Advanced configuration for encryptors and digesters

Jasypt allows its provided encryptors and digesters to be configured in any specific ways the user may need.

This is achieved by letting the user define his/her own Config classes, implementing specific interfaces, and putting these objects in charge of retrieving the configuration parameters in the user's preferred way.

The *Config interfaces which have to be implemented are:

  • org.jasypt.digest.config.DigesterConfig for the configuration of StandardByteDigester and StandardStringDigester objects (by calling their respective setConfig() methods). There also is an org.jasypt.digest.config.StringDigesterConfig interface for adding configuration parameters specific to String digesting.
  • org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.PBEConfig for the configuration of StandardPBEByteEncryptor, StandardPBEStringEncryptor, StandardPBEBigIntegerEncryptor and StandardPBEBigDecimalEncryptor objects (also by calling their respective setConfig() methods). There also is an org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.StringPBEConfig interface for adding configuration parameters specific to String encryption.

Jasypt provides at the moment two standard implementations of the *Config interfaces for digesters, and three for encryptors:

  • org.jasypt.digest.config.SimpleDigesterConfig and org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.SimplePBEConfig, which allow setting configuration properties in a bean way (via setX methods). Their String-specific variants are org.jasypt.digest.config.SimpleStringDigesterConfig and org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.SimpleStringPBEConfig.
  • org.jasypt.digest.config.EnvironmentDigesterConfig and org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.EnvironmentPBEConfig, which besides allowing setX configuration, also allow the values of the configuration properties to be set in environment variables or JVM system properties. This will allow the user, for example, to set an encryption password in an environment variable, start the application or application server, let the jasypt encryptor object initialise, and then unset the variable (thus hiding it). Their String-specific variants are org.jasypt.digest.config.EnvironmentStringDigesterConfig and org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.EnvironmentStringPBEConfig.
  • org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.WebPBEConfig (and org.jasypt.encryption.pbe.config.WebStringPBEConfig), only for Password Based Encryption, which allow the configuration of encryptor passwords in web applications from the web itself, once the webapp has been deployed (and thus allowing developers not to store the encryption passwords in any file, simply providing it to the app each time it is deployed). Learn more.

Important: If a *Config object returns null for a configuration value, then it will be simply ignored, and other configuration mechanisms (like default values or the encryptor's or digester's own setX methods) will be honored. This allows the implementation of *Config classes that only provide some of the configuration parameters.