This HOWTO describes the forking and preparation of your own version of the Rugged runbook template repository, for documenting the specific details of operating Rugged in your project’s implementation, as well as the products of the security ceremonies you perform to deploy and operate your Rugged repository.
The first step is to fork the rugged-runbook-template project on
Gitlab, which
will connect your copy of the Runbooks to the official ones, meaning you will
be able to pull and merge updates in future.
Give your fork a name like My Project Rugged Runbooks, select a namespace
for it, and give it a slug like my-project-rugged-runbooks.
Optionally provide a Project description, select Only the default branch main
for Branches to include, and set the Visibility as you require. The contents
of this repository will never contain sensitive data, so it’s recommended to
make it Public for transparency.
@TODO: consider setting up an upstream branch to track the main template
repo, leaving the main branch with project-specific customizations?
The top-level README provides an overview of the 2 types of ceremonies you might need. Review and update this README to correspond with the specifics of your implementation, security posture, and environment.
In particular, you will want to choose whether you are using an HSM or OpenSSL-based method for generating Root keypairs and signing Root metadata. We recommend you choose one and delete the other:
NB You must be consistent with the method you choose: if you use an HSM to generate Root keypairs, you cannot use OpenSSL to sign root metadata. You must use the same method for both steps.
We highly recommend using an Airgapped computer for the Key generation and Signature stages of the Ceremony, regardless of whether you use an HSM or OpenSSL. That being said, an HSM already does a great job of isolating the private key material from the computer it is plugged into, making it somewhat safer to operate in a non-airgapped environment using that method. You may choose to drop the PREPARE-OS-IMAGE and PREPARE-CEREMONY-COMPUTER steps that call for Airgapping your ceremony computer, as appropriate.
Review and update each stage of the Initial Deployment Ceremony, ensuring that they make sense in your environment.
Review and update each stage of the Key Rotation Ceremony, ensuring they make sense in your environment.
You are strongly advised to perform test runs of both ceremonies using your customized Runbooks in a staging environment, and make refinements as necessary, so as to ensure the smooth execution of your ceremonies in production!