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Preface

The Spring Vault project applies core Spring concepts to the development of solutions using HashiCorp Vault. We provide a "template" as a high-level abstraction for storing and querying documents. You will notice similarities to the REST support in the Spring Framework.

This document is the reference guide for Spring Vault. It explains Vault concepts and semantics and the syntax.

This part of the reference documentation explains the core functionality offered by Spring Vault.

Vault support introduces the Vault module feature set.

1. Document Structure

This section provides basic introduction to Spring and Vault. It contains details about following development and how to get support.

The rest of the document refers to Spring Vault features and assumes the user is familiar with HashiCorp Vault as well as Spring concepts.

2. Knowing Spring

Spring Vault uses Spring framework’s core functionality, such as IoC container. While it is not important to know the Spring APIs, understanding the concepts behind them is. At a minimum, the idea behind IoC should be familiar for whatever IoC container you choose to use.

The core functionality of the Vault support can be used directly, with no need to invoke the IoC services of the Spring Container. This is much like RestTemplate which can be used 'standalone' without any other services of the Spring container. To leverage all the features of Spring Vault document, such as the session support, you will need to configure some parts of the library using Spring.

To learn more about Spring, you can refer to the comprehensive (and sometimes disarming) documentation that explains in detail the Spring Framework. There are a lot of articles, blog entries and books on the matter - take a look at the Spring framework home page for more information.

3. Knowing Vault

Security and working with secrets is a concern of every developer working with databases, user credentials or API keys. Vault steps in by providing a secure storage combined with access control, revocation, key rolling and auditing. In short: Vault is a service for securely accessing and storing secrets. A secret is anything that you want to tightly control access to, such as API keys, passwords, certificates, and more.

The jumping off ground for learning about Vault is www.vaultproject.io. Here is a list of useful resources:

The manual introduces Vault and contains links to getting started guides, reference documentation and tutorials.
The online shell provides a convenient way to interact with a Vault instance in combination with the online tutorial.
HashiCorp Vault Introduction
HashiCorp Vault Documentation

Spring Vault provides client-side support for accessing, storing and revoking secrets. With HashiCorp’s Vault you have a central place to manage external secret data for applications across all environments. Vault can manage static and dynamic secrets such as application data, username/password for remote applications/resources and provide credentials for external services such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Apache Cassandra, Consul, AWS and more.

4. Requirements

Spring Vault 2.x binaries requires JDK level 8.0 and above, and Spring Framework 5.1.0.RC3 and above.

In terms of Vault, Vault at least 0.5.

5. Additional Help Resources

Learning a new framework is not always straight forward. In this section, we try to provide what we think is an easy to follow guide for starting with Spring Vault module. However, if you encounter issues or you are just looking for advice, feel free to use one of the links below:

5.1. Support

There are a few support options available:

5.1.1. Community Forum

Post questions questions regarding Spring Vault on Stackoverflow to share information and help each other. Note that registration is needed only for posting.

5.1.2. Professional Support

Professional, from-the-source support, with guaranteed response time, is available from Pivotal Sofware, Inc., the company behind Spring Vault and Spring.

5.2. Following Development

For information on the Spring Vault source code repository, nightly builds and snapshot artifacts please see the Spring Vault homepage. You can help make Spring Vault best serve the needs of the Spring community by interacting with developers through the Community on Stackoverflow. If you encounter a bug or want to suggest an improvement, please create a ticket on the Spring Vault issue tracker. To stay up to date with the latest news and announcements in the Spring ecosystem, subscribe to the Spring Community Portal. Lastly, you can follow the Spring blog or the project team on Twitter (SpringCentral).

6. New & Noteworthy

6.1. What’s new in Spring Vault 2.1

GCP Compute, GCP IAM, and Azure authentication.
Template API support for versioned and unversioned Key/Value backends and for Vault wrapping operations.
Support full pull mode in reactive AppRole authentication.
Improved Exception hierarchy for Vault login failures.

6.2. What’s new in Spring Vault 2.0

Authentication steps DSL to compose authentication flows.
Reactive Vault client via ReactiveVaultOperations.
Vault repository support based on Spring Data KeyValue.
Transit batch encrypt and decrypt support.
Policy management for policies stored as JSON.
Support CSR signing, certificate revocation and CRL retrieval.
Kubernetes authentication.
RoleId/SecretId unwrapping for AppRole authentication.
Spring Security integration with transit backend-based BytesKeyGenerator and BytesEncryptor.

6.3. What’s new in Spring Vault 1.1.0

AWS IAM authentication.
Configuration of encryption/decryption versions for transit keys.
Pull mode for AppRole authentication.
Transit batch encrypt and decrypt support.
TTL-based generic secret rotation.

6.4. What’s new in Spring Vault 1.0

Initial Vault support.

Reference documentation

7. Vault support

The Vault support contains a wide range of features which are summarized below.

Spring configuration support using Java based @Configuration classes
VaultTemplate helper class that increases productivity performing common Vault operations. Includes integrated object mapping between Vault responses and POJOs.

For most tasks, you will find yourself using VaultTemplate that leverages the rich communication functionality. VaultTemplate is the place to look for accessing functionality such as reading data from Vault or issuing administrative commands. VaultTemplate also provides callback methods so that it is easy for you to get a hold of the low-level API artifacts such as RestTemplate to communicate directly with Vault.

7.1. Dependencies

The easiest way to find compatible versions of Spring Vault dependencies is by relying on the Spring Vault BOM we ship with the compatible versions defined. In a Maven project you would declare this dependency in the <dependencyManagement /> section of your pom.xml:

Example 1. Using the Spring Vault BOM

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.vault</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-vault-dependencies</artifactId>
      <version>2.1.0.RC1</version>
      <scope>import</scope>
      <type>pom</type>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

The current version is 2.1.0.RC1. The version name follows the following pattern: ${version}-${release} where release can be one of the following:

BUILD-SNAPSHOT - current snapshots
M1, M2 etc. - milestones
RC1, RC2 etc. - release candidates
RELEASE - GA release
SR1, SR2 etc. - service releases

Example 2. Declaring a dependency to Spring Vault

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.vault</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-vault-core</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

7.2. Spring Framework

The current version of Spring Vault requires Spring Framework in version 5.1.0.RC3 or better. The modules might also work with an older bugfix version of that minor version. However, using the most recent version within that generation is highly recommended.

8. Getting Started

Spring Vault support requires Vault 0.5 or higher and Java SE 6 or higher. An easy way to bootstrap setting up a working environment is to create a Spring based project in STS.

First you need to set up a running Vault server. Refer to the Vault for an explanation on how to startup a Vault instance.

To create a Spring project in STS go to File → New → Spring Template Project → Simple Spring Utility Project → press Yes when prompted. Then enter a project and a package name such as org.spring.vault.example.

Then add the following to pom.xml dependencies section.

