improve readme

1 files changed, 134 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17c514b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
+# trocla
+
+Trocla provides you a simple way to create and store (random) passwords on a
+central server, which can be retrieved by other applications. An example for
+such an application is puppet and trocla can help you to not store any
+plaintext or hashed passwords in your manifests by keeping these passwords only
+on your puppetmaster.
+
+Furthermore it provides you a simple cli that helps you to modify the password
+storage from the cli.
+
+Trocla does not only create and/or store a plain password, it is also able to
+generate (and store) any kind hashed passwords based on the plain password.
+As long as the plain password is preset, trocla is able to generate any kind
+of hashed passwords through an easy extendible plugin system.
+
+It is not necessary to store the plain password on the server, you can also
+just feed trocla with the hashed password and use that in your other tools.
+A common example for that is that you let puppet retrieve (and hence create)
+a salted md5 password for a user. This will then store the salted md5 of
+a random password AND the plain text password in trocla. Later you can
+retrieve (by deleting) the plain password and send it to the user. Puppet
+will still simply retrieve the hashed password that is stored in trocla,
+while the plain password is not anymore stored on the server.
+
+You can use any kind of key/value based storage supported by moneta for
+trocla. By default it uses a simple yaml file.
+
+## Usage
+
+### create
+
+Assuming that we have an empty trocla storage.
+
+    trocla create user1 plain
+
+This will create (if not already stored in trocla) a random password and
+store its plain text under key user1. The password will also be returned
+by trocla.
+
+    trocla create user2 mysql
+
+This will create a random password and store its plain and mysql-style hashed
+sha1 password in trocla. The hashed password is returned.
+
+    trocla create user1 mysql
+
+This will take the already stored plain text password of key user1 and generate
+and store the mysql-style hashed sha1 password.
+
+It is possible that certain hash formats require additional options. For example
+the pgsql hash requires also the user to create the md5 hash for the password.
+You can pass these additional requirements as yaml-based strings to the format:
+
+    trocla create user1 pgsql 'username: user1'
+
+This will create a pgsql password hash using the username user1.
+
+### get
+
+Get simply returns a stored password. It will not create a new password.
+
+Assuming that we are still working with the same storage
+
+    trocla get user2 plain
+
+will return the plain text password of the key user2.
+
+    trocla get user3 plain
+
+This will return nothing, as no password with this format have been stored so
+far.
+
+### set
+
+    trocla set user3 plain
+
+This will ask you for a password and set it under the appropriate key/format.
+
+    trocla set --pwd-from-stdin user4 plain mysupersecretpassword
+
+This will take the password from the cli without asking you.
+
+    trocla set --pwd-from-stdin user5 mysql *ABC....
+
+This will store a mysql sha1 hash for the key user5, without storing any kind
+of plain text password.
+
+### reset
+
+    trocla reset user1 md5crypt
+
+This will recreate the salted md5 shadow-style hash. However, it will not create
+a new plain text passwords. Hence, this is mainly usefull to create new hashed
+passwords based on new salts.
+
+If the plain password of a key is resetted, every already hashed password is
+deleted as well, as the hashes wouldn't match anymore the plain text password.
+
+### delete
+
+    trocla delete user1 plain
+
+This will delete the plain password of the key user1 and return it.
+
+## Attention
+
+If you don't feed trocla initially with a hash and/or delete the generated
+plain text passwords trocla will likely create a lot of plain text passwords
+and store them on your machine/server. This is by intend and is all about which
+problems (mainly passwords in configuration management manifests) trocla tries
+to address.
+
+## Installation
+
+Simply build and install the gem. BUT trocla is based on a not yet published
+version of [moneta](https://github.com/wycats/moneta). You can build a new
+moneta version based on the latest master as version 0.6.1 and instal that one.
+
+## Contributing to trocla
+ 
+* Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn't been implemented or the bug hasn't been fixed yet
+* Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn't requested it and/or contributed it
+* Fork the project
+* Start a feature/bugfix branch
+* Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution
+* Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
+* Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.
+
+## Copyright
+
+Copyright (c) 2011 mh. See LICENSE.txt for
+further details.
+