VaultAnyconfig

Extends the HVAC Hashicorp Vault Client with the load and dump functionality from anyconfig. This allows automatic mixing in of secrets from Vault, allowing you to store a configuration file with all details populated save for secrets, and then access Hashicorp Vault to load the secrets into the in-memory dictionary.

Supported Secret Engines

Currently vault-anyconfig only supports version 1 and 2 of the key value store.

kv2 Limitations

• vault-anyconfig only will read the latest version of a secret to maintain simplicity in the configuration file
• you must add data after the mountpoint for a kv2 secret, e.g. secret/data/example-secret due to limitations in the HVAC client

Files and Formatting

There are three configuration files (which can also be provided as strings), which can be stored in one, two or three files total as long as they are correctly written.

Examples in this section will be in JSON, but any file format supported by anyconfig can be used.

Vault Configuration

This configures the connection to the Vault, and must contain at least one member (usually the url parameter). If this section is not provided or is left empty, then the Vault instance will not be configured, and instead only the anyconfig functionality will be used.

The section must be named vault_config, and can contain any of the parameters valid for initializing an HVAC client.

Example

{
    "vault_config": {
        "url": "https://vault.acme.com:8200"
    }
}

Vault Authentication

This provides authentication for use with the auto_auth method, and must be named vault_creds. It should contain a member named auth_method which should correspond with one of the auth method from the HVAC Client (without the "auth_" prefix), e.g. approle. The remaining members should match the parameters for the specified auth method.

Example

{
    "vault_creds": {
        "role_id": "sample-role-id",
        "secret_id": "sample-secret-id",
        "auth_method": "approle"
    }
}

Main Configuration

The main configuration should consist of the configuration sections you need without the secrets included (unless passthrough mode is desired) and a section named vault_secrets. In the vault_secrets section, the keys are dot separated paths for the keys to insert into your configuration, and the values are the path to the secret in Vault. Please see the vault_secrets usage section for the different ways to specify secrets.

Additionaly, a vault_files section is included to retrieve files from Vault and write them to disk. This is discouraged (minimizing the time that secrets are persisted should be prefered), but included for use with legacy applications which require a file path for secrets (e.g. TLS certificates).

Raw Config Example

{
    "website": {
        "host": "http://acme.com",
        "site-name": "Great Products for Coyotes",
        "tls-key": "/etc/web/acme.com.key",
        "tls-cert": "/etc/web/acme.com.crt"
    },
    "vault_secrets": {
        "website.db_user": "secret/mysql/customer.user",
        "website.db_pwd": "secret/mysql/customer.password"
    },
    "vault_files": {
        "website.tls-key": "secret/website/proxy.key",
        "website.tls-cert": "secret/website/proxy.cert"
    }
}

Resulting Dictionary Example:

{
    "website": {
        "host": "http://acme.com",
        "site-name": "great products",
        "tls-key": "/var/acme/acme.com.key",
        "tls-cert": "/var/acme/acme.com.crt",
        "db_user": "customer",
        "db_pwd": "customer-password"
    },
    "vault_files": {
        "website.tls-key": "secret/website/proxy.key",
        "website.tls-cert": "secret/website/proxy.cert"
    }
}

vault_secrets Usage

A vault_secrets entry must have a config key and a secret path. The config_key is a dot separated path to the configuration item that should be added or updated. The secret_path is the path where the secret resides in Vault. As an example:

{
    "website": {},
    "vault_secrets": {
       "website.db_user": "secret/mysql/customer"
    }    
}

In vault_secrets, website.db_user is the config_key and secret/mysql/customer is the secret_path. The key used on the secret_path in Vault will be db_user.

By default, the final portional of the config key will be used as the key to the secret within Vault. However, it is possible to add a unique key with a dot separator on the secret_path. By way of example:

{
    "website": {},
    "vault_secrets": {
        "website.db_user": "secret/mysql/customer.user"
    }     
}

This example takes the value named user from the mysql/customer secret and maps it onto the the db_user key of the website portion. This enables drawing from the same secret across different configurations without forcing all of the config_key names to be the same. For example, if a cron job also required the user value from mysql/customer.user but its configuration named it user, you might end up with a configuration file that looks like:

{
    "website": {},
    "vault_secrets": {
        "mailer_cron.user": "secret/mysql/customer.user"
    }     
}

Key-Value Store V2 Limitation: You must include data after the mountpoint, for example, secret/mysql/customer should be secret/data/mysql/customer when using V2.

vault_files Usage

Note Where ever possible, prefer to handle secrets as strings and use them only in memory. Only use this mode when configuring for applications that require the secret to be provided as a file (a common requirement for a TLS keyfile).

Note Unlike vault_secrets the vault_files section is retained in the dictionary returned by vault_anyconfig, in order to retain the mapping when writing the final configuration to file (e.g. in the CLI).

Warning! The vault_files functionality expects that it is being run as the user of the application, and must have appropriate permissions to the files and location where files are to be stored.

Warning! vault_files will happily overwrite your files, and mantains no backups.

Warning! If the file location changes, it will not be deleted! Use responsibly.

There are two major ways to use the vault_files section. The first is to specify a file location directly, and the secret as the path. For example:

{
    "vault_files": {
        "/var/acme/acme.com.crt": "secret/website/proxy.key"
    }
}

The second method is to reference a key in the configuration. This avoids duplication of the file path in multiple parts of the configuration.

{
    "website": {
        "tls-key": "/etc/web/acme.com.key",
        "tls-cert": "/etc/web/acme.com.crt",
    },
    "vault_files": {
        "website.tls-key": "secret/website/proxy.key",
        "website.tls-cert": "secret/website/proxy.cert"
    }
}

By default, secret_path uses file as the key within the Vault secret. However, the secret_path can use the same dot notation used in vault_secrets to specify the key, e.g. secret/acme/secret-key.key

Warning! The secret_path string can only use a dot (.) if separating the path from the key. Extra dots will cause vault_anyconfig to throw an error.

Key-Value Store V2 Limitation: You must include data after the mountpoint, for example, secret/website/proxy should be secret/data/website/proxy when using V2.

Guidance for Configuration Files

Although all three files can be combined into a single file, it is recommend that you separate out the vault_creds and vault_config sections into their own file(s) and use restrictive permissions on them, e.g. 400, since the secrets required to access Vault must be present in these files.

Usage

Initialization

VaultAnyconfig can be initalized in three ways (for two different modes):

1. From a vault configuration file (see files and formatting)
2. By specifying the parameters used in initializing an HVAC client.
3. By providing no parameters (or a configuration file with an empty vault_config section) in which case it is in passthrough mode, where secrets are not loaded from Vault.

Authentication With Vault

You can use auto_auth by providing a file as explained in the files and formatting section, or you can directly use the auth methods from the HVAC Client. If passthrough mode is set, auto_auth will always return true, but the HVAC client methods will fail, so it is recommended to use auto_auth where possible.

Loading/Saving Files with Keys Inserted

Simply call the load, loads, dump or dumps methods as need. Invocation is the same as for directly calling the anyconfig methods.