Example 3. Adding Spring Vault dependency

<dependencies>

  <!-- other dependency elements omitted -->

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.vault</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-vault-core</artifactId>
    <version>2.1.0.RC1</version>
  </dependency>

</dependencies>

If you are using a milestone or release candidate, you will also need to add the location of the Spring Milestone repository to your maven pom.xml which is at the same level of your <dependencies/> element.

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>spring-milestone</id>
    <name>Spring Maven MILESTONE Repository</name>
    <url>http://repo.spring.io/libs-milestone</url>
  </repository>
</repositories>

The repository is also browseable here.

If you are using a SNAPSHOT, you will also need to add the location of the Spring Snapshot repository to your maven pom.xml which is at the same level of your <dependencies/> element.

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>spring-snapshot</id>
    <name>Spring Maven SNAPSHOT Repository</name>
    <url>http://repo.spring.io/libs-snapshot</url>
  </repository>
</repositories>

The repository is also browseable here.

Create a simple Secrets class to persist:

Example 4. Mapped data object

package org.spring.vault.example;

public class Secrets {

    String username;
    String password;

    public String getUsername() {
        return username;
    }

    public String getPassword() {
        return password;
    }
}

And a main application to run

Example 5. Example application using Spring Vault

package org.springframework.vault.example;

import org.springframework.vault.authentication.TokenAuthentication;
import org.springframework.vault.client.VaultEndpoint;
import org.springframework.vault.core.VaultTemplate;
import org.springframework.vault.support.VaultResponseSupport;

public class VaultApp {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        VaultTemplate vaultTemplate = new VaultTemplate(new VaultEndpoint(),
                new TokenAuthentication("00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"));

        Secrets secrets = new Secrets();
        secrets.username = "hello";
        secrets.password = "world";

        vaultTemplate.write("secret/myapp", secrets);

        VaultResponseSupport<Secrets> response = vaultTemplate.read("secret/myapp", Secrets.class);
        System.out.println(response.getData().getUsername());

        vaultTemplate.delete("secret/myapp");
    }
}

Even in this simple example, there are few things to take notice of

You can instantiate the central class of Spring Vault, VaultTemplate, using the org.springframework.vault.client.VaultEndpoint object and the ClientAuthentication. You are not required to spin up a Spring Context to use Spring Vault.
Vault is expected to be configured with a root token of 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 to run this application.
The mapper works against standard POJO objects without the need for any additional metadata (though you can optionally provide that information).
Mapping conventions can use field access. Notice the Secrets class has only getters.
If the constructor argument names match the field names of the stored document, they will be used to instantiate the object.

9. Introduction to VaultTemplate

The class VaultTemplate, located in the package org.springframework.vault.core, is the central class of the Spring’s Vault support providing a rich feature set to interact with Vault. The template offers convenience operations to read, write and delete data in Vault and provides a mapping between your domain objects and Vault data.

Once configured, VaultTemplate is thread-safe and can be reused across multiple instances.

The mapping between Vault documents and domain classes is done by delegating to RestTemplate. Spring Web support provides the mapping infrastructure.

The VaultTemplate class implements the interface VaultOperations. In as much as possible, the methods on VaultOperations are named after methods available on the Vault API to make the API familiar to existing Vault developers who are used to the API and CLI. For example, you will find methods such as "write", "delete", "read", and "revoke". The design goal was to make it as easy as possible to transition between the use of the Vault API and VaultOperations. A major difference in between the two APIs is that VaultOperations can be passed domain objects instead of JSON Key-Value pairs.

The preferred way to reference the operations on VaultTemplate instance is via its interface VaultOperations.

While there are many convenience methods on VaultTemplate to help you easily perform common tasks if you should need to access the Vault API directly to access functionality not explicitly exposed by the VaultTemplate you can use one of several execute callback methods to access underlying APIs. The execute callbacks will give you a reference to a RestOperations object. Please see the section Execution Callbacks for more information.

Now let’s look at a examples of how to work with Vault in the context of the Spring container.

9.1. Registering and configuring Spring Vault beans

Using Spring Vault does not require a Spring Context. However, instances of VaultTemplate and SessionManager registered inside a managed context will participate in lifecycle events provided by the Spring IoC container. This is useful to dispose active Vault sessions upon application shutdown. You also benefit from reusing the same VaultTemplate instance across your application.

Spring Vault comes with a supporting configuration class that provides bean definitions for use inside a Spring context. Application configuration classes typically extend from AbstractVaultConfiguration and are required to provide additional details that are environment specific.

Extending from AbstractVaultConfiguration requires to implement ` VaultEndpoint vaultEndpoint()` and ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() methods.

Example 6. Registering Spring Vault objects using Java based bean metadata

@Configuration
public class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    /**
     * Specify an endpoint for connecting to Vault.
     */
    @Override
    public VaultEndpoint vaultEndpoint() {
        return new VaultEndpoint();                            (1)
    }

    /**
     * Configure a client authentication.
     * Please consider a more secure authentication method
     * for production use.
     */
    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new TokenAuthentication("…");                   (2)
    }
}

1	Create a new `VaultEndpoint` that points by default to `https://localhost:8200`.
2	This sample uses `TokenAuthentication` to get started quickly. See Authentication Methods for details on supported authentication methods.

Example 7. Registering Spring Vault applying injected properties

@Configuration
public class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    @Value("${vault.uri}")
    URI vaultUri;

    /**
     * Specify an endpoint that was injected as URI.
     */
    @Override
    public VaultEndpoint vaultEndpoint() {
        return VaultEndpoint.from(vaultUri);                          (1)
    }

    /**
     * Configure a Client Certificate authentication.
     * {@link RestOperations} can be obtained from {@link #restOperations()}.
     */
    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new ClientCertificateAuthentication(restOperations()); (2)
    }
}

1	`VaultEndpoint` can be constructed using various factory methods such as `from(URI uri)` or `VaultEndpoint.create(String host, int port)`.
2	Dependencies for `ClientAuthentication` methods can be obtained either from `AbstractVaultConfiguration` or provided by your configuration.

Creating a custom configuration class might be cumbersome in some cases. Take a look at EnvironmentVaultConfiguration that allows configuration by using properties from existing property sources and Spring’s Environment. Read more in Using EnvironmentVaultConfiguration.

9.2. Session Management

Spring Vault requires a ClientAuthentication to login and access Vault. See Authentication Methods on details regarding authentication. Vault login should not occur on each authenticated Vault interaction but must be reused throughout a session. This aspect is handled by a SessionManager implementation. A SessionManager decides how often it obtains a token, about revocation and renewal. Spring Vault comes with two implementations:

SimpleSessionManager: Just obtains tokens from the supplied ClientAuthentication without refresh and revocation
LifecycleAwareSessionManager: This SessionManager schedules token renewal if a token is renewable and revoke a login token on disposal. Renewal is scheduled with an AsyncTaskExecutor. LifecycleAwareSessionManager is configured by default if using AbstractVaultConfiguration.

