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Mounting Kubernetes Secrets

Link Situation Analysis

This use case will mount VSecM-minted secrets as environment variables or files through Kubernetes Secrets. This approach is useful when deploying workloads using Helm charts that only allow creating secrets as Kubernetes secrets.

When you deploy a workload using a Helm chart and the Helm chart only allows you to create secrets as Kubernetes secrets, approaches like Fetching Secrets Using VSecM Sidecar, Fetching Secrets Using VSecM SDK, or even Mutating an In-Memory Template File could be unfeasible.

Luckily, VMware Secrets Manager can create and manage native Kubernetes Secrets in any namespace.

Link Screencast

Here is a screencast that demonstrates this use case:

Link High-Level Diagram

Open the image in a new tab to see the full-size version:

High-Level Diagram

Link Implementation

Using a VSecM-generated Kubernetes Secret is no different than how you would use a regular Kubernetes Secret. This section will show you how to do it.

Environment Variables or Files

You can use the generated Kubernetes Secret in the usual ways a Kubernetes Secret is used. For example, you can bind environment variables from the Secret to your container or create a volume from the generated Kubernetes Secret. VSecM will create a native Kubernetes Secret for you; how you use it will be up to you.

You can bind environment variables from the secret to your container or create a volume from the generated Kubernetes Secret.

Link Waiting for the Secret to be Ready

Once the workload is initialized, the secret must be ready for the workload to consume it. There are several strategies that you can follow for this.

  • Using a custom Kubernetes Operator, you can configure your orchestrator to deploy the workload only after the secret is created.
  • You can use a toolkit like Carvel to create a dependency relationship to guarantee the Secrets are created before the workloads.
  • You can use the VSecM Init Container similarly to how it’s described in the Mounting Secrets as Volumes use case. For example, in an initCommand: stanza, you can first create a Kubernetes Secret, wait for the cluster to reconcile, then register a dummy secret to the workload to trigger a VSecM Init Container that the workload has to receive and initialize the main container (see the sample in the following section).

Don’t Want the Extra Wait?

VSecM Init Container could also wait for the existence of a Kubernetes Secret–if you help us implement the feature. This way, you won’t have to add a wait: command that may fail depending on how busy the cluster is.

Once this feature is implemented, the VSecM Init Container will only initialize the workload after ensuring the Kubernetes Secret is there and populated.

If you need this feature, your contributions are welcome:

In this walkthrough we will assume that the VSecM-generated Kubernetes Secret will be created before the workload begins its lifecycle.

Link Creating a Kubernetes Secret

VSecM Helm Charts can be configured to provide secure pattern-based random secrets for workloads. For example, we can modify the initCommand stanza of sentinel Helm chart’s values.yaml to register a random username and password as secrets for our example workload.

To create a Kubernetes Secret, prefix the name of the workload with k8s: similar to the following example:

initCommand:
  enabled: true
  command: |
    --
    w:k8s:example-secret
    n:example-apps
    s:gen:{"username":"admin-[a-z0-9]{6}","password":"[a-zA-Z0-9]{12}"}
    t:{"ADMIN_USER":"{{.username}}","ADMIN_PASS":"{{.password}}"}
    --
    wait:5000
    --
    w:example
    n:example-apps
    s:init
    --

Note the k8s: prefix in the workload name. This prefix tells the VSecM o create a Kubernetes Secret instead of a VSecM “secret”.

The above stanza is equivalent to this VSecM Sentinel command:

kubectl exec $SENTINEL -n vsecm-system -- safe \
  -w "k8s:example-secret" \
  -s 'gen:{"username":"admin-[a-z0-9]{6}","password":"[a-zA-Z0-9]{12}"}' \
  -t '{"ADMIN_USER":"{{.username}}","ADMIN_PASS":"{{.password}}"}'

sleep(5)

kubectl exec $SENTINEL -n vsecm-system -- safe \
  -w "example" \
  -s 'init'

Aside from the regular flags such as w: for -w, n: for -n, and s: for -s, the initCommand accepts two special commands:

  • wait:$timInMilliseconds to wait for a specified time before executing the next command.
  • exit:true break execution without processing any further commands.

Link Don’t Forget to Create a ClusterSPIFFEID

For the VSecM Init Container to talk to VSecM Safe, your example workload will need a ClusterSPIFFEID similar to the following:

apiVersion: spire.spiffe.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterSPIFFEID
metadata:
  name: example
spec:
  className: vsecm
  spiffeIDTemplate: "spiffe://vsecm.com\
    /workload/example\
    /ns/{{ .PodMeta.Namespace }}\
    /sa/{{ .PodSpec.ServiceAccountName }}\
    /n/{{ .PodMeta.Name }}"
  podSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example-app
  workloadSelectorTemplates:
    - "k8s:ns:example-apps"
    - "k8s:sa:example-sa"

You can check out Mounting Secrets as Volumes for a separate example of how this ClusterSPIFFEID is created and evaluated.

Link That’s It

If you followed these steps, your workload would happily and securely consume VSecM-minted secure random secrets.

Link Conclusion

In conclusion, integrating VMware Secrets Manager with Kubernetes Secrets offers a robust and flexible solution for managing and consuming secrets within your Kubernetes workloads.

By leveraging VSecM to generate and manage Kubernetes Secrets, you can ensure that your applications are provisioned with the necessary credentials, configurations, and other sensitive data in a secure, automated fashion. The approach outlined provides a clear path for securely injecting secrets into workloads, whether through environment variables or files.

Additionally, implementing strategies such as waiting for secrets to be ready before workload deployment, using VSecM Init Containers, and configuring ClusterSPIFFEIDs further enhances the security and reliability of the secret management process.

Contributions to further enhancing these capabilities, such as implementing new features in VSecM Init Containers, are encouraged and welcome.

Link List of Use Cases in This Section

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