Is there similar R function to SAS PWENCODE?

Question

I am trying to move passwords that are currently hard coded in R code into "encrypted"/encoded file on disk.

I would like to do it in similar way as SAS PWENCODE procedure does ( http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/proc/63079/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n0ii0upf9h4a67n1bcwcesmo4zms.htm , ODBC Password Security in SAS).

Is there something similar in R? What approaches do you use to store passwords in R for the code that needs to be run periodically without human intervention in the form of typing passwords?

EDIT: Forgot to mention: the only thing that looks similar to me is RCurl::base64() .

Very similar question: http://stackoverflow.com/q/6101605/602276 — Andrie, Jul 13 '12 at 21:40
@Andrie Thnx. Yes, I saw that question, but no answer directly answers my question, I guess. If answers under question you mention is as good as it gets in R I am fine, as long as I know and stop searching for SAS like PWENCODE... — Samo, Jul 13 '12 at 21:47

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

I've outlined my method of achieving this on Windows in my blog post below:

http://www.gilfillan.space/2016/04/21/Using-PowerShell-and-DPAPI-to-securely-mask-passwords-in-R-scripts/

Essentially...

Ensure you have enabled PowerShell execution.

Save the following text into a file called EncryptPassword.ps1:

# Create directory user profile if it doesn't already exist.
$passwordDir = "$($env:USERPROFILE)\DPAPI\passwords\$($env:computername)"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $passwordDir

# Prompt for password to encrypt
$account = Read-Host "Please enter a label for the text to encrypt.  This will be how you refer to the password in R.  eg. MYDB_MYUSER
$SecurePassword = Read-Host -AsSecureString  "Enter password" | convertfrom-securestring | out-file "$($passwordDir)\$($account).txt"

# Check output and press any key to exit
Write-Host "Press any key to continue..."
$x = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")

Execute the script above (right click > Run with PowerShell), provide a meaningful name for the password, and type in the password. You can now verify that the password has been encrypted by checking the file in %USERPROFILE%/DPAPI/passwords/[PC NAME]/[PASSWORD IDENTIFIER.txt]

Now run the following code from within R (I have this function saved in an R script that I source at the start of each script.

getEncryptedPassword <- function(credential_label, credential_path) {
  # if path not supplied, use %USER_PROFILE%\DPAPI\passwords\computername\credential_label.txt as default
  if (missing(credential_path)) {
    credential_path <- paste(Sys.getenv("USERPROFILE"), '\\DPAPI\\passwords\\', Sys.info()["nodename"], '\\', credential_label, '.txt', sep="")
  }
  # construct command
  command <- paste('powershell -command "$PlainPassword = Get-Content ', credential_path, '; $SecurePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $PlainPassword; $BSTR = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($SecurePassword); $UnsecurePassword = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto($BSTR); echo $UnsecurePassword"', sep='')
  # execute powershell and return command
  return(system(command, intern=TRUE))
}

Now when you need to supply a password in R, you can run the following command instead of hardcoding / prompting for the password:
```
getEncryptedPassword("[PASSWORD IDENTIFIER]")
```
For example, instead of running the ROracle command:
```
dbConnect(driver, "MYUSER", "MY PASSWORD", dbname="MYDB")
```
You can run this instead (the identifier I supplied in Step 3 is "MYUSER_MYDB":
```
dbConnect(driver, "MYUSER", getEncryptedPassword("MYUSER_MYDB"), dbname="MYDB")
```
You can repeat Step 3 for as many passwords as are required, and simply call them with the correct identifier in Step 5.

Is there similar R function to SAS PWENCODE?

1 Answers1