MongoDB database secrets engine

MongoDB is one of the supported plugins for the database secrets engine. This plugin generates database credentials dynamically based on configured roles for the MongoDB database and also supports Static Roles.

See the database secrets engine docs for more information about setting up the database secrets engine.

Capabilities

Setup

1. Enable the database secrets engine if it is not already enabled:

   $ vault secrets enable database
   Success! Enabled the database secrets engine at: database/
   

   By default, the secrets engine will enable at the name of the engine. To enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the -path argument.

2. Configure Vault with the proper plugin and connection information:

   $ vault write database/config/my-mongodb-database \
       plugin_name=mongodb-database-plugin \
       allowed_roles="my-role" \
       connection_url="mongodb://{{username}}:{{password}}@mongodb.acme.com:27017/admin?tls=true" \
       username="vaultuser" \
       password="vaultpass!"
   

3. Configure a role that maps a name in Vault to a MongoDB command that executes and creates the database credential:

   $ vault write database/roles/my-role \
       db_name=my-mongodb-database \
       creation_statements='{ "db": "admin", "roles": [{ "role": "readWrite" }, {"role": "read", "db": "foo"}] }' \
       default_ttl="1h" \
       max_ttl="24h"
   Success! Data written to: database/roles/my-role
   

Usage

After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has a Vault token with the proper permission, it can generate credentials.

1. Generate a new credential by reading from the /creds endpoint with the name of the role:

   $ vault read database/creds/my-role
   Key                Value
   ---                -----
   lease_id           database/creds/my-role/2f6a614c-4aa2-7b19-24b9-ad944a8d4de6
   lease_duration     1h
   lease_renewable    true
   password           LEm-lcDJ2k0Hi05FvizN
   username           v-vaultuser-my-role-ItceCZHlp0YGn90Puy9Z-1602542024
   

Client x509 certificate authentication

This plugin supports using MongoDB's x509 Client-side Certificate Authentication

To use this authentication mechanism, configure the plugin:

$ vault write database/config/my-mongodb-database \
    plugin_name=mongodb-database-plugin \
    allowed_roles="my-role" \
    connection_url="mongodb://@mongodb.acme.com:27017/admin" \
    tls_certificate_key=@/path/to/client.pem \
    tls_ca=@/path/to/client.ca

Note: tls_certificate_key and tls_ca map to tlsCertificateKeyFile and tlsCAFile configuration options from MongoDB with the exception that the Vault parameters are the contents of those files, not filenames. As such, the two options are independent of each other. See the MongoDB Configuration Options for more information.

Tutorial

Refer to the database credential management tutorials for a step-by-step example of using the database secrets engine.

API

The full list of configurable options can be seen in the MongoDB database plugin API page.

For more information on the database secrets engine's HTTP API please see the Database secrets engine API page.