hashicorp-vault

HashiCorp Vault

Centrally manage secrets, encryption, and access with HashiCorp Vault.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Centralizing secrets management
• Implementing dynamic credentials
• Managing PKI and certificates
• Encrypting sensitive data
• Meeting compliance requirements

Prerequisites

• Vault server (dev or production)
• Vault CLI installed
• Network access to Vault

Quick Start

Development Server

# Start dev server
vault server -dev

# Set environment
export VAULT_ADDR='http://127.0.0.1:8200'
export VAULT_TOKEN='root'

# Verify connection
vault status

Production Deployment

# config.hcl
storage "raft" {
  path = "/opt/vault/data"
  node_id = "vault-1"
}

listener "tcp" {
  address = "0.0.0.0:8200"
  tls_cert_file = "/opt/vault/tls/vault.crt"
  tls_key_file = "/opt/vault/tls/vault.key"
}

api_addr = "https://vault.example.com:8200"
cluster_addr = "https://vault.example.com:8201"

ui = true

# Initialize Vault
vault operator init -key-shares=5 -key-threshold=3

# Unseal (run 3 times with different keys)
vault operator unseal <key-1>
vault operator unseal <key-2>
vault operator unseal <key-3>

# Login
vault login <root-token>

Secret Engines

KV Secrets

# Enable KV v2
vault secrets enable -path=secret kv-v2

# Write secret
vault kv put secret/myapp/config \
  username="admin" \
  password="s3cr3t"

# Read secret
vault kv get secret/myapp/config
vault kv get -field=password secret/myapp/config

# Update secret
vault kv put secret/myapp/config \
  username="admin" \
  password="new-password"

# List secrets
vault kv list secret/

# Delete secret
vault kv delete secret/myapp/config

# Version history
vault kv metadata get secret/myapp/config

Database Secrets

# Enable database engine
vault secrets enable database

# Configure PostgreSQL connection
vault write database/config/postgresql \
  plugin_name=postgresql-database-plugin \
  connection_url="postgresql://{{username}}:{{password}}@localhost:5432/mydb" \
  allowed_roles="readonly,readwrite" \
  username="vault" \
  password="vault-password"

# Create role
vault write database/roles/readonly \
  db_name=postgresql \
  creation_statements="CREATE ROLE \"{{name}}\" WITH LOGIN PASSWORD '{{password}}' VALID UNTIL '{{expiration}}'; \
    GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO \"{{name}}\";" \
  default_ttl="1h" \
  max_ttl="24h"

# Get credentials
vault read database/creds/readonly