Key Immutability and Changing Settings¶
Once an object is persisted to the backing store, its representation is forever fixed. New data can be added to the backing store, but existing data can never be mutated. The primary purpose of this behavior is to prevent data corruption.
One consequence of this behavior is that once a key is written to the backing store, it is immutable. Its creation, activation, and expiration dates can never be changed, though it can revoked by using IKeyManager. Additionally, its underlying algorithmic information, master keying material, and encryption at rest properties are also immutable.
If the developer changes any setting that affects key persistence, those changes will not go into effect until the next time a key is generated, either via an explicit call to IKeyManager.CreateNewKey or via the data protection system’s own automatic key generation behavior. The settings that affect key persistence are as follows:
- The default key lifetime
- The key encryption at rest mechanism
- The algorithmic information contained within the key
If you need these settings to kick in earlier than the next automatic key rolling time, consider making an explicit call to IKeyManager.CreateNewKey to force the creation of a new key. Remember to provide an explicit activation date ({ now + 2 days } is a good rule of thumb to allow time for the change to propagate) and expiration date in the call.
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All applications touching the repository should specify the same settings with the IDataProtectionBuilder extension methods, otherwise the properties of the persisted key will be dependent on the particular application that invoked the key generation routines.