9.3. Using `EnvironmentVaultConfiguration`

Spring Vault includes EnvironmentVaultConfiguration configure the Vault client from Spring’s Environment and a set of predefined property keys. EnvironmentVaultConfiguration supports frequently applied configurations. Other configurations are supported by deriving from the most appropriate configuration class. Include EnvironmentVaultConfiguration with @Import(EnvironmentVaultConfiguration.class) to existing Java-based configuration classes and supply configuration properties through any of Spring’s PropertySources.

Example 8. Using EnvironmentVaultConfiguration with a property file

Java-based configuration class

@PropertySource("vault.properties")
@Import(EnvironmentVaultConfiguration.class)
public class MyConfiguration{
}

vault.properties

vault.uri=https://localhost:8200
vault.token=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Property keys

Vault URI: vault.uri
SSL Configuration
- Keystore resource: vault.ssl.key-store (optional)
- Keystore password: vault.ssl.key-store-password (optional)
- Truststore resource: vault.ssl.trust-store (optional)
- Truststore password: vault.ssl.trust-store-password (optional)
Authentication method: vault.authentication (defaults to TOKEN, supported authentication methods are: TOKEN, APPID, APPROLE, AWS_EC2, CERT, CUBBYHOLE)

Authentication-specific property keys

Token authentication

Vault Token: vault.token

AppId authentication

AppId: vault.app-id.app-id
UserId: vault.app-id.user-id. MAC_ADDRESS and IP_ADDRESS use MacAddressUserId, respective IpAddressUserId user id mechanisms. Any other value is used with StaticUserId.

AppRole authentication

RoleId: vault.app-role.role-id
SecretId: vault.app-role.secret-id (optional)

AWS-EC2 authentication

RoleId: vault.aws-ec2.role-id
Identity Document URL: vault.aws-ec2.identity-document (optional)

TLS certificate authentication

No configuration options.

Cubbyhole authentication

Initial Vault Token: vault.token

9.4. Execution callbacks

One common design feature of all Spring template classes is that all functionality is routed into one of the templates execute callback methods. This helps ensure that exceptions and any resource management that maybe required are performed consistency. While this was of much greater need in the case of JDBC and JMS than with Vault, it still offers a single spot for access and logging to occur. As such, using the execute callback is the preferred way to access the Vault API to perform uncommon operations that we’ve not exposed as methods on VaultTemplate.

Here is a list of execute callback methods.

<T> T doWithVault (RestOperationsCallback<T> callback) Executes the given RestOperationsCallback, allows to interact with Vault using RestOperations without requiring a session.
<T> T doWithSession (RestOperationsCallback<T> callback) Executes the given RestOperationsCallback, allows to interact with Vault in an authenticated session.

Here is an example that uses the ClientCallback to initialize Vault:

vaultOperations.doWithVault(new RestOperationsCallback<VaultInitializationResponse>() {

  @Override
  public VaultInitializationResponse doWithRestOperations(RestOperations restOperations) {

    ResponseEntity<VaultInitializationResponse> exchange = restOperations
                       .exchange("/sys/init", HttpMethod.PUT,
                                 new HttpEntity<Object>(request),
                                 VaultInitializationResponse.class);

    return exchange.getBody();
    }
});

10. Introduction to ReactiveVaultTemplate

This section covers basic information on the reactive programming support using Spring Vault.

10.1. What is Reactive Programming?

In plain terms reactive programming is about non-blocking applications that are asynchronous and event-driven and require a small number of threads to scale vertically (i.e. within the JVM) rather than horizontally (i.e. through clustering).

A key aspect of reactive applications is the concept of backpressure which is a mechanism to ensure producers don’t overwhelm consumers. For example in a pipeline of reactive components extending from the database to the HTTP response when the HTTP connection is too slow the data repository can also slow down or stop completely until network capacity frees up.

10.2. Reactive Vault Client

Spring Vault’s reactive client support is built on top of composable authentication steps and Spring’s functional WebClient via Reactor Netty, which features a fully non-blocking, event-driven HTTP client.

It exposes VaultTokenSupplier as supplier of VaultToken to authenticate HTTP requests and ReactiveVaultOperations as the primary entry point. The core configuration of VaultEndpoint, ClientOptions and SSL are reused across the various client implementation.

The class ReactiveVaultTemplate, located in the package org.springframework.vault.core, is the central class of the Spring’s reactive Vault support providing a rich feature set to interact with Vault. The template offers convenience operations to read, write and delete data in Vault and provides a mapping between your domain objects and Vault data.

Once configured, ReactiveVaultTemplate is thread-safe and can be reused across multiple instances.

The mapping between Vault documents and domain classes is done by delegating to WebClient and its codecs.

The ReactiveVaultTemplate class implements the interface ReactiveVaultOperations. In as much as possible, the methods on ReactiveVaultOperations are named after methods available on the Vault API to make the API familiar to existing Vault developers who are used to the API and CLI. For example, you will find methods such as "write", "delete", and "read". The design goal was to make it as easy as possible to transition between the use of the Vault API and ReactiveVaultOperations. A major difference in between the two APIs is that ReactiveVaultOperations can be passed domain objects instead of JSON Key-Value pairs.

The preferred way to reference the operations on ReactiveVaultTemplate instance is via its interface ReactiveVaultOperations.

Functionality not explicitly exposed by the ReactiveVaultTemplate you can use one of several execute callback methods to access underlying APIs. The execute callbacks will give you a reference to a WebClient object. Please see the section Execution Callbacks for more information.

Now let’s look at a examples of how to work with Vault in the context of the Spring container.

10.3. Registering and configuring Spring Vault beans

Using Spring Vault does not require a Spring Context. However, instances of ReactiveVaultTemplate and VaultTokenSupplier registered inside a managed context will participate in lifecycle events provided by the Spring IoC container. This is useful to dispose active Vault sessions upon application shutdown. You also benefit from reusing the same ReactiveVaultTemplate instance across your application.

Extending from AbstractVaultConfiguration requires to implement ` VaultEndpoint vaultEndpoint()` and ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() methods.

Example 9. Registering Spring Vault objects using Java based bean metadata

@Configuration
public class AppConfig extends AbstractReactiveVaultConfiguration {

    /**
     * Specify an endpoint for connecting to Vault.
     */
    @Override
    public VaultEndpoint vaultEndpoint() {
        return new VaultEndpoint();                            (1)
    }

    /**
     * Configure a client authentication.
     * Please consider a more secure authentication method
     * for production use.
     */
    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new TokenAuthentication("…");                   (2)
    }
}

1	Create a new `VaultEndpoint` that points by default to `https://localhost:8200`.
2	This sample uses `TokenAuthentication` to get started quickly. See Authentication Methods for details on supported authentication methods.

10.4. Session Management

Spring Vault requires a token to authenticate Vault requests. See Authentication Methods on details regarding authentication. The reactive client requires a non-blocking token supplier whose contract is defined in VaultTokenSupplier. Tokens can be static or obtained through a declared authentication flow. Vault login should not occur on each authenticated Vault interaction but the session token should be kept across a session. This aspect is handled by a session manager implementing ReactiveSessionManager, such as ReactiveLifecycleAwareSessionManager.

