Vault Agent and Vault Proxy quick start

Adopting a new tool can be challenging for an growing organization. Common challenges include resistance to change, lack of expertise, integration complexities, and ensuring proper training. Vault Agent and Vault Proxy simplify and streamline the integration of applications with HashiCorp Vault, making secrets management more efficient and user-friendly.

Vault Agent simplifies secrets management by acting as a client-side daemon. It handles authentication, secret retrieval, and caching for applications, reducing the need for application code changes and improving security. It allows applications to access secrets without needing direct integration with Vault, making it easier to adopt Vault in existing environments.

Vault Proxy simplifies integrating applications with HashiCorp Vault by acting as an API proxy, handling authentication, token renewal, and caching. It allows applications to access Vault secrets without needing direct integration with Vault, potentially easing the initial hurdle to adoption.

Both tools help streamline the adoption of HashiCorp Vault, making it easier to secure sensitive data without significant application refactoring.

What is Vault Agent?

Vault Agent behaves as a client-side daemon to make requests to Vault on behalf of the client application. This includes the authentication to Vault.

Vault clients (human users, applications, etc.) must authenticate with Vault and get a client token to make API requests. Because tokens have time-to-live (TTL), the clients must renew the token's TTL or re-authenticate to Vault based on its TTL. Vault Agent authenticates with Vault and manages the token's lifecycle so that the client application doesn't have to.

In addition, you can inject Consul Template markup into Vault Agent to render secrets into files where the client application loads data from.

This eliminates the need to change your application code to invoke the Vault API. Your existing applications can remain Vault-unaware.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you need to install the Vault binary.

Launch Terminal

This tutorial includes a free interactive command-line lab that lets you follow along on actual cloud infrastructure.

Start interactive lab

Lab setup

1. Open a terminal and start a Vault dev server with root as the root token value.

   $ vault server -dev -dev-root-token-id root
   

   The Vault dev server defaults to running at 127.0.0.1:8200. The server is also initialized and unsealed.

   Insecure operation

   Do not run a Vault dev server in production. This approach simplifies the unsealing process for this tutorial.

2. Export an environment variable for the vault CLI to address the Vault server.

   $ export VAULT_ADDR=http://127.0.0.1:8200
   

3. Log into Vault.

   $ vault login
   Token (will be hidden):
   

   Enter the token value root when prompted, and press return.

   Output example:

   Success! You are now authenticated. The token information displayed below
   is already stored in the token helper. You do NOT need to run "vault login"
   again. Future Vault requests will automatically use this token.
   
   Key                  Value
   ---                  -----
   token                root
   token_accessor       9v9YS37o8lvXELvEQY6NqTtV
   token_duration       ∞
   token_renewable      false
   token_policies       ["root"]
   identity_policies    []
   policies             ["root"]
   

   Tip

   Vault server is ready and the token value (root) saved to the file $HOME/.vault-token.

Create a working directory

1. Create a directory where you generate test files.

   $ mkdir $HOME/vault-test && cd $HOME/vault-test
   

   You will read the created secrets using Vault Agent.

Create test data

1. Create a mock data file.

   $ tee data.json -<<EOF
   {
      "organization": "ACME Inc.",
      "customer_id": "ABXX2398YZPIE7391",
      "region": "US-West",
      "zip_code": "94105",
      "type": "premium",
      "contact_email": "james@acme.com",
      "status": "active"
   }
   EOF
   

2. Create the mock data in the KV v2 secrets engine.

   $ vault kv put secret/customers/acme @data.json
   
   ======= Secret Path =======
   secret/data/customers/acme
   
   ======= Metadata =======
   Key                Value
   ---                -----
   created_time       2023-02-23T16:25:46.030960819Z
   custom_metadata    <nil>
   deletion_time      n/a
   destroyed          false
   version            1
   

Start a Vault Agent

Start a Vault Agent instance that connects to the Vault server running at VAULT_ADDR.

