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.

Files and Formatting

There are three configuration files, 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 File

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 File

This provides authentication for use with the auth_from_file 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 File

The main configuration file 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. Note as well, the key for the secret in Vault must match the name of the key you are inserting into your configuration.

Raw Config Example:

{
    "acme": {
        "host": "http://acme.com",
        "site-name": "great products"
    },
    "vault_secrets": {
        "acme.user": "secret/acme/user",
        "acme.pwd": "secret/acme/user"
    }
}

Resulting Dictionary Example:

{
    "acme": {
        "host": "http://acme.com",
        "site-name": "great products",
        "user": "sample-user",
        "pwd": "sample-password"
    }
}

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 auth_from_file 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, auth_from_file will always return true, but the HVAC client methods will fail, so it is recommended to use auth_from_file 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.