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Vault
Auto unseal

Auto-unseal Vault using AWS KMS

  • 9min
  • |
  • Vault
  • Terraform
  • Video

When a Vault server is started, it starts in a sealed state and it does not know how to decrypt data. Before any operation can be performed on the Vault, it must be unsealed. Unsealing is the process of constructing the master key necessary to decrypt the data encryption key.

Unseal with Shamir's Secret Sharing

This tutorial demonstrates an example of how to use Terraform to provision a Vault server that can use an encryption key from AWS Key Management Services (KMS) to automatically unseal.

Challenge

Vault unseal operation requires a quorum of existing unseal keys split by Shamir's Secret sharing algorithm. This is done so that the "keys to the kingdom" won't fall into one person's hand. However, this process is manual and can become painful when you have many Vault clusters as there are now many different key holders with many different keys.

Solution

Vault supports opt-in automatic unsealing via cloud technologies: AliCloud KMS, AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, Google Cloud KMS, and OCI KMS. This feature enables operators to delegate the unsealing process to trusted cloud providers to ease operations in the event of partial failure and to aid in the creation of new or ephemeral clusters.

Unseal with AWS KMS

This tutorial demonstrates Vault Auto Unseal using AWS KMS.

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes the following:

  • AWS account for provisioning cloud resources
  • Terraform installed and basic understanding of its usage

Note

Seal migration from Auto Unseal to Auto Unseal of the same type is supported since Vault 1.6.0. However, there is a current limitation that prevents migrating from AWS KMS to AWS KMS; all other seal migrations of the same type are supported. Seal migration from one Auto Unseal type (AWS KMS) to another Auto Unseal type (HSM, Azure KMS, etc.) is also supported on older versions as well.

Step 1: Provision the cloud resources

  1. Clone the demo assets from the hashicorp/vault-guides GitHub repository to perform the steps described in this tutorial.

    $ git clone https://github.com/hashicorp/vault-guides

    This repository contains supporting content for all of the Vault learn tutorials. The content specific to this tutorial can be found within a sub-directory.

  2. Be sure to set your working directory to where the /operations/aws-kms-unseal/terraform-aws folder is located.

    $ cd vault-guides/operations/aws-kms-unseal/terraform-aws

    The working directory should contain the provided Terraform configuration files:

    $ tree.├── README.md├── instance-profile.tf├── instance.tf├── main.tf├── ssh-key.tf├── terraform.tfvars.example├── userdata.tpl├── variables.tf└── versions.tf0 directories, 9 files

  3. Set your AWS Access Key ID value in an environment variable named AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID.

    $ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "<YOUR_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID>"

  4. Set your AWS Secret Access Key value in an environment variable named AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY.

    $ export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "<YOUR_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY>"

    Tip

    The above example uses IAM user authentication. You can use any authentication method described in the AWS provider documentation.

  5. By default, AWS resources will be provisioned in the us-east-1 region. If you wish to use another AWS region, create a file named terraform.tfvars and set the appropriate aws_region and aws_zone. (Reference the provided terraform.tfvars.example.)

    Example:

    terraform.tfvars

    aws_region = "us-west-1"aws_zone = "us-west-1a"

  6. Initialize the Terraform workspace, and pull down the necessary provider resources.

    $ terraform init

    Example truncated output:

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

  7. Plan the changes and review resources which will be changed by Terraform.

    $ terraform plan -out learn-vault-aws-kms.plan

    Example truncated output:

    data.aws_iam_policy_document.assume_role: Reading...data.aws_ami.ubuntu: Reading...data.aws_iam_policy_document.assume_role: Read complete after 0s [id=1903849331]data.aws_ami.ubuntu: Read complete after 1s [id=ami-0688ba7eeeeefe3cd]Terraform used the selected providers to generate the following execution plan. Resource actions are indicated with the followingsymbols:  + create<= read (data resources)Terraform will perform the following actions:...snip...

  8. Apply the plan by specifying the plan filename, learn-vault-aws-kms.plan. The plan will run without prompting.

    $ terraform apply "learn-vault-aws-kms.plan"

    Example truncated output:

    random_pet.env: Creating...random_pet.env: Creation complete after 0s [id=genuine_satyr]tls_private_key.main: Creating......snip...Apply complete! Resources: 15 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.Outputs:connections = <<EOTConnect to Vault via SSH   ssh ubuntu@35.91.217.103 -i private.keyVault web interface  http://35.91.217.103:8200/uiEOT

    When the apply command completes, the Terraform output will display the public IP address in examples for either SSH access, or to access the Vault web UI.

Step 2: Test the auto-unseal feature

Access the EC2 instance and test the auto-unseal feature.

  1. SSH into the provisioned EC2 instance.

    $ ssh ubuntu@192.0.2.1 -i private.key

    Example truncated output:

    ...snip...Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

    When you are prompted, enter yes to continue.

    Note

    The prompt will change to one like ubuntu@ip-192-168-100-22:~$ when you are using the EC2 instance.

  2. Set the VAULT_ADDR environment variable to address the local server.

    $ export VAULT_ADDR=http://127.0.0.1:8200

  3. Check the Vault server status.

    $ vault status

    Example output:

    Key                      Value---                      -----Recovery Seal Type       awskmsInitialized              falseSealed                   trueTotal Recovery Shares    0Threshold                0Unseal Progress          0/0Unseal Nonce             n/aVersion                  1.12.2Build Date               2022-11-23T12:53:46ZStorage Type             fileHA Enabled               false

    Notice that the Initialized value is false.