1. Create the Vault Agent configuration file.

   $ tee agent-config.hcl -<<EOF
   pid_file = "./pidfile"
   
   vault {
      address = "$VAULT_ADDR"
      tls_skip_verify = true
   }
   
   auto_auth {
      method {
         type = "token_file"
         config = {
            token_file_path = "$HOME/.vault-token"
         }
      }
      sink "file" {
         config = {
               path = "$HOME/vault-token-via-agent"
         }
      }
   }
   EOF
   

2. Start a Vault Agent.

   $ vault agent -config=agent-config.hcl
   

   Example output:

   ==> Vault Agent started! Log data will stream in below:
   
   ==> Vault Agent configuration:
   
                        Cgo: disabled
                  Log Level:
                  Version: Vault v1.13.0, built 2023-02-14T14:25:23Z
               Version Sha: c2d6b060c0eec60393e866b761a5990716cb45de
   
   [INFO]  vault-agent.sink.file: creating file sink
   [INFO]  vault-agent.sink.file: file sink configured: path=$HOME/vault-token-via-agent mode=-rw-r-----
   [INFO]  vault-agent.template.server: starting template server
   [INFO]  vault-agent.template.server: no templates found
   [INFO]  vault-agent.auth.handler: starting auth handler
   [INFO]  vault-agent.auth.handler: authenticating
   [INFO]  vault-agent.sink.server: starting sink server
   [INFO]  vault-agent.auth.handler: authentication successful, sending token to sinks
   ...snip...
   

At this point, you still need to change your client application to make Vault requests targeting VAULT_ADDR using the Vault token stored in the sink location ($HOME/vault-token-via-agent).

Next, explore other Vault Agent features.

Define Vault Agent template

In the following scenario, the client application loads data read from customer.json.

1. Press Ctrl + C to stop the running Vault Agent.

2. Create a customer.json.tmpl file.

   $ tee customer.json.tmpl -<<EOF
   {
      {{ with secret "secret/data/customers/acme" }}
      "Organization": "{{ .Data.data.organization }}",
      "ID": "{{ .Data.data.customer_id }}",
      "Contact": "{{ .Data.data.contact_email }}"
      {{ end }}
   }
   EOF
   

3. Create a Vault Agent configuration file with a template stanza.

   $ tee agent-template.hcl -<<EOF
   template {
      source      = "$HOME/vault-test/customer.json.tmpl"
      destination = "$HOME/vault-test/customer.json"
   }
   EOF
   

4. Start Vault Agent again with the additional configuration applied.

   $ vault agent -config=agent-config.hcl \
      -config=agent-template.hcl
   

   Example output:

   ==> Vault Agent started! Log data will stream in below:
   
   ==> Vault Agent configuration:
   
            Api Address 1: http://bufconn
                        Cgo: disabled
                  Log Level:
                  Version: Vault v1.13.0-rc1+ent, built 2023-02-14T14:25:23Z
               Version Sha: c2d6b060c0eec60393e866b761a5990716cb45de
   
   [INFO]  vault-agent.sink.file: creating file sink
   [INFO]  vault-agent.sink.file: file sink configured: path=$HOME/vault-token-via-agent mode=-rw-r-----
   [INFO]  vault-agent.auth.handler: starting auth handler
   [INFO]  vault-agent.auth.handler: authenticating
   [INFO]  vault-agent.template.server: starting template server
   ...snip...
   [INFO] (runner) starting
   [INFO] (runner) rendered "$HOME/vault-test/customer.json.tmpl" => "$HOME/vault-test/customer.json"
   

5. Open a new browser or text editor and verify that the customer.json file has the secrets retrieved from Vault.

   $ cat customer.json
   

   Example output:

      {
   
      "Organization": "ACME Inc.",
      "ID": "ABXX2398YZPIE7391",
      "Contact": "james@acme.com"
   
   }
   

   This should match the data stored in secret/.

   $ vault kv get secret/customers/acme
   
   ======= Secret Path =======
   secret/data/customers/acme
   
   ======= Metadata =======
   Key                Value
   ---                -----
   created_time       2023-02-23T16:25:46.030960819Z
   custom_metadata    <nil>
   deletion_time      n/a
   destroyed          false
   version            1
   
   ======== Data ========
   Key              Value
   ---              -----
   contact_email    james@acme.com
   customer_id      ABXX2398YZPIE7391
   organization     ACME Inc.
   region           US-West
   status           active
   type             premium
   zip_code         94105
   
   Troubleshooting for HCP Vault Dedicated

   If the template fails, make sure to set the VAULT_NAMESPACE variable.

   $ echo $VAULT_NAMESPACE
   admin
   

The client application loads data from the customer.json file. By leveraging the Vault Agent Template feature, you did not have to make any code changes to the client application while you manage secrets with Vault.

