Vals-Operator is a Kubernetes operator that integrates external
Here at Digitalis we love vals, it's a tool we use daily to keep secrets stored securely. Inspired by it, we have created an operator to manage Kubernetes secrets. As Digitalis and our sister company AxonOps are data companies, we also added a set of features tailored for running databases.
vals-operator syncs secrets from any secrets store supported by vals into Kubernetes. Also, vals-operator supports database secrets as provider by the HashiCorp Vault Secret Engine.
You can watch this brief video on how it works:
We have also added the ability to copy secrets between namespaces. It uses the format ref+k8s://namespace/secret#key. This way you can keep secrets generated in one namespace in sync with any other namespace in the cluster.
You can use the helm chart to install vals-operator. First of all, add the repository to your helm installation:
helm repo add digitalis https://digitalis-io.github.io/helm-chartsYou will need to provide the configuration to access the secrets store you decided on via either environment variables pre existing secrets.
# Example for Vault
helm upgrade --install vals-operator --create-namespace -n vals-operator \
--set "env[0].name=VAULT_ROLE_ID,env[0].value=vals-operator" \
--set "env[1].name=VAULT_SECRET_ID,env[1].value=my-secret-id" \
--set "env[2].name=VAULT_ADDR,env[2].value=https://vault:8200"
digitalis/vals-operator
# Example for AWS using a secret
kubectl create secret generic -n vals-operator aws-creds \
--from-literal=AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=foo \
--from-literal=AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=bar \
--from-literal=AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-west-2
helm upgrade --install vals-operator --create-namespace -n vals-operator \
--set "secretEnv[0].secretRef.name=aws-creds" \
digitalis/vals-operator
# Another example using a Google Cloud service account
kubectl create secret generic -n vals-operator google-creds \
--from-file=credentials.json=/path/to/service_account.json
helm upgrade --install vals-operator --create-namespace -n vals-operator \
--set "env[0].name=GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS,env[0].value=/secret/credentials.json" \
--set "env[1].name=GCP_PROJECT,env[1].value=my_project" \
--set "volumes[0].name=creds,volumes[0].secret.secretName=google-creds" \
--set "volumeMounts[0].name=creds,volumeMounts[0].mountPath=/secret" \
digitalis/vals-operatorℹ️ Check out the documentation for further details and examples including EKS integration.
If you're using Vault as backend you can also enable the Kubernetes Auth login method. Refer to the HashiCorp documentation on creating a role.
You will need to add two additional environment variables to the vals-operator installation:
- VAULT_ROLE_ID: required to enable Kubernetes Login
- VAULT_ADDR: URL to the Vault server, ie, http://vault:8200
- VAULT_LOGIN_USER and VAULT_LOGIN_PASSWORD: to use
userpassauthentication (insecure, not recommended) - VAULT_APP_ROLE and VAULT_SECRET_ID: to use
approleauthentication
apiVersion: digitalis.io/v1
kind: ValsSecret
metadata:
name: vals-secret-sample
labels:
owner: digitalis.io
spec:
name: my-secret # Optional, default is the resource name
ttl: 3600 # Optional, default is 5 minutes. The secret will be checked at every "reconcile period". See below.
type: Opaque # Default type, others supported
data:
username:
ref: ref+vault://secret/database/username
encoding: text
password:
ref: ref+vault://secret/database/password
encoding: text
ssh:
ref: ref+vault://secret/database/ssh-private-key
encoding: base64
aws-user:
ref: ref+awssecrets://kube/test#username
aws-pass:
ref: ref+awssecrets://kube/test#password
ns-secret:
ref: ref+k8s://namespace/secret#key
plain-text:
ref: literal_name # this is not processed by any secrets agent but is added to the secret as a literal string
template:
config.yaml: |
# Config generated by Vals-Operator on {{ now | date "2006-01-02" }}
username: {{.username}}
password: {{.password}}
{{- if .url }}
url: {{ .url | lower }}
{{ end }}
rollout: # optional: run a `rollout` to make the pods use new secret
- kind: Deployment
name: myappThe example above will create a secret named my-secret and get the values from the different sources. The secret will be kept in sync against the backed secrets store.
The TTL is optional and used to decrease the number of times the operator calls the backend secrets store as some of them such as AWS Secrets Manager will incur a cost.
The default encoding is text but you can change it to base64 per secret reference. This way you can, for example, base64 encode large configuration files. If you omit the ref+ prefix vals-operator will not process the string and it will be added to the secret as as literal string.
You may also use GoLang templates to format a secret. You can inject as variables any of the keys referenced in the data section to format, for example, a configuration file.
The sprig functions are supported.
NOTE: Vault >= 1.10 is required for this feature to work
A great feature in HashiCorp Vault is the generate database credentials dynamically. The missing part is you need these credentials in Kubernertes where your applications are. This is why we have added a new resource definition to do just that:
apiVersion: digitalis.io/v1beta1
kind: DbSecret
metadata:
name: cassandra
spec:
renew: true # this is the default, otherwise a new credential will be generated every time
vault:
role: readonly
mount: cass000
template: # optional: change the secret format
CASSANDRA_USERNAME: "{{ .username }}"
CASSANDRA_PASSWORD: "{{ .password }}"
rollout: # optional: run a `rollout` to make the pods use new credentials
- kind: Deployment
name: cassandra-client
- kind: StatefulSet
name: cassandra-client-otherIf you're running a database you may want to keep the secrets in sync between your secrets store, Kubernetes and the database. This can be handy for password rotation to ensure the clients don't use the same password all the time. Please be aware your client must suppport re-reading the secret and reconnecting whenever it is updated.
We don't yet support TLS, we'll add it to future releases.
---
apiVersion: digitalis.io/v1
kind: ValsSecret
metadata:
name: vals-secret-sample
labels:
owner: digitalis.io
spec:
name: my-secret # Optional, default is the resource name
ttl: 10 # Optional, default is 0. The secret will be checked at every "reconcile period". See below.
type: Opaque # Default type, others supported
data:
username:
ref: ref+gcpsecrets://databases/test#username
encoding: text
password:
ref: ref+gcpsecrets://databases/test#password
encoding: text
databases:
- driver: cassandra
loginCredentials:
secretName: cassandra-creds # secret containing the username and password to access the DB and run the below query
usernameKey: username # in the secret, which key contains the username (default `cassandra`)
passwordKey: password # in the secret, which key contains the password
port: 9042
usernameKey: username
passwordKey: password
hosts: # list all your cassandra nodes here
- cassandra01
- cassandra02
- driver: postgres
loginCredentials:
secretName: postgres-creds
usernameKey: username
passwordKey: password
port: 5432
usernameKey: username
passwordKey: password
hosts:
- postgres
- driver: mysql
loginCredentials:
secretName: mysql-creds
namespace: mysql-server
passwordKey: mysql-root-password # if username is omitted it defaults to `mysql`
port: 3306
usernameKey: username
passwordKey: password
userHost: "%" # default
hosts:
- mysql
- driver: elastic
loginCredentials:
secretName: elastic-creds
namespace: elastic-server
usernameKey: username # the username defaults to 'elastic' if not provided
passwordKey: password
port: 9200
usernameKey: username
passwordKey: password
hosts:
- my-elastic # this would be converted to http://my-elastic:9200
- https://my-other-elastic:9200 # provide full URL instead