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Distribute Credentials Securely Using Secrets

This page shows how to securely inject sensitive data, such as passwords and encryption keys, into Pods.

Before you begin

You need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using Minikube, or you can use one of these Kubernetes playgrounds:

Convert your secret data to a base-64 representation

Suppose you want to have two pieces of secret data: a username my-app and a password 39528$vdg7Jb. First, use Base64 encoding to convert your username and password to a base-64 representation. Here’s a Linux example:

echo -n 'my-app' | base64
echo -n '39528$vdg7Jb' | base64

The output shows that the base-64 representation of your username is bXktYXBw, and the base-64 representation of your password is Mzk1MjgkdmRnN0pi.

Create a Secret

Here is a configuration file you can use to create a Secret that holds your username and password:

secret.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: test-secret
data:
  username: bXktYXBwCg==
  password: Mzk1MjgkdmRnN0piCg==

  1. Create the Secret

     kubectl create -f secret.yaml

    Note: If you want to skip the Base64 encoding step, you can create a Secret by using the kubectl create secret command:

     kubectl create secret generic test-secret --from-literal=username='my-app' --from-literal=password='39528$vdg7Jb'

  2. View information about the Secret:

     kubectl get secret test-secret

    Output:

     NAME          TYPE      DATA      AGE
 test-secret   Opaque    2         1m

  3. View more detailed information about the Secret:

     kubectl describe secret test-secret

    Output:

     Name:       test-secret
 Namespace:  default
 Labels:     <none>
 Annotations:    <none>

 Type:   Opaque

 Data
 ====
 password:   13 bytes
 username:   7 bytes

Create a Pod that has access to the secret data through a Volume

Here is a configuration file you can use to create a Pod:

secret-pod.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: secret-test-pod
spec:
  containers:
    - name: test-container
      image: nginx
      volumeMounts:
          # name must match the volume name below
          - name: secret-volume
            mountPath: /etc/secret-volume
  # The secret data is exposed to Containers in the Pod through a Volume.
  volumes:
    - name: secret-volume
      secret:
        secretName: test-secret

  1. Create the Pod:

     kubectl create -f secret-pod.yaml

  2. Verify that your Pod is running:

     kubectl get pod secret-test-pod

    Output:

     NAME              READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
 secret-test-pod   1/1       Running   0          42m

  3. Get a shell into the Container that is running in your Pod:

     kubectl exec -it secret-test-pod -- /bin/bash

  4. The secret data is exposed to the Container through a Volume mounted under /etc/secret-volume. In your shell, go to the directory where the secret data is exposed:

     root@secret-test-pod:/# cd /etc/secret-volume

  5. In your shell, list the files in the /etc/secret-volume directory:

     root@secret-test-pod:/etc/secret-volume# ls

    The output shows two files, one for each piece of secret data:

     password username

  6. In your shell, display the contents of the username and password files:

     root@secret-test-pod:/etc/secret-volume# cat username; echo; cat password; echo

    The output is your username and password:

     my-app
 39528$vdg7Jb

Create a Pod that has access to the secret data through environment variables

Here is a configuration file you can use to create a Pod:

secret-envars-pod.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: secret-envars-test-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - name: envars-test-container
    image: nginx
    env:
    - name: SECRET_USERNAME
      valueFrom:
        secretKeyRef:
          name: test-secret
          key: username
    - name: SECRET_PASSWORD
      valueFrom:
        secretKeyRef:
          name: test-secret
          key: password

  1. Create the Pod:

     kubectl create -f secret-envars-pod.yaml

  2. Verify that your Pod is running:

     kubectl get pod secret-envars-test-pod

    Output:

     NAME                     READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
 secret-envars-test-pod   1/1       Running   0          4m

  3. Get a shell into the Container that is running in your Pod:

     kubectl exec -it secret-envars-test-pod -- /bin/bash

  4. In your shell, display the environment variables:

     root@secret-envars-test-pod:/# printenv

    The output includes your username and password:

     ...
 SECRET_USERNAME=my-app
 ...
 SECRET_PASSWORD=39528$vdg7Jb

What’s next

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