A Beginner's Guide to Vault: Understanding Secrets, Credentials, and Secure Data Management
Tags: security, devops, sre, ansible
Published: 2023-03-11 02:29:43

#  🔐 Introduction to Credential and Secrets

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### Resume 🧾

- 📜 Vault: Definition and explanation of Vault as a tool for securely storing and managing sensitive data.
- 🤫 Secret: Explanation of what secrets are and their importance in security.
- 🔑 Credential: Explanation of credentials as a type of secret used for authentication and authorization.
- 🏆 Importance: Discussion of the importance of secrets and credentials in security.
- 🚀 Use Cases: Examples of use cases for Vault, including managing application secrets, secure access management, configuration management, dynamic secrets, and encryption/tokenization.
- 💻 Examples: Additional examples of how Vault can be used in practical applications.
- 📄 Command Line: Explanation of how to create a Vault from a file or string in command line.

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### What is Vault? 📜

In Ansible, a "vault" is a feature that allows you to encrypt sensitive data such as passwords, API keys, and other credentials used in your playbooks and roles.

When you create a vault, you use a password to encrypt the data, and only someone who has the password can access the data. This helps ensure that sensitive information is not visible to unauthorized users who may have access to your Ansible code.

To create a vault in Ansible, you use the ansible-vault command line tool. You can create a new encrypted file or edit an existing one with the edit subcommand, and you can also encrypt and decrypt files with the encrypt and decrypt subcommands.

Once you have created a vault, you can use the include_vars module or the vars_prompt module to prompt the user for the password and then use the vault lookup plugin to access the encrypted variables in your playbook or role. The vault lookup plugin will automatically decrypt the data using the password provided.

Using a vault in Ansible is a best practice for handling sensitive data and can help you secure your automation workflows.

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### What is a secret? 🤫

In the context of computing and security, a "secret" refers to any piece of sensitive or confidential information that should be kept private and protected from unauthorized access. Secrets can take many forms, such as passwords, encryption keys, API keys, access tokens, private certificates, and other types of credentials that are used to authenticate users or systems and grant access to protected resources.

Keeping secrets secure is critical for protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorized access and data breaches. This is why secrets are often stored in secure locations, such as encrypted databases, hardware security modules, or cloud-based key management services, and are accessed using strict authentication and authorization controls.

Many software tools and frameworks provide built-in mechanisms for storing and managing secrets securely, such as Ansible Vault, HashiCorp Vault, Kubernetes Secrets, and AWS Secrets Manager, to name a few. These tools allow you to store, manage, and distribute secrets across different systems and environments securely, using encryption, access controls, and other security features to ensure that sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access.

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### What is a credential? 🔑

In the context of computing and security, a "credential" refers to any piece of information that is used to authenticate and authorize a user, system, or application to access a resource or perform an action. Credentials can take many forms, including usernames, passwords, access keys, API tokens, certificates, and other types of secrets.

Credentials are used to establish trust between different systems and to ensure that only authorized entities can access protected resources. For example, when you log in to a website, you typically provide a username and password as credentials, which are verified by the website's authentication system to determine if you are authorized to access your account. Similarly, when you use an API to access a cloud service, you may need to provide an access key and secret as credentials to authenticate your request and authorize access to the service.

Credentials are a critical aspect of security in computing, and their management is essential to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data and systems. Credential management involves storing credentials securely, using encryption, access controls, and other security mechanisms to protect them from unauthorized access, and rotating them periodically to minimize the risk of compromise. Many tools and frameworks provide built-in support for credential management, such as password managers, key management services, and identity and access management (IAM) systems.

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### What is difference between a credential and secret? 🏆

While the terms "credential" and "secret" are often used interchangeably, there is a subtle difference between them.

A "credential" refers to any piece of information that is used to authenticate and authorize a user, system, or application to access a resource or perform an action. Credentials can take many forms, including usernames, passwords, access keys, API tokens, certificates, and other types of secrets.

On the other hand, a "secret" specifically refers to any piece of sensitive or confidential information that should be kept private and protected from unauthorized access. Secrets can take many forms, such as passwords, encryption keys, API keys, access tokens, private certificates, and other types of credentials used to authenticate users or systems and grant access to protected resources.

In essence, all secrets are credentials, but not all credentials are secrets. Credentials include both public and private information that is used for authentication and authorization, whereas secrets specifically refer to private information that must be kept confidential to prevent unauthorized access.