10.5. Execution callbacks

Here is a list of execute callback methods.

<T> T doWithVault (Function<WebClient, ? extends T> clientCallback) Composes a reactive sequence the given WebClient, allows to interact with Vault without a session context.
<T> T doWithSession (Function<WebClient, ? extends T> clientCallback) Composes a reactive sequence the given WebClient, allows to interact with Vault in an authenticated session.

Here is an example that uses the callback to initialize Vault:

reactiveVaultOperations.doWithVault(webClient -> {

    return webClient.put()
                    .uri("/sys/init")
                    .syncBody(request)
                    .retrieve()
                    .toEntity(VaultInitializationResponse.class);
});

11. Vault Property Source Support

Vault can be used in many different ways. One specific use-case is using Vault to store encrypted properties. Spring Vault supports Vault as property source to obtain configuration properties using Spring’s PropertySource abstraction.

You can reference properties stored inside Vault in other property sources or use value injection with @Value(…). Special attention is required when bootstrapping beans that require data stored inside of Vault. A VaultPropertySource must be initialized at that time to retrieve properties from Vault.

Spring Boot/Spring Cloud users can benefit from Spring Cloud Vault's configuration integration that initializes various property sources during application startup.

11.1. Registering `VaultPropertySource`

Spring Vault provides a VaultPropertySource to be used with Vault to obtain properties. It uses the nested data element to expose properties stored and encrypted in Vault.

ConfigurableApplicationContext ctx = new GenericApplicationContext();
MutablePropertySources sources = ctx.getEnvironment().getPropertySources();
sources.addFirst(new VaultPropertySource(vaultTemplate, "secret/my-application"));

In the code above, VaultPropertySource has been added with highest precedence in the search. If it contains a ´foo` property, it will be detected and returned ahead of any foo property in any other PropertySource. MutablePropertySources exposes a number of methods that allow for precise manipulation of the set of property sources.

11.2. @VaultPropertySource

The @VaultPropertySource annotation provides a convenient and declarative mechanism for adding a PropertySource to Spring’s Environment to be used in conjunction with @Configuration classes.

@VaultPropertySource takes a Vault path such as secret/my-application and exposes the data stored at the node in a PropertySource. @VaultPropertySource supports lease renewal for secrets associated with a lease (i. e. credentials from the mysql backend) and credential rotation upon terminal lease expiration. Lease renewal is disabled by default.

Example 10. Properties stored in Vault

{
  // …

  "data": {
    "database": {
      "password": ...
    },
    "user.name": ...,
  }

  // …
}

Example 11. Declaring a @VaultPropertySource

@Configuration
@VaultPropertySource("secret/my-application")
public class AppConfig {

    @Autowired Environment env;

    @Bean
    public TestBean testBean() {
        TestBean testBean = new TestBean();
        testBean.setUser(env.getProperty("user.name"));
        testBean.setPassword(env.getProperty("database.password"));
        return testBean;
    }
}

Example 12. Declaring a @VaultPropertySource with credential rotation and prefix

@Configuration
@VaultPropertySource(value = "aws/creds/s3-access",
                     propertyNamePrefix = "aws.",
                     renewal = Renewal.ROTATE)
public class AppConfig {
  // provides aws.access_key and aws.secret_key properties
}

Secrets obtained from generic secret backends are associated with a TTL (refresh_interval) but not a lease Id. Spring Vault’s PropertySource rotates generic secrets when reaching its TTL.

In certain situations, it may not be possible or practical to tightly control property source ordering when using @VaultPropertySource annotations. For example, if the @Configuration classes above were registered via component-scanning, the ordering is difficult to predict. In such cases - and if overriding is important - it is recommended that the user fall back to using the programmatic PropertySource API. See ConfigurableEnvironment and MutablePropertySources for details.

12. Vault Repositories

Working with VaultTemplate and responses mapped to Java classes allows basic data operations like read, write and delete. Vault repositories apply Spring Data’s repository concept on top of Vault. A Vault repository exposes basic CRUD functionality and supports query derivation with predicates constraining the Id property, paging and sorting.

Read more about Spring Data Repositories in the Spring Data Commons reference documentation. The reference documentation will give you an introduction to Spring Data repositories.

12.1. Usage

To access domain entities stored in Vault you can leverage repository support that eases implementing those quite significantly.

Example 13. Sample Credentials Entity

@Secret
public class Credentials {

  @Id String id;
  String password;
  String socialSecurityNumber;
  Address address;
}

We have a pretty simple domain object here. Note that it has a property named id annotated with org.springframework.data.annotation.Id and a @Secret annotation on its type. Those two are responsible for creating the actual key used to persist the object as JSON inside Vault.

Properties annotated with @Id as well as those named id are considered as the identifier properties. Those with the annotation are favored over others.

The next step is to declare a repository interface that uses the domain object.

Example 14. Basic Repository Interface for Credentials entities

public interface CredentialsRepository extends CrudRepository<Credentials, String> {

}

As our repository extends CrudRepository it provides basic CRUD and query methods. Vault repositories require Spring Data components. Make sure to include spring-data-commons and spring-data-keyvalue artifacts in your class path.

The easiest way to achive this, is by setting up dependency management and adding the artifacts to your pom.xml:

Then add the following to pom.xml dependencies section.

Example 15. Using the Spring Data BOM

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-data-releasetrain</artifactId>
      <version>Lovelace-RC2</version>
      <scope>import</scope>
      <type>pom</type>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>

  <!-- other dependency elements omitted -->

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.vault</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-vault-core</artifactId>
    <version>2.1.0.RC1</version>
  </dependency>

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-data-keyvalue</artifactId>
    <!-- Version inherited from the BOM -->
  </dependency>

</dependencies>

The thing we need in between to glue things together is the according Spring configuration.

Example 16. JavaConfig for Vault Repositories

@Configuration
@EnableVaultRepositories
public class ApplicationConfig {

  @Bean
  public VaultTemplate vaultTemplate() {
    return new VaultTemplate(…);
  }
}

Given the setup above we can go on and inject CredentialsRepository into our components.

Example 17. Access to Person Entities

@Autowired CredentialsRepository repo;

public void basicCrudOperations() {

  Credentials creds = new Credentials("heisenberg", "327215", "AAA-GG-SSSS");
  rand.setAddress(new Address("308 Negra Arroyo Lane", "Albuquerque", "New Mexico", "87104"));

  repo.save(creds);                                        (1)

  repo.findOne(creds.getId());                             (2)

  repo.count();                                            (3)

  repo.delete(creds);                                      (4)
}

1	Stores properties of `Credentials` inside Vault Hash with a key pattern `keyspace/id`, in this case `credentials/heisenberg`, in the generic secret backend.
2	Uses the provided id to retrieve the object stored at `keyspace/id`.
3	Counts the total number of entities available within the keyspace credentials defined by `@Secret` on `Credentials`.
4	Removes the key for the given object from Vault.

