Deploy HCP Vault with Terraform

HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) portal features a web user interface to deploy and manage resources, including HCP Vault deployments. If you prefer to automate the HCP Vault deployment, the recommended approach is to use HashiCorp Terraform with the HCP provider.

You can use the Terraform CLI and the HCP provider with your HCP account credentials from a terminal session to successfully deploy a HCP Vault cluster. This enables you to leverage HCP to rapidly and reliably deploy Vault clusters, while offloading the operations burden of running Vault to SRE experts at HashiCorp.

The tutorial example scenario automatically deploys an AWS VPC, and peers the provisioned HashiCorp Virtual Network (HVN).

Prerequisites

To complete the steps listed in this tutorial, you need:

• Terraform CLI installed

• An HCP account

• An AWS account

• git installed

• AWS IAM credentials configured locally

  Example:

  $ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="<YOUR_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID>" AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="<YOUR_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY>"
  

  Tip

  If you don't have access to IAM user credentials, use another authentication method described in the AWS provider documentation.

Create a service principal and key

Log in to the HCP portal to create a service principal and associated key that you will use with Terraform to deploy the HCP Vault cluster.

1. From the navigation menu, select your organization, then select Access control (IAM).

2. Select Service principals, and then click Create service principal.

3. Enter learn-hcp-vault in the Service principal name field.

4. Choose Contributor from the Role pull down menu, and click Create service principal.

   The Service principal is created and displays the overview page.

5. Click Create service principal key.

6. Copy the Client ID.

7. Open a terminal and export an environment variable for the HCP_CLIENT_ID.

   $ export HCP_CLIENT_ID=<client id value previously copied>
   

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   Terraform authenticates with HCP using this ID.

8. Return to the HCP Portal and copy the Client secret.

9. Return to the terminal and export an environment variable for the HCP_CLIENT_SECRET.

   $ export HCP_CLIENT_SECRET=<client secret value previously copied>
   

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   Terraform authenticates with HCP using this secret.

Clone learn-terraform-hcp-vault repository

Clone the learn-terraform-hcp-vault repository to get the necessary Terraform configuration for the example scenarios.

1. Ensure that you are in a directory that you wish to work through this tutorial in, and clone the repository.

   $ git clone https://github.com/hashicorp-education/learn-terraform-hcp-vault
   

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2. Change into the directory containing the base example scenario Terraform configuration.

   $ cd learn-terraform-hcp-vault
   

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3. Verify that you are in the correct directory before proceeding.

   $ ls -1
   variables.tf
   vault.tf
   vpc-peering.tf
   

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   Tip

   The commands you use for the rest of the tutorial should all be executed from within this directory.

Review the Terraform configuration

The configuration in hcp-vault-vpc is the minimum configuration necessary to deploy HCP Vault using the Terraform HCP provider with peered VPC, as an example for this tutorial. You will need to significantly expand on this example to build a more advanced configurations for production use cases.

Review variables

The variables.tf file defines all Terraform variables for the project expressed in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL).

You can edit the variables.tf file to change attributes for the HCP Vault cluster. You can learn more about the available options in the Terraform HCP provider documentation.

1. Examine the variables.tf file. Note the description values to understand each variable.

   variables.tf

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   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041variable "hvn_id" {
     description = "The ID of the HCP HVN."
     type        = string
     default     = "learn-hcp-vault-hvn"
   }
   
   variable "cluster_id" {
     description = "The ID of the HCP Vault cluster."
     type        = string
     default     = "learn-hcp-vault-cluster"
   }
   
   variable "peering_id" {
     description = "The ID of the HCP peering connection."
     type        = string
     default     = "learn-peering"
   }
   
   variable "route_id" {
     description = "The ID of the HCP HVN route."
     type        = string
     default     = "learn-hvn-route"
   }
   
   variable "region" {
     description = "The region of the HCP HVN and Vault cluster."
     type        = string
     default     = "us-west-2"
   }
   
   variable "cloud_provider" {
     description = "The cloud provider of the HCP HVN and Vault cluster."
     type        = string
     default     = "aws"
   }
   
   variable "tier" {
     description = "Tier of the HCP Vault cluster. Valid options for tiers."
     type        = string
     default     = "dev"
   }
   

   Line 37 through 41 defines the values for HCP Vault cluster tier. This is an optional parameter and the default value is dev; therefore, you can omit this parameter. However, if you wish to create a cluster other than a dev tier cluster, overwrite this value by creating a terraform.tfvars file.

   Example:

   $ tee terraform.tfvars -<<EOF
   tier = "starter_small"
   EOF
   

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   Note

   The only supported cloud_provider types for the HCP provider are aws or azure.

2. Make the necessary changes for your environment before proceeding.

Define the HashiCorp Virtual Network

Before you can deploy the HCP Vault cluster, you need to first configure a HashiCorp Virtual Network (HVN). An HVN is defined by the hcp_hvn resource.