For example, a username is a credential but not necessarily a secret, since it may be publicly known or easily guessed. A password, on the other hand, is both a credential and a secret, since it must be kept private to ensure secure authentication.

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### Which is more important? 🏅

Both credentials and secrets are important in the context of computing and security, and their management is essential to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data and systems.

Credentials are critical because they are used to establish trust between different systems and to ensure that only authorized entities can access protected resources. Strong credentials, such as complex passwords and unique access keys, can help prevent unauthorized access and reduce the risk of data breaches and other security incidents.

Secrets are also critical because they are used to protect sensitive information and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Effective secret management involves storing secrets securely, using encryption, access controls, and other security mechanisms to protect them from unauthorized access, and rotating them periodically to minimize the risk of compromise.

In summary, both credentials and secrets are important, and their management is essential to ensure the security of computing systems and data. Organizations must adopt best practices for managing credentials and secrets, including strong authentication and authorization mechanisms, secure storage, and regular rotation to minimize the risk of compromise.

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### Where I can use vault? 💻

A vault is a secure storage location used to store and manage sensitive data such as credentials, secrets, and other types of confidential information. Vault tools can be used in a variety of contexts where secure storage and management of secrets are required, including:

Configuration management: Vault can be used with tools like Ansible and Terraform to store sensitive configuration data such as API keys, passwords, and access tokens.

Application development: Vault can be used to store sensitive data such as encryption keys, certificates, and database credentials required by applications during runtime.

Cloud computing: Vault can be used with cloud service providers such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure to store secrets required by cloud applications, services, and APIs.

DevOps: Vault can be used to manage secrets required by DevOps tools like Jenkins, GitLab, and CircleCI.

Cybersecurity: Vault can be used to securely store and manage sensitive data required by cybersecurity tools such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and threat intelligence platforms.

In summary, Vault can be used in a variety of contexts where secure storage and management of secrets are required, including configuration management, application development, cloud computing, DevOps, and cybersecurity.

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### Use cases 🚀

Vault is a tool for securely storing and managing sensitive data such as credentials, secrets, and other types of confidential information. Some common use cases of Vault include:

Managing application secrets: Applications often require sensitive information such as API keys, database credentials, and encryption keys to function. Vault can be used to store and manage these secrets, providing a centralized and secure way to manage application secrets.

Secure access management: Vault can be used to manage access to resources such as SSH keys, TLS certificates, and cloud service access keys. By storing these credentials in Vault and using Vault's access controls and policies, administrators can manage and audit access to these resources more easily.

Configuration management: Vault can be used with tools such as Ansible and Terraform to store sensitive configuration data, such as secrets required by infrastructure-as-code scripts. This makes it easier to manage and maintain these scripts while keeping sensitive data secure.

Dynamic secrets: Vault can generate dynamic secrets that are short-lived and tied to specific applications or services. This can help reduce the risk of stolen or leaked secrets, as these dynamic secrets expire after a specified period of time.

Encryption and tokenization: Vault can be used to encrypt data at rest and in transit, as well as to tokenize sensitive data. This can help protect sensitive data and make it easier to manage and store securely.

In summary, Vault can be used in a wide range of use cases that involve managing sensitive data securely, including managing application secrets, access management, configuration management, dynamic secrets, and encryption/tokenization.

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### How can create a vault from a file and by a string in command line? 📄

To create a vault in command line, you can use the ansible-vault command.

To create a vault from a file, you can use the following command:

`ansible-vault create <filename>`

This will create a new encrypted vault file with the specified filename. You will be prompted to enter a password that will be used to encrypt and decrypt the file.

To create a vault from a string, you can use the following command:

`ansible-vault encrypt_string <string>`

This will encrypt the specified string and output it in a format that can be included in a playbook or inventory file. You will be prompted to enter a password that will be used to encrypt and decrypt the string.

For example, to encrypt the string "mysecret" and output it to the console, you can run the following command:

`ansible-vault encrypt_string mysecret`

This will output the encrypted string in a format like this:

```
!vault |
          $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256
          66326266373333633033646434333231353062313661646637626637346464353534653937623566
          3833336333323064373632653664623131653966623361320a306132383933343734656433313439
          63386334333737363862393461396334613836613132303265333865303265373465343561643130
          6430316166633437360a623366613632663238666565353832306233393064313964633062393238
          3235

```

This encrypted string can then be included in a playbook or inventory file using the !vault tag, and decrypted using the same password used to encrypt it.

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