12.2. Object to Vault JSON Mapping

Vault repositories store objects in Vault using JSON as interchange format. Object mapping between JSON and the entity is done by VaultConverter. The converter reads and writes SecretDocument that contains the body from a VaultResponse. VaultResponses are read from Vault and the body is deserialized by Jackson into a Map of String and Object. The default VaultConverter implementation reads the Map with nested values, List and Map objects and converts these to entities and vice versa.

Given the Credentials type from the previous sections the default mapping is as follows:

{
  "_class": "org.example.Credentials",                 (1)
  "password", "327215",                                (2)
  "socialSecurityNumber": "AAA-GG-SSSS",
  "address": {                                         (3)
    "street": "308 Negra Arroyo Lane",
    "city": "Albuquerque",
    "state": "New Mexico",
    "zip":"87104"
  }
}

1	The `_class` attribute is included on root level as well as on any nested interface or abstract types.
2	Simple property values are mapped by path.
3	Properties of complex types are mapped as nested objects.

The @Id property must be mapped to String.

Table 1. Default Mapping Rules
Type	Sample	Mapped Value
Simple Type (eg. String)	String firstname = "Walter";	firstname = "Walter"
Complex Type (eg. Address)	Address adress = new Address("308 Negra Arroyo Lane");	address: { "street": "308 Negra Arroyo Lane" }
List of Simple Type	List<String> nicknames = asList("walt", "heisenberg");	nicknames: ["walt", "heisenberg"]
Map of Simple Type	Map<String, Integer> atts = asMap("age", 51)	atts : {"age" : 51}
List of Complex Type	List<Address> addresses = asList(new Address("308…	address: [{ "street": "308 Negra Arroyo Lane" }, …]

You can customize the mapping behavior by registering a Converter in VaultCustomConversions. Those converters can take care of converting from/to a type such as LocalDate as well as SecretDocument whereas the first one is suitable for converting simple properties and the last one complex types to their JSON representation. The second option offers full control over the resulting SecretDocument. Writing objects to Vault will delete the content and re-create the whole entry, so not mapped data will be lost.

12.3. Queries and Query Methods

Query methods allow automatic derivation of simple queries from the method name. Vault has no query engine but requires direct access of HTTP context paths. Vault query methods translate Vault’s API possibilities to queries. A query method execution lists children under a context path, applies filtering to the Id, optionally limits the Id stream with offset/limit and applies sorting after fetching the results.

Example 18. Sample Repository Query Method

public interface CredentialsRepository extends CrudRepository<Credentials, String> {

  List<Credentials> findByIdStartsWith(String prefix);
}

Query methods for Vault repositories support only queries with predicates on the @Id property.

Here’s an overview of the keywords supported for Vault.

Table 2. Supported keywords for query methods
Keyword	Sample
`After`, `GreaterThan`	`findByIdGreaterThan(String id)`
`GreaterThanEqual`	`findByIdGreaterThanEqual(String id)`
`Before`, `LessThan`	`findByIdLessThan(String id)`
`LessThanEqual`	`findByIdLessThanEqual(String id)`
`Between`	`findByIdBetween(String from, String to)`
`In`	`findByIdIn(Collection ids)`
`NotIn`	`findByIdNotIn(Collection ids)`
`Like`, `StartingWith`, `EndingWith`	`findByIdLike(String id)`
`NotLike`, `IsNotLike`	`findByIdNotLike(String id)`
`Containing`	`findByFirstnameContaining(String id)`
`NotContaining`	`findByFirstnameNotContaining(String name)`
`Regex`	`findByIdRegex(String id)`
`(No keyword)`	`findById(String name)`
`Not`	`findByIdNot(String id)`
`And`	`findByLastnameAndFirstname`
`Or`	`findByLastnameOrFirstname`
`Is,Equals`	`findByFirstname`,`findByFirstnameIs`,`findByFirstnameEquals`
`Top,First`	`findFirst10ByFirstname`,`findTop5ByFirstname`

12.3.1. Sorting and Paging

Query methods support sorting and paging by selecting in memory a sublist (offset/limit) Id’s retrieved from a Vault context path. Sorting has is not limited to a particular field, unlike query method predicates. Unpaged sorting is applied after Id filtering and all resulting secrets are fetched from Vault. This way a query method fetches only results that are also returned as part of the result.

Using paging and sorting requires secret fetching before filtering the Id’s which impacts performance. Sorting and paging guarantees to return the same result even if the natural order of Id returned by Vault changes. Therefore, all Id’s are fetched from Vault first, then sorting is applied and afterwards filtering and offset/limiting.

Example 19. Paging and Sorting Repository

public interface CredentialsRepository extends PagingAndSortingRepository<Credentials, String> {

  List<Credentials> findTop10ByIdStartsWithOrderBySocialSecurityNumberDesc(String prefix);

  List<Credentials> findByIdStarts(String prefix, Pageable pageRequest);
}

13. Client support

Spring Vault supports various HTTP clients to access Vault’s HTTP API. Spring Vault uses RestTemplate as primary interface accessing Vault. Dedicated client support originates from customized SSL configuration that is scoped only to Spring Vault’s client components.

Spring Vault supports following HTTP clients:

Java’s builtin HttpURLConnection (default client)
Apache Http Components
Netty
OkHttp 3

Using a specific client requires the according dependency to be available on the classpath so Spring Vault can use the available client for communicating with Vault.

13.1. Java’s builtin `HttpURLConnection`

Java’s builtin HttpURLConnection is available out-of-the-box without additional configuration. Using HttpURLConnection comes with a limitation regarding SSL configuration. Spring Vault won’t apply customized SSL configuration as it would require a deep reconfiguration of the JVM. This configuration would affect all components relying on the default SSL context. Configuring SSL settings using HttpURLConnection requires you providing these settings as System Properties. See Customizing JSSE for further details.

13.2. External Clients

You can use external clients to access Vault’s API. Simply add one of the following dependencies to your project. You can omit the version number if using Spring Vault’s Dependency BOM

Example 20. Apache Http Components Dependency

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
  <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
</dependency>

Example 21. Netty Dependency

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.netty</groupId>
  <artifactId>netty-all</artifactId>
</dependency>

Example 22. Square OkHttp 3

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.squareup.okhttp3</groupId>
  <artifactId>okhttp</artifactId>
</dependency>

13.3. Vault Client SSL configuration

SSL can be configured using SslConfiguration by setting various properties. You can set either javax.net.ssl.trustStore to configure JVM-wide SSL settings or configure SslConfiguration to set SSL settings only for Spring Vault.

SslConfiguration sslConfiguration = new SslConfiguration(               (1)
                new FileSystemResource("client-cert.jks"), "changeit",
                new FileSystemResource("truststore.jks"), "changeit");

SslConfiguration.forTrustStore(new FileSystemResource("keystore.jks"),  (2)
                                      "changeit")

SslConfiguration.forKeyStore(new FileSystemResource("keystore.jks"),    (3)
                                      "changeit")

1	Full configuration.
2	Configuring only trust store settings.
3	Configuring only key store settings.

Please note that providing SslConfiguration can be only applied when either Apache Http Components or the OkHttp client is on your class-path.

