

Warning

Use the API flow integration to the release process (CI/CD or Distribution Platform).

Do not use “import artifacts” as a replacement for the standard procedure to add artifacts throughout the RSTUF API or CLI tool after RSTUF is deployed. This feature should only be used before going live with RSTUF.

RSTUF-CLI contains the Import Artifacts (import-artifacts) feature.

CLI usage

Note

When providing users with download or update capabilities, it is necessary to add signed metadata checkpoints to the functionality tools.