Using the Secret Manager with the HashiCorp Vault KV2-compliant API

Requirements

• An OVHcloud customer account
• Have ordered an OKMS domain or created a first secret

Instructions

Description

The Secret Manager is a product that allows you to securely store credentials, API keys, SSH keys, or any other type of secret necessary for the operation of your applications.

A secret is a collection of one or more key-value pairs grouped within a version. Each modification of a secret creates a new version of that secret, allowing you to go back in the history of changes to the secret.

The HashiCorp Vault KV2 compliant APIs are one of the two API sets offered by the Secret Manager, along with the REST API. They are designed to be similar to HashiCorp Vault APIs to ensure compatibility with applications already compatible with HashiCorp Vault.

Contacting the OKMS domain

Communication with the OKMS domain for encryption and signature actions is available via APIs.

Since the OKMS domain is regionalized, you can access the API directly in its region: https://my-region.okms.ovh.us.

For example, for an OKMS domain created in the us-east-vin region: https://us-east-vin.okms.ovh.us.

It's possible to communicate with the OKMS domain using:

• The Swagger UI
• The OMKS CLI: https://github.com/ovh/okms-cli
• The Golang SDK: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/ovh/okms-sdk-go

Using the OKMS domain API via the Swagger UI

You can access the OKMS domain Swagger UI by clicking on the link in the OVHcloud Control Panel, in your OKMS domain dashboard.

You will land on the non-authenticated version of the Swagger UI, which is meant for API documentation purposes. If you want to use the Swagger UI to make requests on your own OKMS domain, you will need to switch to the authenticated version, which is linked in the description section:

The next steps will guide you on how to authenticate.

Importing your OKMS domain credentials into the browser

This process is covered in the Importing your KMS credentials into the browser section of our Using OVHcloud Key Management Service (KMS) guide.

Accessing the authenticated Swagger UI

This process is covered in the Accessing the authenticated Swagger UI section of our Using OVHcloud Key Management Service (KMS) guide.

Create a Secret

To create a secret, you can use the following API:

The secret's path must be specified in the API path.

The API expects the following values:

For example:

{
  "data": {
      "login": "admin",
      "password": "my_secret_password",
      "address": {
        "ip": "1.1.1.1"
      },
      "ports": [
        "30",
        "31"
      ]
  },
  "options": {
      "cas": 0
  }
}

It is also possible to add metadata to the secret via the API:

The API expects the following values:

For example:

{
  "cas_required": true,
  "custom_metadata": {
    "project": "A",
    "team": "X"
  },
  "deactivate_version_after": "10h30m10s",
  "max_versions": 5
}

Manage Secrets

Update Metadata and configuration

Once the secret is created, it is possible to update the secret's metadata or configuration.

The API expects the following values:

It is also possible to change the default configuration of the OKMS domain for the values cas_required, deactivate_version_after, and max_versions using the API:

Update the Secret's data

This call will change the secret's data but will preserve the Version ID:

Create a new version

You can create a new version, based on the most recent Version ID, using the API:

A secret can contain as many versions as desired, up to the maximum limit of the max_versions parameter. If the maximum number of versions is reached, the oldest version is automatically deleted.

Manage versions

It is possible to manage the different versions of the secret using the API:

Deactivated versions of a secret are still present in the Secret Manager, but their content is no longer accessible.

It is possible to reactivate a version via the API:

Finally, it is possible to permanently delete a version via the API:

It's also possible to permanently delete the whole secret with all his versions:

Go further

For more information and tutorials, please see our other Manage & Operate support guides or explore the guides for other OVHcloud products and services.