Encrypt the credentials when running WLST in interactive or script mode

One of the common request I hear from administrators is that they want to get away from providing user name and password in plain text when using WLST. WebLogic Server provides a way to encrypt the credentials for server start up. You can create a password file "boot.properties" (called as Boot Identity File) with plain text credentials in a folder named security under the server root directory. This file will be automatically detected during the server start up and the server will encrypt the information in this file for subsequent use. Until WebLogic Server 9.x this file should be placed under the DOMAIN folder. So servers sharing the same file system share the same boot identity file and cannot be configured to use different files.

This boot identity file can also be used by WLST only when started from the domain folder. This is mainly because the domain's password key (SerializedSystemIni.dat) is used to encrypt this file. If you are using WLST from a different location or from a remote machine to connect to the server or if you want to run WLST script you can use a different technique. You can use WLST to generate a User Configuration file which will have encrypted user name and password using storeUserConfig() command. A key file that will be used to encrypt the data will also get generated along with the user config file. The key file is important as it is required to decrypt the values back from the user config file. This is an online WLST command. So you should be connected to a running WebLogic Server or a Node Manager to issue this command.

When you use this command with no arguments the user configuration file for the current user will be generated within the current OS user's home folder.


wls:/testdomain/serverConfig>storeUserConfig()


You can also specify the location and name for the key file and the userconfig file if you want them to be created elsewhere.

wls:/testdomain/serverConfig>storeUserConfig('/usr/home/user1/configfile.secure', '/usr/home/user1/keyfile.secure')


If the files are stored with the default name (osusername-WebLogicConfig.properties & osusername-WebLogicKey.properties) you can simply connect without specifying the username and password in the connect() command.

wls:/offline> connect(url='t3://host:port')


If the files are stored in a different location or with a different name, then they can be passed as an argument to the connect() command.

wls:/offline> connect(userConfigFile='/usr/home/user1/configfile.secure', userKeyFile='/usr/home/user1/keyfile.secure', url='t3://host:port')


No more plain text user name and password in when using WLST. Have a safe and secure scripting!