Vault Agent logs

You can specify the behavior of Vault Agent logging using a command flag, environment variable, or configuration parameters.

Vault Proxy

Vault Proxy acts as a proxy between Vault and its client applications. See the Vault Agent and Vault Proxy documentation page for more details about feature parity between Vault Agent and Vault Proxy.

Vault Proxy provides auto-auth, caching, and API proxy functionality.

The vault and auto_auth stanzas in the Vault Proxy and Vault Agent configurations are identical; however, you must define listener and api_proxy stanzas for Vault Proxy.

Example configuration for Vault Proxy:

pid_file = "./pidfile"

vault {
   address = "http://127.0.0.1:8200"
   tls_skip_verify = true
}

auto_auth {
   method {
      type = "token_file"
      config = {
         token_file_path = "$HOME/.vault-token"
      }
   }
   sink "file" {
      config = {
            path = "$HOME/vault-proxy"
      }
   }
}

listener "tcp" {
   address     = "127.0.0.1:8100"
   tls_disable = true
}

api_proxy {
   use_auto_auth_token = true
   enforce_consistency = "always"
}

cache {
   cache_static_secrets = true
   static_secret_token_capability_refresh_interval = "5m"
}

Start a Vault Proxy

You can define an API endpoint for the client application to send requests to rather than VAULT_ADDR.

1. Press Ctrl + C to stop the running Vault Agent.

2. Create a file that defines the listener stanza and api_proxy stanza.

   $ tee vault-proxy-config.hcl -<<EOF
   pid_file = "./pidfile"
   
   vault {
      address = "$VAULT_ADDR"
      tls_skip_verify = true
   }
   
   auto_auth {
      method {
         type = "token_file"
         config = {
            token_file_path = "$HOME/.vault-token"
         }
      }
      sink "file" {
         config = {
               path = "$HOME/vault-token-via-agent"
         }
      }
   }
   
   listener "tcp" {
      address     = "127.0.0.1:8100"
      tls_disable = true
   }
   
   api_proxy {
      use_auto_auth_token = true
      enforce_consistency = "always"
   }
   
   cache {
      // Requires Vault Enterprise 1.16 or later
      cache_static_secrets = false
      static_secret_token_capability_refresh_interval = "5m"
   }
   EOF
   

   This configuration creates a listener endpoint on the loop-back interface 127.0.0.1:8100. You can add multiple listener stanzas. See the Vault Proxy documentation for more information.

   The api_proxy stanza enables the use_auto_auth_token parameter. When enabled, proxied requests do not need to set the X-Vault-Token HTTP header. Request will use the auto-auth token by default.

   Set the cache_static_secrets parameter in the cache stanza to true to enable the static secrets caching feature that requires Vault Enterprise. This enables Vault Proxy to cache static secrets read from the KV v1 and KV v2 secrets engines.

   Note that the persistent caching feature available in Vault Community Edition is currently supported only in Kubernetes environments and does not cache static secrets.

3. Start the Vault Proxy.

   $ vault proxy -config=vault-proxy-config.hcl
   

   Vault Proxy is now listening to the proxy addresses http://127.0.0.1:8100.

   ==> Vault Proxy started! Log data will stream in below:
   
   ==> Vault Proxy configuration:
   
            Api Address 1: http://127.0.0.1:8100
                        Cgo: disabled
                  Log Level:
                  Version: Vault v1.16.0, built 2024-02-12T16:07:06Z
               Version Sha: 2ca8655bfeb501c0937240df2828ef0fb7c78de1
   

4. Open another command terminal and send an API request to the Vault Proxy.

   Read the secrets at secret/customers/acme via the proxy address.

   This example uses jq to process the JSON output for readability.

   $ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8100/v1/secret/data/customers/acme \
      | jq -r ".data.data"
   

   Output:

   {
      "contact_email": "james@acme.com",
      "customer_id": "ABXX2398YZPIE7391",
      "organization": "ACME Inc.",
      "region": "US-West",
      "status": "active",
      "type": "premium",
      "zip_code": "94105"
   }
   

   A token was automatically attached to the request by the Vault Proxy because you set the use_auto_auth_token parameter to true in the configuration.

