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Flow 3 – AES-256 Stream Encrypt / Decrypt (Detached JWET)

This scenario demonstrates a symmetric encryption round-trip using the streaming endpoints:

  1. Resolve the pre-provisioned AES-256 key (kty="oct", alg="AES-256").
  2. Stream-encrypt a plaintext file – server returns a detached JWET (General JSON).
  3. Stream-decrypt the ciphertext.
  4. Validate the plaintext matches byte-for-byte.

Key points

  • Purely symmetric, streaming workflow—encryptFileStream / decryptFileStream push raw bytes in one direction while you read them from the other, so RAM never spikes.
  • Returns a detached JWET: header and encryption parameters stay in a tiny JSON blob while the ciphertext flows as native binary—no Base64 inflation, no line-length limits.
  • Shows end-to-end lifecycle telemetry (key requested, algorithm, soft-limit warnings) that arrives in HTTP headers, ready for dashboards or automated alerting.

Prerequisites

The flow examples are data-plane only. They never create, rotate, or delete keys — they resolve pre-provisioned playground keys and operate on them. Before running any flow example you must:

  1. Provision a fresh demo-cli playground. Use the ankasecure-demo-provisioning tool to provision the demo-cli playground. This seeds the cryptographic keys the examples operate on and the cli-reference@demo-cli actor that holds capability grants on them.
  2. Use the emitted cli.properties. The provisioning tool writes a cli.properties file that carries the ankasecure.demo.kids catalogue line — the comma-separated list of provisioned key ids, in YAML file order. The examples load this file to discover which keys exist.
  3. Authenticate as cli-reference@demo-cli. Authenticate the SDK as the cli-reference@demo-cli actor — the all-operations actor of the demo-cli playground — so the resolved keys carry the capability grants each operation needs.

Key selection in the examples is by algorithm or by exact name:

  • kidForAlgorithm(alg) returns a pre-provisioned key id matching the requested algorithm — used by the single-key operation flows.
  • requireKid(name) asserts that an exact, named cross-kid endpoint is present in the ankasecure.demo.kids catalogue — used by the cross-kid REENCRYPT / RESIGN flows that must operate on a specific granted source/target pair.

If cli.properties is missing the ankasecure.demo.kids line, the examples fail fast with a clear message instructing you to (re-)provision the demo-cli playground — they will not silently fall back.

PKCS#7 / CMS examples (Flow 19 & Flow 20)

The PKCS#7 interop examples operate on a packaged, non-sensitive CMS EnvelopedData fixture — you do not supply a PKCS#7 file:

  • Fixture: src/main/resources/pkcs7/enveloped-data-sample.p7m, loaded from the classpath by Pkcs7ExampleFixture. It is a single-recipient, zero-signer EnvelopedData artifact from the QA test signer; it carries no private key and no secret.
  • Flow 19 (analysis) needs no key. Structural analysis (analyzePkcs7 / analyzePkcs7Stream) inspects the CMS envelope metadata only, so it runs with no decryption key and no extra configuration.
  • Flow 20 (conversion) needs a pre-provisioned recipient key. Converting EnvelopedData to JWE requires the platform to decrypt the envelope, so it needs the recipient's private key referenced by the pkcs7.decryptionKid property in cli.properties. That key is matched by issuer DN + serial number and is imported by a control-plane step (outside the data-plane SDK); until it is provisioned, Flow 20's conversion calls fail at the server while Flow 19 still runs.
  • Data-plane only. Like every flow example, these never import keystores or perform any key-lifecycle operation.

When to use it

  • Mass-volume files – perfect for multi-gigabyte database dumps, video archives, or nightly VM images where holding everything in memory is impossible.
  • Low-overhead transfers – detached JWET keeps bandwidth lean and lets you pipe encrypted data straight into S3, GCS, or object storage without re-encoding.
  • Regulated workloads – AES-256 is NIST-approved and FIPS-validated; combining it with streaming endpoints satisfies strict mandates for data-at-rest & in-motion encryption while avoiding temp-file sprawl.

Shared helperExampleUtil (configuration-loading, authentication, JSON, etc.).
If you haven’t copied it yet, fetch example-util.md and place the Java file beside the scenario sources.


Complete Java implementation

src/main/java/co/ankatech/ankasecure/sdk/examples/ExampleScenario3.java

/*
 * Copyright 2025 ANKATech Solutions Inc
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
 */
package co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.examples;

import co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.AuthenticatedSdk;
import co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.model.DecryptResultMetadata;
import co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.model.EncryptResult;
import co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.util.FileIO;

import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.util.Properties;

import static co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.examples.ExampleUtil.*;

