Azure auth method

The azure auth method allows authentication against Vault using Azure Active Directory credentials. It treats Azure as a Trusted Third Party and expects a JSON Web Token (JWT) signed by Azure Active Directory for the configured tenant.

This method supports authentication for system-assigned and user-assigned managed identities. See Managed identities for Azure resources for more information about these resources.

This documentation assumes the Azure method is mounted at the /auth/azure path in Vault. Since it is possible to enable auth methods at any location, please update your API calls accordingly.

Token validation

Vault validates the resource group (resource_group_name), VM name (vm_name) and VM scale set name (vmss_name) parameters against token claims. Depending on the identities attached to the machine generating the MSI token, the associated claims must include at least one of the following claims to pass validation: "xms_mirid" or "xms_az_rid".

See Azure managed identity REST endpoint reference and Managed identities for Azure resources frequently asked questions for more details on how to request MSI tokens.

When Vault evaluates the token claims, it checks the validation parameter values against the claim parameters:

• {resource-group-name} must match resource_group_name.
• {virtual-machine-name} must match vm_name or {vmss_name}_{instance-id} if vmss_name is provided.

If either check fails, the login also fails.

Prerequisites

The Azure auth method requires client credentials to access Azure APIs. The following are required to configure the auth method:

• A configured Azure AD application which is used as the resource for generating MSI access tokens.
• Client credentials (shared secret) with read access to particular Azure Resource Manager resources. See Azure AD Service to Service Client Credentials.

If Vault is hosted on Azure, Vault can use MSI to access Azure instead of a shared secret. A managed identity must be enabled on the resource that acquires the access token.

The following Azure role assignments must be granted to the Azure AD application in order for the auth method to access Azure APIs during authentication.

Role assignments

API permissions

The following API permissions must be assigned to the service principal provided to Vault for managing the root rotation in Azure:

Authentication

Via the CLI

The default path is /auth/azure. If this auth method was enabled at a different path, specify auth/my-path/login instead.

$ vault write auth/azure/login \
    role="dev-role" \
    jwt="eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9..." \
    subscription_id="12345-..." \
    resource_group_name="test-group" \
    vm_name="test-vm"

The role and jwt parameters are required. The JWT must contain all role binding information (except for vm_name, vmss_name, and resource_id). When using additional bound_* parameters beyond bound_service_principal_ids or bound_group_ids, Azure API calls will be made and subscription_id, resource_group_name, and vm_name/vmss_name are all required and can be obtained through instance metadata.

For example:

$ vault write auth/azure/login role="dev-role" \
     jwt="$(curl -s 'http://169.254.169.254/metadata/identity/oauth2/token?api-version=2018-02-01&resource=https%3A%2F%2Fmanagement.azure.com%2F' -H Metadata:true | jq -r '.access_token')" \
     subscription_id=$(curl -s -H Metadata:true "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance?api-version=2017-08-01" | jq -r '.compute | .subscriptionId')  \
     resource_group_name=$(curl -s -H Metadata:true "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance?api-version=2017-08-01" | jq -r '.compute | .resourceGroupName') \
     vm_name=$(curl -s -H Metadata:true "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance?api-version=2017-08-01" | jq -r '.compute | .name')

Via the API

The default endpoint is auth/azure/login. If this auth method was enabled at a different path, use that value instead of azure.

$ curl \
    --request POST \
    --data '{"role": "dev-role", "jwt": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9..."}' \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/auth/azure/login

The response will contain the token at auth.client_token:

{
  "auth": {
    "client_token": "f33f8c72-924e-11f8-cb43-ac59d697597c",
    "accessor": "0e9e354a-520f-df04-6867-ee81cae3d42d",
    "policies": ["default", "dev", "prod"],
    "lease_duration": 2764800,
    "renewable": true
  }
}

Configuration

Auth methods must be configured in advance before machines can authenticate. These steps are usually completed by an operator or configuration management tool.