14. Authentication Methods

Different organizations have different requirements for security and authentication. Vault reflects that need by shipping multiple authentication methods. Spring Vault supports multiple authentications mechanisms.

14.1. Externalizing login credentials

Obtaining first-time access to a secured system is known as secure introduction. Any client requires ephemeral or permanent credentials to access Vault. Externalizing credentials is a good pattern to keep code maintainability high but comes at a risk of increased disclosure.

Disclosure of login credentials to any party allows login to Vault and access secrets that are permitted by the underlying role. Picking the appropriate client authentication and injecting credentials into the application is subject to risk evaluation.

Spring’s PropertySource abstraction is a natural fit to keep configuration outside the application code. You can use system properties, environment variables or property files to store login credentials. Each approach comes with its own properties. Keep in mind that the command line and environment properties can be introspected with appropriate OS access levels.

Example 23. Externalizing vault.token to a properties file

@PropertySource("configuration.properties"),
@Configuration
public class Config extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new TokenAuthentication(getEnvironment().getProperty("vault.token"));
    }
}

Spring allows multiple ways to obtain Environment. When using VaultPropertySource, injection via @Autowired Environment environment will not provide the Environment as the environment bean is still in construction and autowiring comes at a later stage. Your configuration class should rather implement ApplicationContextAware and obtain the Environment from ApplicationContext.

See SecurePropertyUsage.java for a sample on referencing properties in components and other property sources.

14.2. Token authentication

Tokens are the core method for authentication within Vault. Token authentication requires a static token to be provided.

Token authentication is the default authentication method. If a token is disclosed an unintended party, it gains access to Vault and can access secrets for the intended client.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new TokenAuthentication("…");
    }

    // …
}

See also:

14.3. AppId authentication

Vault supports AppId authentication that consists of two hard to guess tokens. The AppId defaults to spring.application.name that is statically configured. The second token is the UserId which is a part determined by the application, usually related to the runtime environment. IP address, Mac address or a Docker container name are good examples. Spring Vault supports IP address, Mac address and static UserId’s (e.g. supplied via System properties). The IP and Mac address are represented as Hex-encoded SHA256 hash.

IP address-based UserId’s use the local host’s IP address.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        AppIdAuthenticationOptions options = AppIdAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .appId("myapp")
                .userIdMechanism(new IpAddressUserId())
                .build();

        return new AppIdAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

The corresponding command to generate the IP address UserId from a command line is:

$ echo -n 192.168.99.1 | sha256sum

Including the line break of echo leads to a different hash value so make sure to include the -n flag.

Mac address-based UserId’s obtain their network device from the localhost-bound device. The configuration also allows specifying a network-interface hint to pick the right device. The value of network-interface is optional and can be either an interface name or interface index (0-based).

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        AppIdAuthenticationOptions options = AppIdAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .appId("myapp")
                .userIdMechanism(new MacAddressUserId())
                .build();

        return new AppIdAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

The corresponding command to generate the Mac address UserId from a command line is:

$ echo -n 0AFEDE1234AC | sha256sum

The Mac address is specified uppercase and without colons. Including the line break of echo leads to a different hash value so make sure to include the -n flag.

14.3.1. Custom UserId

A more advanced approach lets you implementing your own AppIdUserIdMechanism. This class must be on your classpath and must implement the org.springframework.vault.authentication.AppIdUserIdMechanism interface and the createUserId method. Spring Vault will obtain the UserId by calling createUserId each time it authenticates using AppId to obtain a token.

MyUserIdMechanism.java

public class MyUserIdMechanism implements AppIdUserIdMechanism {

  @Override
  public String createUserId() {

    String userId = ...
    return userId;
  }
}

14.4. AppRole authentication

AppRole allows machine authentication, like the deprecated (since Vault 0.6.1) AppId authentication. AppRole authentication consists of two hard to guess (secret) tokens: RoleId and SecretId.

Spring Vault supports AppRole authentication by providing either RoleId only or together with a provided SecretId and fetching RoleId/SecretId from Vault (push and pull modes with response unwrapping).

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        AppRoleAuthenticationOptions options = AppRoleAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .roleId(RoleId.provided("…"))
                .secretId(SecretId.wrapped(VaultToken.of("…")))
                .build();

        return new AppRoleAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

Spring Vault also support full pull mode: If RoleId and SecretId are not provided, Spring Vault will retrieve them using the role name and an initial token. The initial token may be associated with a TTL and usage limit.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        VaultToken initialToken = VaultToken.of("…");
        AppRoleAuthenticationOptions options = AppRoleAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .appRole("…")
                .roleId(RoleId.pull(initialToken))
                .secretId(SecretId.pull(initialToken))
                .build();

        return new AppRoleAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

14.5. AWS-EC2 authentication

The aws-ec2 auth backend provides a secure introduction mechanism for AWS EC2 instances, allowing automated retrieval of a Vault token. Unlike most Vault authentication backends, this backend does not require first-deploying, or provisioning security-sensitive credentials (tokens, username/password, client certificates, etc.). Instead, it treats AWS as a Trusted Third Party and uses the cryptographically signed dynamic metadata information that uniquely represents each EC2 instance.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new AwsEc2Authentication(restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

AWS-EC2 authentication enables nonce by default to follow the Trust On First Use (TOFU) principle. Any unintended party that gains access to the PKCS#7 identity metadata can authenticate against Vault.

During the first login, Spring Vault generates a nonce that is stored in the auth backend aside the instance Id. Re-authentication requires the same nonce to be sent. Any other party does not have the nonce and can raise an alert in Vault for further investigation.

The nonce is kept in memory and is lost during application restart.

AWS-EC2 authentication roles are optional and default to the AMI. You can configure the authentication role by setting it in AwsEc2AuthenticationOptions.

14.6. AWS-IAM authentication

The aws auth backend allows Vault login by using existing AWS IAM credentials.

AWS IAM authentication creates a signed HTTP request that is executed by Vault to get the identity of the signer using AWS STS GetCallerIdentity method. AWSv4 signatures require IAM credentials.

IAM credentials can be obtained from either the runtime environment or supplied externally. Runtime environments such as AWS-EC2, Lambda and ECS with assigned IAM principals do not require client-specific configuration of credentials but can obtain these from its metadata source.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        AwsIamAuthenticationOptions options = AwsIamAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .credentials(new BasicAWSCredentials(…)).build();

        return new AwsIamAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

Example 24. Using AWS-EC2 instance profile as credentials source

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        AwsIamAuthenticationOptions options = AwsIamAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .credentialsProvider(InstanceProfileCredentialsProvider.getInstance()).build();

        return new AwsIamAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

AwsIamAuthentication requires the AWS Java SDK dependency (com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-core) as the authentication implementation uses AWS SDK types for credentials and request signing.