1. Examine the vault.tf file. Lines 1 through 5 define the HVN used in this tutorial.

   vault.tf

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   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112resource "hcp_hvn" "learn_hcp_vault_hvn" {
     hvn_id         = var.hvn_id
     cloud_provider = var.cloud_provider
     region         = var.region
   }
   
   resource "hcp_vault_cluster" "learn_hcp_vault" {
     hvn_id     = hcp_hvn.learn_hcp_vault_hvn.hvn_id
     cluster_id = var.cluster_id
     tier       = var.tier
     #public_endpoint = true
   }
   

   The configuration creates an HVN resource named learn_hcp_vault_hvn that uses the variable values from the variables.tf to declare the HVN ID, the cloud provider, and cloud provider region.

   HCP project considerations

   By default, Terraform will create the HVN defined in the default or oldest HCP project. If you are using multiple projects in your HCP account, you can control where Terraform will create the HVN and cluster using the project_id parameter.

   For more information on how to work with multiple projects, refer to the HCP provider documentation.

Define HCP Vault cluster

In this tutorial you will deploy a single Vault cluster.

1. Examine the vault.tf file. Lines 7 through 12 define the HCP Vault cluster used in this tutorial.

   vault.tf

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   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112resource "hcp_hvn" "learn_hcp_vault_hvn" {
     hvn_id         = var.hvn_id
     cloud_provider = var.cloud_provider
     region         = var.region
   }
   
   resource "hcp_vault_cluster" "learn_hcp_vault" {
     hvn_id     = hcp_hvn.learn_hcp_vault_hvn.hvn_id
     cluster_id = var.cluster_id
     tier       = var.tier
     #public_endpoint = true
   }
   

   The configuration specifies an HCP Vault cluster resource named learn_hcp_vault that uses the variable values from variables.tf to declare the HVN ID, and set the cluster ID to learn-hcp-vault-cluster.

   The public_endpoint parameter is commented out at line 11. See the Enable public cluster address section for more details about this optional parameter.

   Performance Replication

   You can enable performance replication for HCP Vault by adding an additional hcp_hvn and hcp_vault_cluster block, then set the primary_link parameter. For more information please visit the Configure Vault performance replication - HCP Provider guide.

Metric and audit log streaming

You can configure your HCP Vault cluster to stream audit logs and metrics to supported providers.

Configuring metric and audit log streaming is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but provided as a reference.

Metrics are configured using the metrics_config parameter for the hcp_vault_cluster resource.

Example:

resource "hcp_vault_cluster" "example" {
  cluster_id = "vault-cluster"
  hvn_id     = hcp_hvn.example.hvn_id
  tier       = "standard_large"
  metrics_config {
    datadog_api_key = "test_datadog"
    datadog_region  = "us1"
  }
}

Audit logs are configured using the audit_log_config parameter for the hcp_vault_cluster resource.

Example:

resource "hcp_vault_cluster" "example" {
  cluster_id = "vault-cluster"
  hvn_id     = hcp_hvn.example.hvn_id
  tier       = "standard_large"
  audit_log_config {
    datadog_api_key = "test_datadog"
    datadog_region  = "us1"
  }
}

Refer to the hcp_vault_cluster documentation in the Terraform Registry for more information.

Define VPC peering

1. Examine the vpc-peering.tf file.

   vpc-peering.tf

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   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031provider "aws" {
     region = var.region
   }
   
   resource "aws_vpc" "peer" {
     cidr_block = "172.31.0.0/16"
   }
   
   data "aws_arn" "peer" {
     arn = aws_vpc.peer.arn
   }
   
   resource "hcp_aws_network_peering" "peer" {
     hvn_id              = hcp_hvn.learn_hcp_vault_hvn.hvn_id
     peering_id          = var.peering_id
     peer_vpc_id         = aws_vpc.peer.id
     peer_account_id     = aws_vpc.peer.owner_id
     peer_vpc_region     = data.aws_arn.peer.region
   }
   
   resource "hcp_hvn_route" "peer_route" {
     hvn_link         = hcp_hvn.learn_hcp_vault_hvn.self_link
     hvn_route_id     = var.route_id
     destination_cidr = aws_vpc.peer.cidr_block
     target_link      = hcp_aws_network_peering.peer.self_link
   }
   
   resource "aws_vpc_peering_connection_accepter" "peer" {
     vpc_peering_connection_id = hcp_aws_network_peering.peer.provider_peering_id
     auto_accept               = true
   }
   

   After making any necessary changes to vpc-peering.tf, proceed to deploy the infrastructure.

Deploy infrastructure

After you have cloned the repository and defined the environment variables for HCP (and optionally AWS), you are ready to deploy the HCP resources and peer them with your AWS account.

1. Initialize terraform; this downloads the necessary providers and initializes the backend.

   $ terraform init
   
   Initializing the backend...
   
   Initializing provider plugins...
   ...snip...
   
   Terraform has been successfully initialized!
   

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2. Verify the resources that will be created using terraform plan.

   $ terraform plan
   
   An execution plan has been generated and is shown below.
   Resource actions are indicated with the following symbols:
   ...snip...
   
   Plan: 6 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.
   

