Virgil Core SDK Go

Introduction | SDK Features | Library purposes | Installation | Configure SDK | Usage Examples | Docs | Support

Introduction

Virgil Security provides a set of APIs for adding security to any application. In a few simple steps you can encrypt communications, securely store data, and ensure data integrity. Virgil Security products are available for desktop, embedded (IoT), mobile, cloud, and web applications in a variety of modern programming languages.

The Virgil Core SDK is a low-level library that allows developers to get up and running with Virgil Cards Service API quickly and add end-to-end security to their new or existing digital solutions.

In case you need additional security functionality for multi-device support, group chats and more, try our high-level Virgil E3Kit framework.

SDK Features

• Communicate with Virgil Cards Service
• Manage users' public keys
• Encrypt, sign, decrypt and verify data
• Store private keys in secure local storage
• Use Virgil Crypto Library

Crypto library purposes

• Asymmetric Key Generation
• Encryption/Decryption of data and streams
• Generation/Verification of digital signatures
• PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy)
• Post-quantum algorithms support: Round5 (encryption) and Falcon (signature)

Installation

The Virgil Go SDK is provided as a package named virgil. The package is distributed via github. Also in this guide, you will find one more package called Virgil Crypto (Virgil Crypto Library) that is used by the SDK to perform cryptographic operations.

The package is available for Go 1.12 or newer.

Installing the package:

• go get -u github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/sdk

Virgil Crypto Library

Virgil Crypto library is a wrapper for C Crypto library. Virgil Crypto library uses prebuilded C library for better experience for the most popular operation system:

• MacOS amd64 with X Code 11
• Windows amd64 with mingw64
• Linux amd64 gcc >= 5 and clang >=7
• For support older version linux amd64 gcc < 5 and clang < 7 with 2.14 Linux kernel use tag legacy

Configure SDK

This section contains guides on how to set up Virgil Core SDK modules for authenticating users, managing Virgil Cards and storing private keys.

Setup authentication

Set up user authentication with tokens that are based on the JSON Web Token standard with some Virgil modifications.

In order to make calls to Virgil Services (for example, to publish user's Card on Virgil Cards Service), you need to have a JSON Web Token ("JWT") that contains the user's identity, which is a string that uniquely identifies each user in your application.

Credentials that you'll need:

Parameter	Description
App ID	ID of your Application at Virgil Dashboard
App Key ID	A unique string value that identifies your account at the Virgil developer portal
App Key	A Private Key that is used to sign API calls to Virgil Services. For security, you will only be shown the App Key when the key is created. Don't forget to save it in a secure location for the next step

Set up JWT provider on Client side

Use these lines of code to specify which JWT generation source you prefer to use in your project:

package main

import (
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/sdk"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/session"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/crypto"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/storage"
)

func main() {
	authenticatedQueryToServerSide := func(context *session.TokenContext) (string, error) {
		// Get generated token from server-side
		return "eyJraWQiOiI3MGI0NDdlMzIxZjNhMGZkIiwidHlwIjoiSldUIiwiYWxnIjoiVkVEUzUxMiIsImN0eSI6InZpcmdpbC1qd3Q7dj0xIn0.eyJleHAiOjE1MTg2OTg5MTcsImlzcyI6InZpcmdpbC1iZTAwZTEwZTRlMWY0YmY1OGY5YjRkYzg1ZDc5Yzc3YSIsInN1YiI6ImlkZW50aXR5LUFsaWNlIiwiaWF0IjoxNTE4NjEyNTE3fQ.MFEwDQYJYIZIAWUDBAIDBQAEQP4Yo3yjmt8WWJ5mqs3Yrqc_VzG6nBtrW2KIjP-kxiIJL_7Wv0pqty7PDbDoGhkX8CJa6UOdyn3rBWRvMK7p7Ak", nil
	}

	// Setup AccessTokenProvider
	accessTokenProvider := session.NewCachingStringJwtProvider(authenticatedQueryToServerSide)
}

Generate JWT on Server side

Next, you'll need to set up the JwtGenerator and generate a JWT using the Virgil SDK.