Via the CLI

1. Enable Azure authentication in Vault:

   $ vault auth enable azure
   

2. Configure the Azure auth method:

   $ vault write auth/azure/config \
       tenant_id=7cd1f227-ca67-4fc6-a1a4-9888ea7f388c \
       resource=https://management.azure.com/ \
       client_id=dd794de4-4c6c-40b3-a930-d84cd32e9699 \
       client_secret=IT3B2XfZvWnfB98s1cie8EMe7zWg483Xy8zY004=
   

   For the complete list of configuration options, please see the API documentation.

   In some cases, you cannot set sensitive account credentials in your Vault configuration. For example, your organization may require that all security credentials are short-lived or explicitly tied to a machine identity.

   To provide managed identity security credentials to Vault, we recommend using Vault plugin workload identity federation (WIF) as shown below.

3. Alternatively, configure the audience claim value and the Client, Tenant IDs for plugin workload identity federation:

   $ vault write azure/config \
       tenant_id=7cd1f227-ca67-4fc6-a1a4-9888ea7f388c \
       client_id=dd794de4-4c6c-40b3-a930-d84cd32e9699 \
       identity_token_audience=vault.example/v1/identity/oidc/plugins
   

   The Vault identity token provider signs the plugin identity token JWT internally. If a trust relationship exists between Vault and Azure through WIF, the auth method can exchange the Vault identity token for a federated access token.

   To configure a trusted relationship between Vault and Azure:

   - You must configure the [identity token issuer backend](/vault/api-docs/secret/identity/tokens#configure-the-identity-tokens-backend)
   for Vault.
   - Azure must have a
   [federated identity credential](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/workload-id/workload-identity-federation-create-trust?pivots=identity-wif-apps-methods-azp#configure-a-federated-identity-credential-on-an-app)
   configured with information about the fully qualified and network-reachable
   issuer URL for the Vault plugin
   [identity token provider](/vault/api-docs/secret/identity/tokens#read-plugin-identity-well-known-configurations).
   

   Establishing a trusted relationship between Vault and Azure ensures that Azure can fetch JWKS public keys and verify the plugin identity token signature.

4. Create a role:

   $ vault write auth/azure/role/dev-role \
       policies="prod,dev" \
       bound_subscription_ids=6a1d5988-5917-4221-b224-904cd7e24a25 \
       bound_resource_groups=vault \
       bound_service_principal_ids=3cb88732-1356-4782-b671-4877166be01a
   

   Roles are associated with an authentication type/entity and a set of Vault policies. Roles are configured with constraints specific to the authentication type, as well as overall constraints and configuration for the generated auth tokens.

   Note: Each role must specify either bound_service_principal_ids or bound_group_ids to restrict which Azure identities (service principals or group members) can authenticate to this role. Here's an alternative example using bound_group_ids:

   $ vault write auth/azure/role/prod-role \
       policies="prod" \
       bound_subscription_ids=6a1d5988-5917-4221-b224-904cd7e24a25 \
       bound_resource_groups=vault \
       bound_group_ids=12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012
   

   For the complete list of role options, please see the API documentation.

Via the API

1. Enable Azure authentication in Vault:

   $ curl \
       --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
       --request POST \
       --data '{"type": "azure"}' \
       https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/sys/auth/azure
   

2. Configure the Azure auth method:

   $ curl \
       --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
       --request POST \
       --data '{"tenant_id": "...", "resource": "..."}' \
       https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/auth/azure/config
   

3. Create a role:

   $ curl \
       --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
       --request POST \
       --data '{"policies": ["dev", "prod"], ...}' \
       https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/auth/azure/role/dev-role
   

Root credential rotation

Mounts can rotate root credential keys configured directly within the mount. Rotating to a Vault-generated key makes the key value inaccessible to the operator and ensures only Vault can operate as a root user to manipulate dynamic and static credentials.

vault write -f auth/azure/rotate-root

Schedule-based root credential rotation

Use the rotation_schedule field to configure schedule-based, automatic credential rotation for root credentials in the Azure auth engine. For example, the following command set the rotation to occur every Saturday at midnight (00:00):

$ vault write auth/azure/config \
    ...
    rotation_schedule="0 * * * SAT"
    ...