You can configure the authentication via AwsIamAuthenticationOptions.

See also:

14.7. Azure (MSI) authentication

The azure auth backend provides a secure introduction mechanism for Azure VM instances, allowing automated retrieval of a Vault token. Unlike most Vault authentication backends, this backend does not require first-deploying, or provisioning security-sensitive credentials (tokens, username/password, client certificates, etc.). Instead, it treats Azure as a Trusted Third Party and uses the managed service identity and instance metadata information that can be bound to a VM instance

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        AzureMsiAuthenticationOptions options = AzureMsiAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                    .role(…).build();

        return new AzureMsiAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

Azure authentication requires details about the VM environment (subscription Id, resource group name, VM name). These details can be either configured through AzureMsiAuthenticationOptionsBuilder. If left unconfigured, AzureMsiAuthentication queries Azure’s instance metadata service to obtain these details.

See also:

14.8. GCP-GCE authentication

The gcp auth backend allows Vault login by using existing GCP (Google Cloud Platform) IAM and GCE credentials.

GCP GCE (Google Compute Engine) authentication creates a signature in the form of a JSON Web Token (JWT) for a service account. A JWT for a Compute Engine instance is obtained from the GCE metadata service using Instance identification. This API creates a JSON Web Token that can be used to confirm the instance identity.

Unlike most Vault authentication backends, this backend does not require first-deploying, or provisioning security-sensitive credentials (tokens, username/password, client certificates, etc.). Instead, it treats GCP as a Trusted Third Party and uses the cryptographically signed dynamic metadata information that uniquely represents each GCP service account.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        GcpComputeAuthenticationOptions options = GcpComputeAuthenticationOptions.builder()
				.role(…).build();

		GcpComputeAuthentication authentication = new GcpComputeAuthentication(options,
				restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

GcpIamAuthenticationOptions requires the Google Cloud Java SDK dependency (com.google.apis:google-api-services-iam and com.google.auth:google-auth-library-oauth2-http) as the authentication implementation uses Google APIs for credentials and JWT signing.

You can configure the authentication via GcpIamAuthenticationOptions.

See also:

14.9. GCP-IAM authentication

The gcp auth backend allows Vault login by using existing GCP (Google Cloud Platform) IAM and GCE credentials.

GCP IAM authentication creates a signature in the form of a JSON Web Token (JWT) for a service account. A JWT for a service account is obtained by calling GCP IAM’s projects.serviceAccounts.signJwt API. The caller authenticates against GCP IAM and proves thereby its identity. This Vault backend treats GCP as a Trusted Third Party.

IAM credentials can be obtained from either the runtime environment or supplied externally as e.g. JSON. JSON is the preferred form as it carries the project id and service account identifier required for calling projects.serviceAccounts.signJwt.

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        GcpIamAuthenticationOptions options = GcpIamAuthenticationOptions.builder()
				.role(…).credential(GoogleCredentials.getApplicationDefault()).build();

		GcpIamAuthentication authentication = new GcpIamAuthentication(options,
				restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

You can configure the authentication via GcpIamAuthenticationOptions.

Google credentials require an OAuth 2 token maintaining the token lifecycle. All API is synchronous therefore, GcpIamAuthentication does not support AuthenticationSteps which is required for reactive usage.

See also:

14.10. TLS certificate authentication

The cert auth backend allows authentication using SSL/TLS client certificates that are either signed by a CA or self-signed.

To enable cert authentication you need to:

Use SSL, see Vault Client SSL configuration
Configure a Java Keystore that contains the client certificate and the private key

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {
        return new ClientCertificateAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

14.11. Cubbyhole authentication

Cubbyhole authentication uses Vault primitives to provide a secured authentication workflow. Cubbyhole authentication uses tokens as primary login method. An ephemeral token is used to obtain a second, login VaultToken from Vault’s Cubbyhole secret backend. The login token is usually longer-lived and used to interact with Vault. The login token can be retrieved either from a wrapped response or from the data section.

Creating a wrapped token

Response Wrapping for token creation requires Vault 0.6.0 or higher.

Example 25. Crating and storing tokens

$ vault token-create -wrap-ttl="10m"
Key                            Value
---                            -----
wrapping_token:                397ccb93-ff6c-b17b-9389-380b01ca2645
wrapping_token_ttl:            0h10m0s
wrapping_token_creation_time:  2016-09-18 20:29:48.652957077 +0200 CEST
wrapped_accessor:              46b6aebb-187f-932a-26d7-4f3d86a68319

Example 26. Wrapped token response usage

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        CubbyholeAuthenticationOptions options = CubbyholeAuthenticationOptions
                .builder()
                .initialToken(VaultToken.of("…"))
                .wrapped()
                .build();

        return new CubbyholeAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

Using stored tokens

Example 27. Crating and storing tokens

$ vault token-create
Key                    Value
---                    -----
token                  f9e30681-d46a-cdaf-aaa0-2ae0a9ad0819
token_accessor         4eee9bd9-81bb-06d6-af01-723c54a72148
token_duration         0s
token_renewable        false
token_policies         [root]

$ token-create -use-limit=2 -orphan -no-default-policy -policy=none
Key                    Value
---                    -----
token                  895cb88b-aef4-0e33-ba65-d50007290780
token_accessor         e84b661c-8aa8-2286-b788-f258f30c8325
token_duration         0s
token_renewable        false
token_policies         [none]

$ export VAULT_TOKEN=895cb88b-aef4-0e33-ba65-d50007290780
$ vault write cubbyhole/token token=f9e30681-d46a-cdaf-aaa0-2ae0a9ad0819

Example 28. Stored token response usage

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        CubbyholeAuthenticationOptions options = CubbyholeAuthenticationOptions
                .builder()
                .initialToken(VaultToken.of("…"))
                .path("cubbyhole/token")
                .build();

        return new CubbyholeAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

Remaining TTL/Renewability

Tokens retrieved from Cubbyhole associated with a non-zero TTL start their TTL at the time of token creation. That time is not necessarily identical with application startup. To compensate for the initial delay, Cubbyhole authentication performs a self lookup for tokens associated with a non-zero TTL to retrieve the remaining TTL. Cubbyhole authentication will not self-lookup wrapped tokens without a TTL because a zero TTL indicates there is no TTL associated.

Non-wrapped tokens do not provide details regarding renewability and TTL by just retrieving the token. A self-lookup will lookup renewability and the remaining TTL.

See also:

14.12. Kubernetes authentication

Vault supports since 0.8.3 kubernetes-based authentication using Kubernetes tokens.

Using Kubernetes authentication requires a Kubernetes Service Account Token, usually mounted at /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token. The file contains the token which is read and sent to Vault. Vault verifies its validity using Kubernets' API during login.

Configuring Kubernetes authentication requires at least the role name to be provided:

@Configuration
class AppConfig extends AbstractVaultConfiguration {

    // …

    @Override
    public ClientAuthentication clientAuthentication() {

        KubernetesAuthenticationOptions options = KubernetesAuthenticationOptions.builder()
                .role(…).build();

        return new KubernetesAuthentication(options, restOperations());
    }

    // …
}

You can configure the authentication via KubernetesAuthenticationOptions.

