Microsoft SecretManagement Preview 3

Microsoft has released the new SecretManagement Preview 3, an action tool through PowerShell and the shell command line to help developers manage their systems with a set of cmdlets.

SecretManagement Preview 3 follows the second preview released by Microsoft in March and a first preview in February. The tool is designed to help users securely manage their secrets in heterogeneous cloud environments.

However, the third preview of the SecretManagement module contains changes that may corrupt the first installation, so users of previous previews should remove any "secrets" they have saved before the update.

SecretManagement helps users store and retrieve "secrets" locally in a built-in vault of an operating system, such as Windows Credential Manager.

"SecretManagement is valuable in heterogeneous environments where you may want to separate treasury features from a common script that needs secrets." he explains Sydney Smith, Program Manager, Microsoft PowerShell Team.

"SecretManagement is also a feature that allows users to simplify their interactions with various vaults, they just need to learn a set of cmdlets."

In this preview, Microsoft has separated the SecretManagement module from a built-in default vault and had it in its design. It also separates the interface from accessing secrets and entering vaults from any vault application.

Paul Higinbotham, Senior Software Engineer on the PowerShell Team, explains that since release of the first alpha of SecretManagement became "clear that the original vision and design had some drawbacks".

One problem with the previous alpha version was that it depended directly on Windows Credential Manager, but to extend the application to other platforms they had to find a corresponding local treasury.

According to Microsoft, this treasury is "configurable and works on all supported PowerShell platforms - Windows, Linux and macOS".

https://devblogs.microsoft.com