Scheduled root credential rotation can also set a rotation_window during which the scheduled rotation is allowed to occur. Vault will stop trying to rotate the credential once the window expires. For example, the following command tells Vault to rotate the credential on Saturday at midnight, but only within the span of an hour. If Vault cannot rotate the credential by 1:00, due to a failure or otherwise, Vault will stop trying to rotate the credential until the next scheduled rotation.

$ vault write auth/azure/config \
    ...
    rotation_window="1h" \
    rotation_schedule="0 * * * SAT"
    ...

You can temporarily disable root rotation by setting disable_automated_rotation to true. Setting the disable_automated_rotation field prevent any rotation of the root credential until the field is reset to false. If you use rotation_period, setting disable_automated_rotation also resets the credential TTL.

For more details on rotating root credentials in the Azure plugin, refer to the Root credential rotation API docs.

Azure managed identities

There are two types of managed identities in Azure: System-assigned and User-assigned. System-assigned identities are unique to every virtual machine in Azure. If the resources using Azure auth are recreated frequently, using system-assigned identities could result in many Vault entities being created. For environments with high ephemeral workloads, user-assigned identities are recommended.

Limitations

The TTL of the access token returned by Azure AD for a managed identity is 24hrs and is not configurable. See (limitations of using managed identities) for more info.

Azure debug logs

The Azure auth plugin supports debug logging which includes additional information about requests and responses from the Azure API.

To enable the Azure debug logs, set the following environment variable on the Vault server:

AZURE_SDK_GO_LOGGING=all

Plugin Workload Identity Federation (WIF)

The Azure auth method supports the plugin WIF workflow, and has a source of identity called a plugin identity token. A plugin identity token is a JWT that is signed internally by Vault's plugin identity token issuer.

If there is a trust relationship configured between Vault and Azure through workload identity federation, the auth method can exchange its identity token for short-lived access tokens needed to perform its actions.

Exchanging identity tokens for access tokens lets the Azure auth method operate without configuring explicit access to sensitive client credentials.

To configure the auth method to use plugin WIF:

1. Ensure that Vault openid-configuration and public JWKS APIs are network-reachable by Azure. We recommend using an API proxy or gateway if you need to limit Vault API exposure.

2. Configure a federated identity credential on a dedicated application registration in Azure to establish a trust relationship with Vault.

   1. The issuer URL must point at your Vault plugin identity token issuer with the /.well-known/openid-configuration suffix removed. For example: https://host:port/v1/identity/oidc/plugins.
   2. The subject identifier must match the unique sub claim issued by plugin identity tokens. The subject identifier should have the form plugin-identity:<NAMESPACE>:auth:<AZURE_MOUNT_ACCESSOR>.
   3. The audience should be under 600 characters. The default value in Azure is api://AzureADTokenExchange.

3. Configure the Azure auth method with the client and tenant IDs and the OIDC audience value.

   $ vault write azure/config \
     tenant_id=7cd1f227-ca67-4fc6-a1a4-9888ea7f388c \
     client_id=dd794de4-4c6c-40b3-a930-d84cd32e9699 \
     identity_token_audience=vault.example/v1/identity/oidc/plugins
   

Your auth method can now use plugin WIF for its configuration credentials. By default, WIF credentials have a time-to-live of 1 hour and automatically refresh when they expire.

Please see the API documentation for more details on the fields associated with plugin WIF.

API

The Azure Auth Plugin has a full HTTP API. Please see the API documentation for more details.

