Where i can store the encrypted key using jasypt

Question

I Have a grails application and i want to secure data before store it in the database. Hibernate grails and jasypt offer this possibility using EncryptedStringType. but this will need a key. where i can store this key ??. please refer to this sample:

encryptor.setPassword("some password here"); 
encryptor.setAlgorithm("PBEWithMD5AndTripleDES"); 
String myText = "358904051493345"; 
System.out.println(myText);         
String encryptedText = encryptor.encrypt(myText);
System.out.println(encryptedText);           
String decriptedText =
encryptor.decrypt(encryptedText);
System.out.println(decriptedText);

Answer 1

The best place to keep configuration values such as this key is in your Config.groovy, the application configuration. Using your example you might have something like this:

// Config.groovy
...
jasyptKey = 'myKeyGoesHere'
...

Taking this one step further you should consider using an external configuration file (or property file) to store sensitive production information such as this encryption key. The Grails documentation has more information on externalized configurations.

Then in your domain/service/controller you can use dependency injection to access the grailsApplication:

// example service
class MyService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
  def serviceMethod() {
    ...
    encryptor.setPassword(grailsApplication.config.jasyptKey)
    ...
  }
  ...
}

In the very rare case where you need to access this configuration from outside a Grails/Spring artifact that doesn't support dependency injection you can use the Holders instead:

// some class in /src/
import grails.util.Holders
...
encryptor.setPassword(Holders.config.jasyptKey)
...