Here is an example of how to generate a JWT:

	// App Key (you got this Key at Virgil Dashboard)
	privateKeyStr := []byte("MIGhMF0GCSqGSIb3DQEFDTBQMC8GCSqGSIb3DQEFDDAiBBC7Sg/DbNzhJ/uakTva")
	vcrypto := &crypto.Crypto{}	

	// Crypto library imports a private key into a necessary format
	privateKey, err := vcrypto.ImportPrivateKey(privateKeyStr)
	if err != nil {
		//handle error
	}

	// use your App Credentials you got at Virgil Dashboard:
	appId := "be00e10e4e1f4bf58f9b4dc85d79c77a" // App ID
	appKeyId := "70b447e321f3a0fd"           	// App Key ID

	// setup JWT generator with necessary parameters:
	jwtGenerator := session.JwtGenerator{
		AppKey: privateKey,
		AppKeyID: appKeyId,
		AppID: appId,
	}

	// generate JWT for a user
	// remember that you must provide each user with his unique JWT
	// each JWT contains unique user's identity (in this case - Alice)
	// identity can be any value: name, email, some id etc.
	identity := "Alice"
	token, err := jwtGenerator.GenerateToken(identity, nil)

	if err != nil {
		//handle error
	}

	// as result you get users JWT, it looks like this: "eyJraWQiOiI3MGI0NDdlMzIxZjNhMGZkIiwidHlwIjoiSldUIiwiYWxnIjoiVkVEUzUxMiIsImN0eSI6InZpcmdpbC1qd3Q7dj0xIn0.eyJleHAiOjE1MTg2OTg5MTcsImlzcyI6InZpcmdpbC1iZTAwZTEwZTRlMWY0YmY1OGY5YjRkYzg1ZDc5Yzc3YSIsInN1YiI6ImlkZW50aXR5LUFsaWNlIiwiaWF0IjoxNTE4NjEyNTE3fQ.MFEwDQYJYIZIAWUDBAIDBQAEQP4Yo3yjmt8WWJ5mqs3Yrqc_VzG6nBtrW2KIjP-kxiIJL_7Wv0pqty7PDbDoGhkX8CJa6UOdyn3rBWRvMK7p7Ak"
	// you can provide users with JWT at registration or authorization steps
	// Send a JWT to client-side
	jwtString := token.String()

For this subsection we've created a sample backend that demonstrates how you can set up your backend to generate the JWTs. To set up and run the sample backend locally, head over to your GitHub repo of choice:

Node.js | Golang | PHP | Java | Python and follow the instructions in README.

Setup Card Verifier

Virgil Card Verifier helps you automatically verify signatures of a user's Card, for example when you get a Card from Virgil Cards Service.

By default, VirgilCardVerifier verifies only two signatures - those of a Card owner and Virgil Cards Service.

Set up VirgilCardVerifier with the following lines of code:

	cardVerifier:= sdk.NewVirgilCardVerifier()

Set up Card Manager

This subsection shows how to set up a Card Manager module to help you manage users' public keys.

With Card Manager you can:

• specify an access Token (JWT) Provider.
• specify a Card Verifier used to verify signatures of your users, your App Server, Virgil Services (optional).

Use the following lines of code to set up the Card Manager:

cardManager := sdk.NewCardManager(accessTokenProvider,sdk.CardManagerSetCardVerifier(cardVerifier))

Setup Key storage to store private keys

This subsection shows how to set up a VSSKeyStorage using Virgil SDK in order to save private keys after their generation.

Here is an example of how to set up the VSSKeyStorage class:

	vcrypto := &crypto.Crypto{}
	
	// Generate a private key
	privateKey, err := vcrypto.GenerateKeypair()
	if err != nil {
		//handle error
	}

	// Setup PrivateKeyStorage
	privateKeyStorage := storage.NewVirgilPrivateKeyStorage(&storage.FileStorage{RootDir:"~/keys/"})

	// Store a private key with a name, for example Alice
	err = privateKeyStorage.Store(privateKey,"Alice", nil)
	if err != nil {
		//handle error
	}

	// To load Alice private key use the following code lines:
	key, meta, err := privateKeyStorage.Load("Alice")

	// Delete a private key
	err = privateKeyStorage.Delete("Alice")

Usage Examples

Before you start practicing with the usage examples, make sure that the SDK is configured. Check out our [SDK configuration guides][#configure-sdk] for more information.

Generate and publish user's Cards with public keys inside at Cards Service

Use the following lines of code to create a user's Card with a public key inside and publish it at Virgil Cards Service:

package main

import (
	"log"

	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/crypto"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/sdk"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/session"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/storage"
)

var (
	AppKey   = "{YOUR_APP_KEY}"
	AppKeyID = "{YOUR_APP_KEY_ID}"
	AppID    = "{YOUR_APP_ID}"
	Identity = "Alice"
)

func main() {
	vcrypto := &crypto.Crypto{}

	// generate a key pair
	keypair, err := vcrypto.GenerateKeypair()
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	privateKeyStorage := storage.NewVirgilPrivateKeyStorage(&storage.FileStorage{})
	// save a private key into key storage
	err = privateKeyStorage.Store(keypair, Identity, nil)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	appKey, err := vcrypto.ImportPrivateKey([]byte(AppKey))
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	cardManager := sdk.NewCardManager(session.NewGeneratorJwtProvider(session.JwtGenerator{
		AppKeyID: AppKeyID,
		AppKey:   appKey,
		AppID:    AppID,
	}))

	// publish user's on the Cards Service
	card, err := cardManager.PublishCard(&sdk.CardParams{
		PrivateKey: keypair,
		Identity:   Identity,
	})
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	log.Println("Card ID:", card.Id)
}

Sign then encrypt data

Virgil SDK allows you to use a user's private key and their Virgil Cards to sign and encrypt any kind of data.

