Configure external secrets for Kubernetes deployments

This guide explains how to integrate Plane with external secret management solutions, enabling secure and centralized management of sensitive configuration data. The examples provided cover AWS Secrets Manager and HashiCorp Vault integrations, but you can adapt these patterns to your preferred secret management solution.

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AWS Secrets Manager

1. Create a dedicated IAM user (e.g., external-secret-access-user). You can uncheck Console Access Required.

2. Generate ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY and keep them handy.

3. Note the user’s ARN for later use (format: arn:aws:iam::<account-id>:user/<user-name>).

4. Create IAM policy (e.g., external-secret-access-policy) with the following JSON:

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   {
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
       {
       "Effect": "Allow",
       "Action": [
           "secretsmanager:GetResourcePolicy",
           "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
           "secretsmanager:DescribeSecret",
           "secretsmanager:ListSecretVersionIds"
       ],
       "Resource": [
           "arn:aws:secretsmanager:<REGION>:<ACCOUNT-ID>:secret:*"
       ]
       }
   ]
   }
   

   Replace <REGION> and <ACCOUNT-ID> with your AWS region and account ID.

5. Create IAM role (e.g., external-secret-access-role) with the following trust relationship:

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   {
       "Version": "2012-10-17",
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Principal": {
                   "AWS": "<IAM-USER-ARN>"
               },
               "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
           }
       ]
   }
   

   Replace <IAM-USER-ARN> with the ARN of the user created in step 1.

6. Attach the AWS IAM policy created in step 4 to the IAM role.

7. Create secrets in AWS Secrets Manager with your Plane configuration values. For example, store RabbitMQ credentials with a name like prod/secrets/rabbitmq.

   Key	Value
   RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER	plane
   RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS	plane123

   Follow this pattern to manage all the environment variables in AWS Secrets Manager.

8. Create a Kubernetes secret containing AWS credentials in your application namespace:

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   kubectl create secret generic aws-creds-secret \
   --from-literal=access-key=<AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID> \
   --from-literal=secret-access-key=<AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY> \
   -n <application_namespace>
   

9. Apply the following YAML to create a ClusterSecretStore resource:

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   apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
   kind: ClusterSecretStore
   metadata:
   name: cluster-aws-secretsmanager
   spec:
   provider:
       aws:
       service: SecretsManager
       role: arn:aws:iam::<ACCOUNT-ID>:role/<IAM ROLE>
       region: eu-west-1
       auth:
           secretRef:
           accessKeyIDSecretRef:
               name: aws-creds-secret
               key: access-key
           secretAccessKeySecretRef:
               name: aws-creds-secret
               key: secret-access-key
   

   Replace <ACCOUNT-ID> and <IAM ROLE> with your AWS account ID and the role name created in Step 5.

10. Create an ExternalSecret resource to fetch secrets from AWS and create a corresponding Kubernetes secret:

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    apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
    kind: ExternalSecret
    metadata:
    name: secret
    namespace: <application_namespace>
    spec:
    refreshInterval: 1m
    secretStoreRef:
        name: cluster-aws-secretsmanager # ClusterSecretStore name
        kind: ClusterSecretStore
    target:
        name: rabbitmq-secret # Target Kubernetes secret name
        creationPolicy: Owner
    data:
        - secretKey: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER # Specifies the key name for the secret value in the Kubernetes secret.
        remoteRef:
            key: prod/secrets/rabbitmq # Specifies the name to the secret in the AWS Secrets Manager
            property: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER # Specifies the name of the secret property to retrieve from the AWS Secrets Manager
        - secretKey: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS
        remoteRef:
            key: prod/secrets/rabbitmq
            property: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS
    

Make sure to set all environment variables in the AWS Secrets Manager, and then access them via ExternalSecret resources in your Kubernetes cluster.

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HashiCorp Vault

1. Access the Vault UI at https://<vault-domain>/.

2. Set up a KV secrets engine if not already configured.

3. Create a secret with your Plane configuration values (e.g., secrets/rabbitmq_secrets). For this example, we’re setting up RabbitMQ credentials:

   Key	Value
   RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER	plane
   RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS	plane123

   Follow this pattern to manage all the other environment variables in the Vault.

4. Create a Kubernetes secret containing your Vault token in your application namespace:

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   kubectl create secret generic vault-token -n <application_namespace> --from-literal=token=<VAULT-TOKEN>
   

5. Apply the following YAML to create a ClusterSecretStore resource:

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   #  cluster-store.yaml 
   apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
   kind: ClusterSecretStore 
   metadata:
   name: vault-backend
   spec:
   provider:
       vault: 
       server: "https://<vault-domain>" #the address of your vault instance
       path: "secrets" #path for accessing the secrets
       version: "v2" #Vault API version
       auth:
           tokenSecretRef:
           name: "vault-token" #Use a k8s secret called vault-token
           key: "token" #Use this key to access the vault token
   

   Replace <vault-domain> with your Vault server address.

6. Create an ExternalSecret resource to fetch secrets from Vault and create a corresponding Kubernetes secret:

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   apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
   kind: ExternalSecret
   metadata:
   name: rabbitmq-external-secrets
   namespace: <application_namespace> # application-namespace
   spec:
   refreshInterval: "1m" 
   secretStoreRef:
       name: vault-backend # ClusterSecretStore name
       kind: ClusterSecretStore
   target: 
       name: rabbitmq-secret # Target Kubernetes secret name
       creationPolicy: Owner 
   data: 
       - secretKey: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER # Specifies the key name for the secret value stored in the Kubernetes secret.
       remoteRef:
           key: secrets/data/rabbitmq_secrets # Specifies the name to the secret in the Vault secret store.
           property: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER # Specifies the name of the secret property to retrieve from the Vault secret store.
       - secretKey: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS
       remoteRef:
           key: secrets/data/rabbitmq_secrets
           property: RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS
   

Follow this pattern to manage all the environment variables in the Vault, then access them via ExternalSecret resources in your Kubernetes cluster.