Aspnetcore.docs: Why Environment variables are safer than Secret Manager tool in staging/production ?

[PierreRoudaut]

Both do not encrypt secrets and their vulnerability is tied to the access of the machine. Am I missing something ?

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Document Details

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• ID: 9c99993c-c983-6fda-6c3a-ce4ec8c1d5db
• Version Independent ID: ba688ac2-e90e-fce5-f60d-40c2553c3efd
• Content: Safe storage of app secrets in development in ASP.NET Core
• Content Source: aspnetcore/security/app-secrets.md
• Product: aspnet-core
• GitHub Login: @Rick-Anderson
• Microsoft Alias: scaddie

[guardrex]

That's correct. The goal is to keep secrets out of source control and keep production secrets off of development machines. If you need a higher level of security, there's Azure Key Vault and 3rd party providers.

[guardrex]

Oh ... and btw ... Secret Manager isn't for staging/production ... it's only for your dev machine. The general advice for production is always either env vars, Azure Key Vault, or 3rd party production secret management system.

[PierreRoudaut]

Sorry to insist, but I'm curious to know what justifies the "general advice" to use env vars over over Secret Manager. Could you give me a clarification ?

[guardrex]

@blowdart -- TL;DR Why was a "secret manager" scenario not developed for server situations?

[blowdart]

Environment variables was where the industry went, so in this case we followed.

[MattNCI]

Pierre R, I suppose it is assumed that developers and testers shouldn't have access to production secrets at all (and if you tried your dev app in prod it would fail to deploy/run)
A production sys admin usually does have access to the secrets since they're the ones who maintain it. An environment variable or a text file in a secure path on a hardened production server is safer (not safe, but safer) than a connection string in the app code itself. IMO :)