AWS Secrets Manager

Configuration

AWS Secrets Manager can be configured in multiple ways. The current version of Kong Gateway implementation only supports configuring via environment variables.

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<access_key_id>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<secrets_access_key>
export AWS_REGION=<aws-region>

Region used by default with references, can also be specified with:

export KONG_VAULT_AWS_REGION=<aws-region>

Examples

For example, let’s use an AWS Secrets Manager Secret with the name my-secret-name.

In this object, you have multiple key=value pairs.

{
  "foo": "bar",
  "snip": "snap",
}

Access these secrets from my-secret-name like this:

{vault://aws/my-secret-name/foo}
{vault://aws/my-secret-name/snip}

Entity

The Vault entity can only be used once the database is initialized. Secrets for values that are used before the database is initialized can’t make use of the Vaults entity.

curl -i -X PUT http://HOSTNAME:8001/vaults/my-aws-sm-vault  \
  --data name=aws \
  --data description="Storing secrets in AWS Secrets Manager" \
  --data config.region="us-east-1"

http -f PUT :8001/vaults/my-aws-sm-vault name="aws" \
  description="Storing secrets in AWS Secrets Manager" \
  config.region="us-east-1"

Result:

{
    "config": {
        "region": "us-east-1"
    },
    "created_at": 1644942689,
    "description": "Storing secrets in AWS Secrets Manager",
    "id": "2911e119-ee1f-42af-a114-67061c3831e5",
    "name": "aws",
    "prefix": "my-aws-sm-vault",
    "tags": null,
    "updated_at": 1644942689
}

With the Vault entity in place, you can now reference the secrets. This allows you to drop the AWS_REGION environment variable.

{vault://my-aws-sm-vault/my-secret-name/foo}
{vault://my-aws-sm-vault/my-secret-name/snip}

Advanced Examples

You can create multiple entities, which lets you have secrets in different regions:

curl -X PUT http://HOSTNAME:8001/vaults/aws-eu-central-vault -d name=aws -d config.region="eu-central-1"
curl -X PUT http://HOSTNAME:8001/vaults/aws-us-west-vault -d name=aws -d config.region="us-west-1"

This lets you source secrets from different regions:

{vault://aws-eu-central-vault/my-secret-name/foo}
{vault://aws-us-west-vault/my-secret-name/snip}