/**
 * Scenario&nbsp;3 &mdash; AES-256 <em>Streaming</em> Encrypt&nbsp;/&nbsp;Decrypt.
 *
 * <p>This scenario demonstrates a <strong>symmetric</strong> workflow via the
 * streaming APIs. In streaming mode the service returns a
 * <strong>detached&nbsp;JWE&nbsp;(General&nbsp;JSON)</strong>: the header
 * portion is delivered separately from the raw ciphertext, keeping memory
 * usage constant.</p>
 *
 * <ol>
 *   <li>Resolve a pre-provisioned <code>AES-GCM-256</code> key from the demo-cli
 *       playground (the SDK is data-plane-only — it does not create keys).</li>
 *   <li>Stream-encrypt a plaintext file (detached&nbsp;JWE).</li>
 *   <li>Stream-decrypt the ciphertext.</li>
 *   <li>Validate that the plaintext round-trips.</li>
 * </ol>
 *
 * <p>All artefacts are written under <kbd>temp_files/</kbd>.</p>
 *
 * <p><b>Implementation notes (Java&nbsp;21+):</b></p>
 * <ul>
 *   <li>All filesystem operations use the {@link java.nio.file.Path} API.</li>
 *   <li>UTF-8 is enforced explicitly to avoid platform defaults.</li>
 *   <li>Directory creation relies on {@link ExampleUtil#ensureTempDir(Path)}.</li>
 * </ul>
 *
 * <p><b>Thread-safety:</b> this class is stateless and immutable.</p>
 *
 * @author ANKATech Solutions Inc.
 * @since 3.0.0
 * @see ExampleUtil
 * @see ExamplePlaygroundKeys
 * @see AuthenticatedSdk
 */
public final class ExampleScenario3 {

    /** No instantiation &mdash; this class only exposes {@link #main(String[])}. */
    private ExampleScenario3() { }

    /**
     * Runs the AES-256 streaming encrypt/decrypt scenario.
     *
     * <p>Loads CLI properties, authenticates against ANKASecure&copy;,
     * and delegates to the scenario logic. On any unrecoverable error
     * the JVM terminates via
     * {@link ExampleUtil#fatal(String, Throwable)}.</p>
     *
     * @param args command-line arguments (ignored)
     */
    public static void main(final String[] args) {

        System.out.println("===== SCENARIO 3 START =====");
        System.out.println("""
                Purpose :
                  * AES-256 symmetric streaming data-plane round-trip
                  * Demonstrates detached-JWE pipeline (encrypt -> decrypt) on a
                    pre-provisioned playground key
                Steps   :
                  1) Resolve pre-provisioned AES-GCM-256 key
                  2) Create sample payload
                  3) Encrypt payload (detached JWE)
                  4) Decrypt ciphertext
                  5) Validate integrity
                --------------------------------------------------------------""");

        try {
            prepareWorkingDir();

            Properties            props      = loadProperties();
            AuthenticatedSdk      sdk        = authenticate(props);
            ExamplePlaygroundKeys playground = ExamplePlaygroundKeys.from(props, sdk);

            runScenario(sdk, playground);

        } catch (Exception ex) {
            fatal("Scenario 3 failed", ex);
        }

        System.out.println("===== SCENARIO 3 END =====");
    }

    /**
     * Executes the 5-step AES-256 streaming encryption scenario on a
     * pre-provisioned key.
     *
     * <ol>
     *   <li>Prepare plaintext file.</li>
     *   <li>Resolve a pre-provisioned AES-GCM-256 symmetric key.</li>
     *   <li>Stream-encrypt to detached JWE.</li>
     *   <li>Stream-decrypt ciphertext.</li>
     *   <li>Validate round-trip integrity.</li>
     * </ol>
     *
     * @param sdk        an authenticated {@link AuthenticatedSdk} instance; must not be {@code null}
     * @param playground the pre-provisioned playground key resolver; must not be {@code null}
     * @throws Exception if any step fails
     */
    private static void runScenario(final AuthenticatedSdk sdk,
                                    final ExamplePlaygroundKeys playground) throws Exception {

        /* 1 -- prepare plaintext -------------------------------------------- */
        Path plainFile = TEMP_DIR.resolve("scenario3_plain.txt");
        FileIO.writeUtf8(plainFile,
                "Scenario-3 - AES-256 streaming encryption demo.");
        System.out.println("[1] Plaintext ready          -> " + plainFile.toAbsolutePath());

        /* 2 -- resolve pre-provisioned key (data-plane SDK: no key creation) */
        final String kid = playground.kidForAlgorithm("AES-GCM-256");
        System.out.println("[2] Using pre-provisioned key -> kid = " + kid);

        /* 3 -- streaming encrypt -------------------------------------------- */
        Path cipherFile = TEMP_DIR.resolve("scenario3.enc");
        EncryptResult encMeta = sdk.encryptFileStream(kid, plainFile, cipherFile);
        System.out.println("[3] Ciphertext written       -> " + cipherFile.toAbsolutePath());
        printEncryptMeta(encMeta);

        /* 4 -- streaming decrypt -------------------------------------------- */
        Path decFile = TEMP_DIR.resolve("scenario3_dec.txt");
        DecryptResultMetadata decMeta = sdk.decryptFileStream(cipherFile, decFile);
        System.out.println("[4] Decrypted file           -> " + decFile.toAbsolutePath());
        printDecryptMeta(decMeta);

        /* 5 -- validation --------------------------------------------------- */
        String original  = FileIO.readUtf8(plainFile);
        String recovered = FileIO.readUtf8(decFile);
        System.out.println(original.equals(recovered)
                ? "[5] Validation OK - plaintext matches."
                : "[5] WARNING - plaintext mismatch!");
    }
}

How to run


mvn -q compile exec:java\
  -Dexec.mainClass="co.ankatech.ankasecure.sdk.examples.ExampleScenario3"

Console milestones

-   AES-256 key resolution from the playground

-   Detached-JWET stream-encryption → `scenario3.enc`

-   Stream-decryption → `scenario3_dec.txt`

-   **Validation OK** confirming bit-perfect round-trip

Where next?