Initialize Rot

In this guide, we’ll go over initializing a new Rot configuration.

Initialization Process

Out of the box, Rot doesn’t know about any keys or values. Rot can perform ad-hoc encryption and decryption using rot encrypt and rot decrypt, but long term storage and sharing of secrets must be done using a shared configuration.

Rot is initialized using rot init. This command will create a new configuration within the current directory (or wherever configPath points to). A Keyring name and initial public key can be provided, as well as enabling Encrypted Vlaue Names and Metadataotherwise Rot will generate these. This command performs these actions:

• Create a new Keyring
• Generate the Keyring Private Key and Keyring Public Key.
• If a public key is not specified, generate a Decrypt Private Key and Decrypt Public Key. Rot will also save the User Private Key to the keyPath, defaulting to .rot-keys
• Geenrate private and public keys for the Keyring.
• Encrypt the Keyring Private Key with the Decrypt Public Key and create a signature of the Decrypt Public Key.
• Populate the config values and save the configuration to configPath.

If rot init is ran again, a warning will appear to prevent accidental overwriting.