Static secret caching

1. Exit the Vault Proxy and Vault community edition process by pressing Ctrl + C.

2. Update the vault-proxy-config.hcl to set cache_static_secrets to true in the cache stanza.

   vault-proxy-config.hcl

   cache {
      cache_static_secrets = true
      static_secret_token_capability_refresh_interval = "5m"
   }
   

3. Open a terminal and export an environment variable with a valid Vault Enterprise license.

   $ export VAULT_LICENSE=0S3ASM3STC0OKI3....
   

4. Reset the VULT_ADDR and VAULT_TOKEN environment variables.

   $ export VAULT_ADDR=http://127.0.0.1:8200
   

5. Login to Vault again.

   $ vault login root
   

6. In the same terminal start a Vault Enterprise dev server with root as the root token value.

   $ vault server -dev -dev-root-token-id root
   

7. Open a terminal and start the Vault Proxy with the static secret caching feature.

   $ vault proxy -config=vault-proxy-config.hcl 
   

8. Resetting Vault Enterprise dev server cleaned out the prexisting secrets. Create a new secret.

   $ vault kv put secret/customers/acme @data.json
   

9. Read the secrets twice. Vault Proxy caches the secret when you first access it. The second time you access the secret, Vault proxy returns the cached secret.

   $ curl --verbose -s http://127.0.0.1:8100/v1/secret/data/customers/acme \
      | jq -r ".data.data"
   

   Use the --verbose or -v option with the cURL command so that you can see more detail.

   *   Trying 127.0.0.1:8100...
   * Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 8100
   > GET /v1/secret/data/customers/acme HTTP/1.1
   > Host: 127.0.0.1:8100
   > User-Agent: curl/8.4.0
   > Accept: */*
   >
   < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   < Age: 65
   < Cache-Control: no-store
   < Content-Length: 483
   < Content-Type: application/json
   < Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:28:17 GMT
   < Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
   < X-Cache: HIT
   <
   { [483 bytes data]
   * Connection #0 to host 127.0.0.1 left intact
   {
      "contact_email": "james@acme.com",
      "customer_id": "ABXX2398YZPIE7391",
      "organization": "ACME Inc.",
      "region": "US-West",
      "status": "active",
      "type": "premium",
      "zip_code": "94105"
   }
   

   Notice that the X-Cache is HIT.

10. Update the secrets to see what happens.

    $ vault kv patch secret/customers/acme "customer_since"="2011"
    

11. Read the secrets again via proxy.

    $ curl --verbose http://127.0.0.1:8100/v1/secret/data/customers/acme \
       | jq -r ".data.data"
    

    The Age value changed since the secrets were just updated.

    *   Trying 127.0.0.1:8100...
    * Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 8100
    > GET /v1/secret/data/customers/acme HTTP/1.1
    > Host: 127.0.0.1:8100
    > User-Agent: curl/8.4.0
    > Accept: */*
    >
    < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    < Age: 8
    < Cache-Control: no-store
    < Content-Length: 506
    < Content-Type: application/json
    < Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:29:21 GMT
    < Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
    < X-Cache: HIT
    <
    { [506 bytes data]
    * Connection #0 to host 127.0.0.1 left intact
    {
       "contact_email": "james@acme.com",
       "customer_id": "ABXX2398YZPIE7391",
       "customer_since": "2011",
       "organization": "ACME Inc.",
       "region": "US-West",
       "status": "active",
       "type": "premium",
       "zip_code": "94105"
    }
    

12. Back in the terminal with the proxy running, press Ctrl + C to stop the running Vault Proxy.

Self-healing tokens

Auto-auth is responsible for authenticating with Vault to obtain a client token, storing it, and managing its lifecycle. Vault Agent and Vault Proxy's auto-auth capabilities can recover from invalid token errors, such as those caused by unexpected events like a Vault administrator revoking the client token in use.

Test the self-healing capability

1. Create a script to setup approle auth method.

   $ tee setup-approle.sh -<<EOF
   ## Create a policy named "read-only"
   vault policy write read-only -<<EOL
   path "secret/*" {
      capabilities = ["read", "list"]
   }
   EOL
   
   ## Enable and configure approle auth method
   vault auth enable approle
   vault write auth/approle/role/read-only policies=read-only token_num_uses=5
   
   ## Retrive role ID and secret ID
   vault read -field=role_id auth/approle/role/read-only/role-id > $HOME/vault-test/roleID.txt
   vault write -f -field=secret_id auth/approle/role/read-only/secret-id > $HOME/vault-test/secretID.txt
   EOF
   

   This script:

   • Creates a policy named read-only which allows read and list operations against paths starts with secret/.
   • Enables approle auth method.
   • Creates a role named read-only which has the read-only policy attached. The token for this role has a use limit of 5.
   • Retrieves the role ID for the read-only role and store the value in the roleID.txt file.
   • Retrieves the secret ID and store the value in the secretID.txt file.

