PyKMIP

PyKMIP is a Python implementation of the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP). KMIP is a client/server communication protocol for the storage and maintenance of key, certificate, and secret objects. The standard is governed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). PyKMIP supports a subset of features in version 1.1 of the KMIP specification.

The PyKMIP library provides a KMIP client supporting the following operations:

• Create
• CreateKeyPair
• Destroy
• DiscoverVersions
• Get
• Locate
• Query
• Register
• RekeyKeyPair

The library also includes a software-based KMIP server, which supports basic versions of the following operations:

• Create
• Destroy
• Get
• Register

For a high-level overview of KMIP, check out the KMIP Wikipedia page. For comprehensive documentation from OASIS and information about the KMIP community, visit the KMIP Technical Committee home page.

Usage

The KMIP client can be configured to connect to a KMIP server using settings found in kmip/kmipconfig.ini. Users can specify the connection configuration settings to use on client instantiation, allowing applications to support multiple key storage backends simultaneously, one client per backend.

An example client configuration settings block is shown below:

[client]
host=127.0.0.1
port=5696
keyfile=/path/to/key/file
certfile=/path/to/cert/file
cert_reqs=CERT_REQUIRED
ssl_version=PROTOCOL_SSLv23
ca_certs=/path/to/ca/cert/file
do_handshake_on_connect=True
suppress_ragged_eofs=True
username=None
password=None

Many of these settings correspond to the settings for ssl.wrap_socket, which is used to establish secure connections to KMIP backends. For more information, check out the Python SSL library documentation.

The KMIP software server also pulls settings from kmip/kmipconfig.ini. However, the server is intended for use only in testing and demonstration environments. The server is not intended to be a substitute for secure, hardware-based key management appliances. The PyKMIP client should be used for operational purposes only with a hardware-based KMIP server.

An example server configuration settings block is shown below:

[server]
host=127.0.0.1
port=5696
keyfile=/path/to/key/file
certfile=/path/to/cert/file
cert_reqs=CERT_NONE
ssl_version=PROTOCOL_SSLv23
ca_certs=/path/to/ca/cert/file
do_handshake_on_connect=True
suppress_ragged_eofs=True

When used together, the KMIP client and KMIP server use certificate files found in kmip/demos/certs. These files should be replaced with alternative certificates for standalone deployments.

For examples of how to instantiate the KMIP client and how to use the different client operations, check out the unit demos found under kmip/demos/units.

Profiles

The KMIP standard includes various profiles that tailor the standard for specific use cases (e.g., symmetric key storage with TLS 1.2). These profiles specify conformance to certain operations and attributes.

The PyKMIP client provides full support for the following profile(s):

• Basic Discover Versions Client KMIP Profile

Development

The development plan for PyKMIP follows the requirements for the following KMIP profiles. The foundation for symmetric and asymmetric key operation support is already built into the library.

Client profiles:

• Basic Baseline Client KMIP Profile
• Basic Symmetric Key Store Client KMIP Profile
• Basic Symmetric Key Foundry Client KMIP Profile
• Basic Asymmetric Key Store Client KMIP Profile
• Basic Asymmetric Key Foundry Client KMIP Profile

Server profiles:

• Basic Discover Versions Server KMIP Profile
• Basic Baseline Server KMIP Profile
• Basic Symmetric Key Store and Server KMIP Profile
• Basic Symmetric Key Foundry and Server KMIP Profile
• Basic Asymmetric Key Store Server KMIP Profile
• Basic Asymmetric Key Foundry and Server KMIP Profile

Testing

The PyKMIP test suite is composed of two parts: a unit test suite composed of over 550 unit tests, and an integration test suite that runs against instantiations of the software KMIP server. The tests are managed by a combination of the tox, pytest, and flake8 libraries and cover approximately 80% of the code.

There are several ways to run different versions of the tests. To run, use one of the following commands in the PyKMIP root directory.

To run all of the unit tests:

$ tox

To run the Python syntax and format compliance tests:

$ tox -e pep8

To run the unit test suite against Python 2.7:

$ tox -e py27

To run the integration test suite against the default Python installation:

$ tox -e integration

For more information and a list of supported tox environments, see tox.ini in the PyKMIP root directory.

Platforms

PyKMIP has been tested and runs on the following platform(s):

• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

References

The source code for PyKMIP is hosted on GitHub and the library is available for installation from the Python Package Index (PyPI):

• PyKMIP on GitHub
• PyKMIP on PyPI

For more information on KMIP version 1.1, see the following documentation:

• Key Management Interoperability Protocol Specification Version 1.1
• Key Management Interoperability Protocol Profiles Version 1.1
• Key Management Interoperability Protocol Test Cases Version 1.1