See also:

14.13. Authentication Steps

ClientAuthentication objects describe the authentication flow and perform the actual authentication steps. Pre-composed authentications are easy to use and to configure with a tight binding to synchronous execution.

The composition of authentication methods and reusing common steps, such as posting login payload to Vault or retrieving authentication input from an HTTP source is not intended with ClientAuthentication objects.

Authentication steps provide reusability of common authentication activity. Steps created via AuthenticationSteps describe an authentication flow in a functional style leaving the actual authentication execution to specific executors.

Example 29. Stored token authentication flow.

AuthenticationSteps.just(VaultToken.of(…));                              (1)

1	Creates `AuthenticationSteps` from just a `VaultToken`.

A single-step authentication flow can be created from a single input. Flows declaring multiple authentication steps start with a Supplier or HttpRequest that provide an authentication state object which can be used to map or post to Vault for login.

Example 30. AppRole authentication flow

AuthenticationSteps.fromSupplier(                                       (1)

    () -> getAppRoleLogin(options.getRoleId(), options.getSecretId()))  (2)

    .login("auth/{mount}/login", options.getPath());                    (3)

1	Start declaring `AuthenticationSteps` accepting a `Supplier<T>`. The state object type depends on the `Supplier` response type which can be mapped in a later step.
2	The actual `Supplier` implementation. Creating a `Map` in this case.
3	Perform a Vault login by posting the state object (`Map`) to a Vault endpoint for Vault token creation.

Authentication flows require an executor to perform the actual login. We provide two executors for different execution models:

AuthenticationStepsExecutor as a drop-in replacement for synchronous ClientAuthentication.
AuthenticationStepsOperator for reactive execution.

Many ClientAuthentication's come with static factory methods to create AuthenticationSteps for their authentication-specific options:

Example 31. Synchronous AuthenticationSteps execution

CubbyholeAuthenticationOptions options = …
RestOperations restOperations = …

AuthenticationSteps steps = CubbyholeAuthentication.createAuthenticationSteps(options);

AuthenticationStepsExecutor executor = new AuthenticationStepsExecutor(steps, restOperations);

VaultToken token = executor.login();

14.14. Token Lifecycle

Vault’s tokens can be associated with a time to live. Tokens obtained by an authentication method are intended to be used as long as the session is active and should not expire while the application is active.

Spring Vault provides with LifecycleAwareSessionManager a session manager that can renew the token until it reaches its terminal TTL to then perform another login to obtain the next token which is associated with the session.

Depending on the authentication method, a login can create two kinds of tokens:

VaultToken: Generic token encapsulating the actual token.
LoginToken: Token associated with renewability/TTL.

Authentication methods such as TokenAuthentication just create a VaultToken which does not carry any renewability/TTL details. LifecycleAwareSessionManager will run a self-lookup on the token to retrieve renewability and TTL from Vault.

Authentication methods creating LoginToken directly (all login-based authentication methods) already provide all necessary details to setup token renewal. Tokens obtained from a login are revoked by LifecycleAwareSessionManager if the session manager is shut down.

15. Miscellaneous

Learn in this chapter about details worth mentioning like the Spring Security integration.

15.1. Spring Security

Spring Vault integrates with Spring Security by providing implementations for BytesKeyGenerator and BytesEncryptor. Both implementations use Vault’s transit backend.

Example 32. VaultBytesKeyGenerator example

VaultOperations operations = …;
VaultBytesKeyGenerator generator = new VaultBytesKeyGenerator(operations);

byte[] key = generator.generateKey();

Example 33. VaultBytesEncryptor example

VaultTransitOperations transit = …;

VaultBytesEncryptor encryptor = new VaultBytesEncryptor(transit, "my-key-name");

byte[] ciphertext = encryptor.encrypt(plaintext);

byte[] result = encryptor.decrypt(ciphertext);

Vault encapsulates an entropy source that is decoupled from your JVM along with server-side key-management. This relieves the burden of proper encryption/decryption from application developers and pushes the burden onto the operators of Vault. Operators of Vault commonly include the security team at an organization, which means they can ensure that data is encrypted/decrypted properly. Additionally, since encrypt/decrypt operations must enter the audit log, any decryption event is recorded.

The backend also supports key rotation, which allows a new version of the named key to be generated. All data encrypted with the key will use the newest version of the key; previously encrypted data can be decrypted using old versions of the key. Administrators can control which previous versions of a key are available for decryption, to prevent an attacker gaining an old copy of ciphertext to be able to successfully decrypt it.

Vault is after all a networked service that incurs each operation with a latency. Components heavily using encryption or random bytes generation may experience a difference in throughput and performance.

Spring Vault - Reference Documentation

Preface

1. Document Structure

2. Knowing Spring

3. Knowing Vault

4. Requirements

5. Additional Help Resources

5.1. Support

5.1.1. Community Forum

5.1.2. Professional Support

5.2. Following Development

6. New & Noteworthy

6.1. What’s new in Spring Vault 2.1

6.2. What’s new in Spring Vault 2.0

6.3. What’s new in Spring Vault 1.1.0

6.4. What’s new in Spring Vault 1.0

Reference documentation

7. Vault support

7.1. Dependencies

7.2. Spring Framework

8. Getting Started

9. Introduction to VaultTemplate

9.1. Registering and configuring Spring Vault beans

9.2. Session Management

9.3. Using EnvironmentVaultConfiguration

9.4. Execution callbacks

10. Introduction to ReactiveVaultTemplate

10.1. What is Reactive Programming?

10.2. Reactive Vault Client

10.3. Registering and configuring Spring Vault beans

10.4. Session Management

10.5. Execution callbacks

11. Vault Property Source Support

11.1. Registering VaultPropertySource

11.2. @VaultPropertySource

12. Vault Repositories

12.1. Usage

12.2. Object to Vault JSON Mapping

12.3. Queries and Query Methods

12.3.1. Sorting and Paging

13. Client support

13.1. Java’s builtin HttpURLConnection

13.2. External Clients

13.3. Vault Client SSL configuration

14. Authentication Methods

14.1. Externalizing login credentials

14.2. Token authentication

14.3. AppId authentication

14.3.1. Custom UserId

14.4. AppRole authentication

14.5. AWS-EC2 authentication

14.6. AWS-IAM authentication

14.7. Azure (MSI) authentication

14.8. GCP-GCE authentication

14.9. GCP-IAM authentication

14.10. TLS certificate authentication

14.11. Cubbyhole authentication

14.12. Kubernetes authentication

14.13. Authentication Steps

14.14. Token Lifecycle

15. Miscellaneous

15.1. Spring Security

9.3. Using `EnvironmentVaultConfiguration`

11.1. Registering `VaultPropertySource`

13.1. Java’s builtin `HttpURLConnection`