2. Make the script executable.

   $ chmod +x setup-approle.sh
   

3. Run the script to setup an approle auth method.

   $ ./setup-approle.sh
   
   Success! Uploaded policy: read-only
   Success! Enabled approle auth method at: approle/
   Success! Data written to: auth/approle/role/read-only
   

4. Create a new Vault Proxy configuration which uses approle auth method.

   $ tee vault-proxy-config-2.hcl -<<EOF
   pid_file = "./pidfile"
   vault {
      address = "$VAULT_ADDR"
      tls_skip_verify = true
   }
   
   auto_auth {
      method {
         type = "approle"
         config = {
            role_id_file_path = "$HOME/vault-test/roleID.txt"
            secret_id_file_path = "$HOME/vault-test/secretID.txt"
         }
      }
      sink "file" {
         config = {
               path = "$HOME/vault-token-via-agent"
         }
      }
   }
   
   listener "tcp" {
      address     = "127.0.0.1:8100"
      tls_disable = true
   }
   
   api_proxy {
      use_auto_auth_token = true
      enforce_consistency = "always"
   }
   EOF
   

5. Start a Vault Proxy.

   $ vault proxy -config=vault-proxy-config-2.hcl
   

6. From another command terminal, read the secrets through the proxy.

   $ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8100/v1/secret/data/customers/acme \
      | jq -r ".data.data"
   

   The command returns the secrets.

   {
      "contact_email": "james@acme.com",
      "customer_id": "ABXX2398YZPIE7391",
      "organization": "ACME Inc.",
      "region": "US-West",
      "status": "active",
      "type": "premium",
      "zip_code": "94105"
   }
   

7. Revoke the token stored in the sink location.

   $ vault token revoke $(cat $HOME/vault-token-via-agent)
   Success! Revoked token (if it existed)
   

8. Try to read the secrets again.

   $ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8100/v1/secret/data/customers/acme \
      | jq -r ".data.data"
   

   The request fails and returns no data.

9. In the terminal where Vault Proxy is running, check the Vault Proxy logs.

   ...snip...
   [INFO]  proxy.apiproxy: proxy received an invalid token error
   [INFO]  proxy.auth.handler: invalid token found, re-authenticating
   [INFO]  proxy.auth.handler: authenticating
   [INFO]  proxy.auth.handler: authentication successful, sending token to sinks
   [INFO]  proxy.auth.handler: starting renewal process
   [INFO]  proxy.sink.file: token written: path=/user/vault-token-via-agent
   [INFO]  proxy.auth.handler: renewed auth token
   

   The log indicates invalid token error because you revoked the client token. The Vault Agent re-authenticate with Vault to get a new token, and stores it in the sink location.

10. Try to read the secret. This time, you should received the secrets.

    $ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8100/v1/secret/data/customers/acme \
       | jq -r ".data.data"
    

Clean up

1. Press Ctrl + C to stop the running Vault Agent.

2. You can stop the Vault dev server by pressing Ctrl+C where the server is running. Or, execute the following command.

   $ pgrep -f vault | xargs kill
   

3. Unset the VAULT_ADDR environment variable.

   $ unset VAULT_ADDR
   

4. Delete the $HOME/vault-test directory.

   $ cd .. && rm -r $HOME/vault-test
   

Summary

This tutorial demonstrated the basics of Vault Agent. You learned how to configure and run Vault Agent and Vault Proxy.

The use of token_file in the auto-auth stanza is a convenient way to start the Vault Agent or Vault Proxy. For a production deployment, use one of the supported auth methods so that the Vault Agent or Vault Proxy can properly manage the token's lifecycle.

See the following tutorials for auto-auth examples:

• Vault Agent with AWS
• Vault Agent with Kubernetes

The Vault Agent Template demonstrated that the client application can remain Vault-unaware while Vault manages the secrets.

See the following tutorials to see more template examples:

• Vault Agent Templates
• Using HashiCorp Vault Agent with .NET Core

Help and reference

• Vault Agent documentation
• Vault Agent Auto-Auth
• Vault Agent Caching