Secure configuration server

There is one other key element in our architecture that should be considered during our discussion about security—the Spring Cloud Config Server. I would say that it is even more important to protect the config server than the discovery service. Why? Because we usually store their authentication credentials to the external systems, along with other data that should be hidden from unauthorized access and usage. There are several ways to properly secure your config server. You may configure an HTTP basic authentication, a secure SSL connection, encrypt/decrypt sensitive data, or use third-party tools such as those already described in Chapter 5, Distributed Configuration with Spring Cloud Config. Let's take a closer look at some of them.

Encryption and decryption

Before we begin, we have to download and install the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) provided by Oracle. It consists of two JAR files (local_policy.jar and US_export_policy.jar), which need to override...