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   You should note resources listed in the output, and at the end a summary that lists 5 resources to add.

3. Deploy the resources with terraform apply.

   $ terraform apply
   
   ...snip...
   Do you want to perform these actions?
     Terraform will perform the actions described above.
     Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.
   
     Enter a value:
   

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4. Confirm the run by entering yes.

   Once confirmed, it will take a few minutes to complete the deployment. If the deployment was successful, you should observe output at the end resembling this example.

   Apply complete! Resources: 6 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.
   

Access Vault

Return to the HCP portal to inspect the newly created Vault cluster.

1. From the navigation menu within the Resources section, select Vault.

2. Click learn-hcp-vault-cluster to access cluster details.

   The HCP Vault cluster overview is shown and the State is Running. You can interact with the cluster from this overview to perform a range of operational tasks.

3. To confirm the HVN to VPC peering status, return to the main menu, and select HashiCorp Virtual Network.

4. Click learn-hcp-vault-hvn to access the HVN details.

5. Click Peering connections.

6. Select the learn-peering link.

   The details for the VPC peering connection you deployed are shown. The HVN and VPC are peered and ready to use.

Additional discussion

VPC peering

When you establish a VPC peering connection from your AWS VPC and the HCP HVN you ensure only trusted clients (users, applications, containers, etc.) running inside the VPC connect to Vault and prevent systems outside of your selected network from connecting.

Follow the Peering an AWS VPC with HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) tutorial to create and establish a VPC peering. Vault clients running in the VPC can connect to learn-hcp-vault-cluster using the private cluster URL.

Updating AWS security groups

Once your AWS VPC is peered with the HVN, you will need to consider how to manage access from your AWS workloads to connect to HCP Vault.

When creating a new security group through the AWS console or AWS CLI, the default behavior is to create an egress or outbound rule that permits all traffic from the AWS workload to any destination, represented by the 0.0.0.0/0 CIDR notation.

However, if you manage your AWS security groups using Terraform, the default Terraform behavior is to remove the default egress rule. Once the default egress rule is removed, you need to explicitly add a rule to permit traffic from your AWS workloads to the desired destination.

How you utilize security groups in your organization will guide you on the best way to approach managing access to your HCP Vault cluster.

12345678resource "aws_security_group_rule" "example" {
  type              = "egress"
  from_port         = 8200
  to_port           = 8200
  protocol          = "tcp"
  cidr_blocks       = ["172.25.16.0/20"]
  security_group_id = "sg-123456"
}

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112resource "aws_security_group" "allow_vault_egress" {
  name        = "allow_vault_egress"
  description = "Allow Vault outbound traffic"
  vpc_id      = aws_vpc.main.id

  egress {
    from_port        = 8200
    to_port          = 8200
    protocol         = "tcp"
    cidr_blocks      = ["172.25.16.0/20"]
  }
}

If you are not familiar with AWS security groups, refer to the AWS documentation on Control traffic to resources using security groups.

Enable public cluster address

If you want to enable the public cluster address, update the vault.tf file with public_endpoint set to true for the hcp_vault_cluster resource.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011resource "hcp_hvn" "learn_hcp_vault_hvn" {
  hvn_id         = var.hvn_id
  cloud_provider = var.cloud_provider
  region         = var.region
}

resource "hcp_vault_cluster" "learn_hcp_vault" {
  hvn_id     = hcp_hvn.learn_hcp_vault_hvn.hvn_id
  cluster_id = var.cluster_id
  public_endpoint = true
}

Re-run the terraform apply command.

$ terraform apply

When prompted, enter yes to continue.

Plan: 0 to add, 1 to change, 0 to destroy.

Do you want to perform these actions?
  Terraform will perform the actions described above.
  Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.

  Enter a value: yes

When it completes, you can access your HCP Vault cluster using its public address.

Clean up

Use terraform destroy to clean up all of the resources that you created.

$ terraform destroy

Terraform will prompt you for confirmation.

Do you really want to destroy all resources?
  Terraform will destroy all your managed infrastructure, as shown above.
  There is no undo. Only 'yes' will be accepted to confirm.

  Enter a value:

Confirm by entering yes.

Once you confirm, it will take a few minutes to complete the the destroy. When successful, you should observe output resembling the following example.

Destroy complete! Resources: 6 destroyed.

In this tutorial you learned how to automate the deployment of an HCP Vault cluster using the Terraform HCP provider. You also learned about some of the resources available with the provider.

You can find the full documentation for the HashiCorp Cloud Platform Terraform provider in the Terraform registry documentation.

Next steps

From here you can learn more about HCP Vault including Vault Operation Tasks specific to HCP Vault.

With Vault in your HVN, and your HVN peered to an AWS VPC, you can deploy further AWS resources into the same VPC and access Vault with them through the Vault HTTP API or CLI.

Help and reference

• HashiCorp Cloud Platform
• HCP Vault
• Terraform HCP provider
• Terraform HCP provider documentation
• Terraform HCP provider metrics_config
• Terraform HCP provider audit_log_config