  4. Initialize Vault.

    $ vault operator init

    Example output:

    Recovery Key 1: IWFFX9K8ot9Mirii5nxA8iWYP4Sv7r6OUyPxPpWSXolpRecovery Key 2: 3b7hfLAc+A778EsKIPI9c6bUd5hVyOivgMcRF89Ce++RRecovery Key 3: Uox5m+JQbFnQTFTWSV3n5pyycBz1BfEbtSjA6E2V40FMRecovery Key 4: MeD2wsJmCG5CPMX/ERN9Uwj9qDoFrYF+L8dSx/BpHE82Recovery Key 5: syGIEWNIKDlvYdeHJHMWqMHRSb3LnlTtFxvbKKe3A/4BInitial Root Token: hvs.oeRIhQy9AYgSpuJCSRgDxgePSuccess! Vault is initializedRecovery key initialized with 5 key shares and a key threshold of 3. Pleasesecurely distribute the key shares printed above.

    The initialization generates Recovery Keys (instead of unseal keys) when using auto-unseal. Some of the Vault operations still require Shamir keys. For example, to regenerate a root token, each key holder must enter their recovery key. Similar to unseal keys, you can specify the number of recovery keys and the threshold using the -recovery-shares and -recovery-threshold flags. It is strongly recommended to initialize Vault with PGP.

  5. Once you initialize the Vault server, it is operationally ready; check the Vault status again to verify that it has been initialized and unsealed.

    $ vault status

    Example output:

    Key                      Value---                      -----Recovery Seal Type       shamirInitialized              trueSealed                   falseTotal Recovery Shares    5Threshold                3Version                  1.12.2Build Date               2022-11-23T12:53:46ZStorage Type             fileCluster Name             vault-cluster-f06f20a2Cluster ID               90f4e65f-ccc1-1fae-9529-394b04cec782HA Enabled               false

    Notice that the Vault server is already unsealed (Sealed is false).

  6. Restart the Vault server to ensure that Vault server gets automatically unsealed:

    $ sudo systemctl restart vault

  7. Verify the Vault status.

    $ vault status

    Example output:

    Key                      Value---                      -----Recovery Seal Type       shamirInitialized              trueSealed                   falseTotal Recovery Shares    5Threshold                3Version                  1.12.2Build Date               2022-11-23T12:53:46ZStorage Type             fileCluster Name             vault-cluster-f06f20a2Cluster ID               90f4e65f-ccc1-1fae-9529-394b04cec782HA Enabled               false

  8. Log into Vault.

    $ vault loginToken (will be hidden):

    Provide the generated Initial Root Token value from the initialization output when prompted.

    Example output:

    Success! You are now authenticated. The token information displayed belowis 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                hvs.oeRIhQy9AYgSpuJCSRgDxgePtoken_accessor       lvPtNBLpyS82SYeFiSsadCFWtoken_duration       ∞token_renewable      falsetoken_policies       ["root"]identity_policies    []policies             ["root"]

  9. Review the Vault configuration file (/etc/vault.d/vault.hcl).

    $ cat /etc/vault.d/vault.hcl

    Example output:

    storage "file" {path = "/opt/vault"}listener "tcp" {address     = "0.0.0.0:8200"tls_disable = 1}seal "awskms" {region     = "us-west-2"kms_key_id = "df68263c-d9ee-44e3-afca-83cfa370c605"}ui=true

    Notice the Vault configuration file defines the awskms stanza which sets the AWS KMS key ID to use for encryption and decryption.

Warning

Although the listener stanza disables TLS (tls_disable = "true") for this tutorial, Vault should always be used with TLS in production to provide secure communication between clients and the Vault server. It requires a certificate file and key file on each Vault host.

At this point, you should be able to launch the Vault Enterprise UI by entering the address provided in the terraform apply outputs (e.g. http://35.91.217.103:8200/ui) and log in with your initial root token.

Vault Enterprise UI Login

Step 3: Clean up

You can follow these steps to clean up resources from this hands on lab scenario.

  1. Exit the EC2 SSH session by typing exit and pressing return.

    Example output:

    logoutConnection to 35.91.217.103 closed.

  2. Clean up the AWS cloud resources provisioned by the Terraform configuration in Step 1 without additional approval.

    $ terraform destroy -auto-approve

    Example output:

    random_pet.env: Refreshing state... [id=genuine_satyr]tls_private_key.main: Refreshing state... [id=5ca681e470933099a09de8adf756c722267071b1]null_resource.main: Refreshing state... [id=8108715646854798618]...snip...random_pet.env: Destroying... [id=genuine_satyr]random_pet.env: Destruction complete after 0sDestroy complete! Resources: 15 destroyed.

  3. Delete the state files and SSH key generated by Terraform.

    $ rm -rf .terraform terraform.tfstate* private.key

  4. Unset your AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key environment variable values.

    $ unset AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

    This command is expected to produce no output.

Help and reference

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Auto-unseal using GCP Cloud KMS

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Auto-unseal using transit