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Credential Change Types

Credential changes rotate, revoke, or replace secrets, API keys, and passwords. These are among the most common changes in Nexplane, and every credential change type is designed with rollback in mind.

Rotate IAM Access Key (AWS)

Creates a new IAM access key for a user, stores it encrypted in the change record, and deactivates the old key. The old key is not deleted immediately -- it remains in a deactivated state so it can be re-activated during rollback.

Connector: AWS

Parameters:

Parameter Type Description
IAM User string Username of the IAM user

Execution: 1. Calls iam:CreateAccessKey to create a new key 2. Stores the new key ID and secret (encrypted) in the change record 3. Calls iam:UpdateAccessKey with status Inactive on the old key

Rollback: 1. Re-activates the old key (UpdateAccessKey with status Active) 2. Deactivates the new key 3. Deletes the new key after confirming the old key is active

Risk base score: 5 (medium -- application downtime if consumers are not updated)

Key limit

AWS limits IAM users to 2 access keys. If the user already has 2 active keys, rotation will fail with LimitExceeded. Delete one key before rotating.


Rotate Service Account Key (GCP)

Creates a new key for a GCP service account, stores it encrypted, and deletes the old key.

Connector: GCP

Rollback: GCP does not support re-creating a deleted key. Rollback disables the new key but cannot restore the old one. After rollback, you must create a new key manually.

Risk base score: 5


Rotate Client Secret (Azure / Keycloak)

Generates a new client secret for an Azure service principal or Keycloak confidential client.

Connectors: Azure, Keycloak

Rollback: The old secret cannot be retrieved from Azure or Keycloak after a new one is created. Nexplane does not store the old plaintext secret. Rollback is not available for client secret rotation.

Risk base score: 6 (medium-high -- applications using the old secret will break immediately)


Rotate KV Secret (Vault)

Writes a new version of a Vault KV v2 secret with updated values.

Connector: HashiCorp Vault

Parameters:

Parameter Type Description
Secret Path string KV v2 path (e.g., secret/myapp/db)
Key string Key within the secret to update
New Value string New value (encrypted at rest in Nexplane)

Rollback: Restores the previous version of the secret using Vault's versioning.

Risk base score: 5


Rotate Database Password (PostgreSQL / MongoDB / Redis)

Updates the password for a database user account.

Connectors: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis

Rollback: Nexplane does not store the old plaintext password. Rollback is not available. Set the password to a known value if you need to recover access.

Risk base score: 5-7 depending on the account's privilege level


Rotate Local Password (SSH / WinRM)

Sets a new password for a local OS user account on a Linux or Windows host.

Connectors: SSH, WinRM

Rollback: Not available -- old password is not stored.

Risk base score: 4


Revoke Exposed Credential

Immediately revokes a credential that has been identified as exposed (e.g., committed to a public repository). This is a high-urgency action that bypasses the normal approval queue in environments where the "emergency bypass" policy is enabled.

Supported connectors: AWS (IAM access key), GCP (service account key), Azure (client secret), LDAP (user password reset to random), Vault (token revocation)

Rollback: Not available -- revocation is intentionally irreversible.

Risk base score: 9 (high -- immediate service impact is expected and acceptable)