In the following example, we load a private key from a customized Key Storage and get recipient's Card from the Virgil Cards Service. Recipient's Card contains a public key which we will use to encrypt the data and verify a signature.

package main

import (
	"encoding/base64"
	"log"

	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/sdk"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/crypto"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/storage"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/session"
)

var (
	AppKey   = "{YOUR_APP_KEY}"
	AppKeyID = "{YOUR_APP_KEY_ID}"
	AppID    = "{YOUR_APP_ID}"
)

func main() {
	vcrypto:= &crypto.Crypto{}
	messageToEncrypt := []byte("Hello, Bob!")

	privateKeyStorage := storage.NewVirgilPrivateKeyStorage(&storage.FileStorage{})

	// prepare a user's private key from a device storage
	alicePrivateKey, _, err := privateKeyStorage.Load("Alice")
	if err != nil{
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	appKey, err := vcrypto.ImportPrivateKey([]byte(AppKey))
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	cardManager := sdk.NewCardManager(session.NewGeneratorJwtProvider(session.JwtGenerator{
		AppKeyID: AppKeyID,
		AppKey:   appKey,
		AppID:    AppID,
	}))

	// using cardManager search for Bob's cards on Cards Service
	cards, err := cardManager.SearchCards("Bob")
	if err != nil{
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// sign a message with a private key then encrypt using Bob's public keys
	encryptedMessage, err := vcrypto.SignThenEncrypt(messageToEncrypt, alicePrivateKey, cards.ExtractPublicKeys()...)
	if err != nil{
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	log.Println("Encrypted message:",base64.StdEncoding.EncodeToString(encryptedMessage))
}

Decrypt data and verify signature

Once the user receives the signed and encrypted message, they can decrypt it with their own private key and verify the signature with the sender's Card:

package main

import (
	"encoding/base64"
	"log"

	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/crypto"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/sdk"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/session"
	"github.com/VirgilSecurity/virgil-sdk-go/v6/storage"
)

var (
	AppKey   = "{YOUR_APP_KEY}"
	AppKeyID = "{YOUR_APP_KEY_ID}"
	AppID    = "{YOUR_APP_ID}"
	EncryptedMessage = "{YOUR_ENCRYPTED_MESSAGE}"
)

func main() {
	vcrypto := &crypto.Crypto{}

	privateKeyStorage := storage.NewVirgilPrivateKeyStorage(&storage.FileStorage{})

	// prepare a user's private key
	bobPrivateKey, _, err := privateKeyStorage.Load("Bob")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	appKey, err := vcrypto.ImportPrivateKey([]byte(AppKey))
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	cardManager := sdk.NewCardManager(session.NewGeneratorJwtProvider(session.JwtGenerator{
		AppKeyID: AppKeyID,
		AppKey:   appKey,
		AppID:    AppID,
	}))

	// using cardManager search for Alice's cards on Cards Service
	cards, err := cardManager.SearchCards("Alice")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	encryptedMessage, err := base64.StdEncoding.DecodeString(EncryptedMessage)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	// decrypt with a private key and verify using one of Alice's public keys
	decryptedMessage, err := vcrypto.DecryptThenVerify(encryptedMessage, bobPrivateKey, cards.ExtractPublicKeys()...)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	log.Printf("Plain text: %s\n", decryptedMessage)
}

Get a Card by its ID

Use the following lines of code to get a user's card from Virgil Cloud by its ID:

card, err := cardManager.GetCard("f4bf9f7fcbedaba0392f108c59d8f4a38b3838efb64877380171b54475c2ade8")
if err != nil {
	//handle error
}

Get a Card by user's identity

For a single user, use the following lines of code to get a user's Card by a user's identity:

cards, err := cardManager.SearchCards("Bob")
if err != nil {
	//handle error
}

Docs

Virgil Security has a powerful set of APIs, and the Developer Documentation can get you started today.

In order to use the Virgil Core SDK with your application, you will need to first configure your application. By default, the SDK will attempt to look for Virgil-specific settings in your application but you can change it during SDK configuration.

License

This library is released under the 3-clause BSD License.

Support

Our developer support team is here to help you. Find out more information on our Help Center.

You can find us on Twitter or send us email [email protected].

Also, get extra help from our support team on Slack.