Code example

The following example demonstrates the Azure auth method to authenticate with Vault.

package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"

    vault "github.com/hashicorp/vault/api"
    auth "github.com/hashicorp/vault/api/auth/azure"
)

// Fetches a key-value secret (kv-v2) after authenticating to Vault via Azure authentication.
// This example assumes you have a configured Azure AD Application.
func getSecretWithAzureAuth() (string, error) {
    config := vault.DefaultConfig() // modify for more granular configuration

    client, err := vault.NewClient(config)
    if err != nil {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("unable to initialize Vault client: %w", err)
    }

    azureAuth, err := auth.NewAzureAuth(
        "dev-role-azure",
    )
    if err != nil {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("unable to initialize Azure auth method: %w", err)
    }

    authInfo, err := client.Auth().Login(context.Background(), azureAuth)
    if err != nil {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("unable to login to Azure auth method: %w", err)
    }
    if authInfo == nil {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("no auth info was returned after login")
    }

    // get secret from the default mount path for KV v2 in dev mode, "secret"
    secret, err := client.KVv2("secret").Get(context.Background(), "creds")
    if err != nil {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("unable to read secret: %w", err)
    }

    // data map can contain more than one key-value pair,
    // in this case we're just grabbing one of them
    value, ok := secret.Data["password"].(string)
    if !ok {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("value type assertion failed: %T %#v", secret.Data["password"], secret.Data["password"])
    }

    return value, nil
}

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Text;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using VaultSharp;
using VaultSharp.V1.AuthMethods;
using VaultSharp.V1.AuthMethods.Azure;
using VaultSharp.V1.Commons;

namespace Examples
{
    public class AzureAuthExample
    {
        public class InstanceMetadata
        {
            public string name { get; set; }
            public string resourceGroupName { get; set; }
            public string subscriptionId { get; set; }
        }

        const string MetadataEndPoint = "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance?api-version=2017-08-01";
        const string AccessTokenEndPoint = "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/identity/oauth2/token?api-version=2018-02-01&resource=https://management.azure.com/";

        /// <summary>
        /// Fetches a key-value secret (kv-v2) after authenticating to Vault via Azure authentication.
        /// This example assumes you have a configured Azure AD Application.
        /// </summary>
        public string GetSecretWithAzureAuth()
        {
            string vaultAddr = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("VAULT_ADDR");
            if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(vaultAddr))
            {
                throw new System.ArgumentNullException("Vault Address");
            }

            string roleName = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("VAULT_ROLE");
            if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(roleName))
            {
                throw new System.ArgumentNullException("Vault Role Name");
            }

            string jwt = GetJWT();
            InstanceMetadata metadata = GetMetadata();

            IAuthMethodInfo authMethod = new AzureAuthMethodInfo(roleName: roleName, jwt: jwt, subscriptionId: metadata.subscriptionId, resourceGroupName: metadata.resourceGroupName, virtualMachineName: metadata.name);
            var vaultClientSettings = new VaultClientSettings(vaultAddr, authMethod);

            IVaultClient vaultClient = new VaultClient(vaultClientSettings);

            // We can retrieve the secret from the VaultClient object
            Secret<SecretData> kv2Secret = null;
            kv2Secret = vaultClient.V1.Secrets.KeyValue.V2.ReadSecretAsync(path: "/creds").Result;

            var password = kv2Secret.Data.Data["password"];

            return password.ToString();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Query Azure Resource Manage for metadata about the Azure instance
        /// </summary>
        private InstanceMetadata GetMetadata()
        {
            HttpWebRequest metadataRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(MetadataEndPoint);
            metadataRequest.Headers["Metadata"] = "true";
            metadataRequest.Method = "GET";

            HttpWebResponse metadataResponse = (HttpWebResponse)metadataRequest.GetResponse();

            StreamReader streamResponse = new StreamReader(metadataResponse.GetResponseStream());
            string stringResponse = streamResponse.ReadToEnd();
            var resultsDict = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, InstanceMetadata>>(stringResponse);

            return resultsDict["compute"];
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Query Azure Resource Manager (ARM) for an access token
        /// </summary>
        private string GetJWT()
        {
            HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(AccessTokenEndPoint);
            request.Headers["Metadata"] = "true";
            request.Method = "GET";

            HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

            // Pipe response Stream to a StreamReader and extract access token
            StreamReader streamResponse = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
            string stringResponse = streamResponse.ReadToEnd();
            var resultsDict = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, string>>(stringResponse);

            return resultsDict["access_token"];
        }
    }
}