How-to: Integrate Vault-K8s with Traefik

Use Vault behind an Ingress

It is recommended to run Vault behind an ingress. In this guide we will list the necessary steps to achieve this using the Traefik-K8s operator.

Pre-requisites

  • Vault-K8s deployed on a Juju model

Steps

Deploy Traefik

juju deploy traefik-k8s --channel edge --trust

Deploy Self Signed Certificates Operator

juju deploy self-signed-certificates --channel beta

Integrate Traefik with Self-Signed-Certificates Operator

juju integrate self-signed-certificates:certificates traefik-k8s:certificates

Integrate Vault with Traefik

juju integrate vault-k8s:send-ca-cert traefik-k8s:receive-ca-cert
juju integrate vault-k8s:ingress traefik-k8s:ingress

Get the Vault URL

Run the show-proxied-endpoints action on Traefik.

juju run traefik-k8s/0 show-proxied-endpoints

# Sample Action Output
Running operation 1 with 1 task
  - task 2 on unit-traefik-k8s-0

Waiting for task 2...
proxied-endpoints: '{"vault-k8s": {"url": "https://10.0.0.5/vault-vault-k8s"}}'

You should now be able to access the Vault using the URL in the action output.

Retrieve the Juju secrets list:

user@ubuntu:~$ juju secrets --format=yaml
ck0i0h3q457c7bgte4kg:
  revision: 1
  owner: vault-k8s
  label: vault-ca-certificate
  created: 2023-09-13T02:36:57Z
  updated: 2023-09-13T02:36:57Z
ck0i0krq457c7bgte4l0:
  revision: 1
  owner: vault-k8s
  label: vault-initialization
  created: 2023-09-13T02:37:10Z
  updated: 2023-09-13T02:37:10Z
cks0s1c24l7c77v23p80:
  revision: 1
  expires: 2024-09-13T02:36:10Z
  owner: self-signed-certificates
  label: ca-certificates
  created: 2023-09-13T02:36:57Z
  updated: 2023-09-13T02:36:57Z

Read the vault-initialization secret content:

user@ubuntu:~$ juju show-secret ck0i0krq457c7bgte4l0 --reveal
ck0i0krq457c7bgte4l0:
  revision: 1
  owner: vault-k8s
  created: 2023-08-28T13:33:54Z
  updated: 2023-08-28T13:33:54Z
  content:
    roottoken: hvs.Z3CuzSQno3XMuUgUcm1CmjQK
    unsealkeys: '["11bd448ccfec24db29ed5c14fdfe3d169589f5c5c6b57870e31d738aec623856"]'

Set the vault token for use in the client:

export VAULT_TOKEN=hvs.Z3CuzSQno3XMuUgUcm1CmjQK

Read the Self Signed Certificates operator’s ca-certificates secret content:

user@ubuntu:~$ juju show-secret cks0s1c24l7c77v23p80 --reveal
cks0s1c24l7c77v23p80:
  revision: 1
  owner: self-signed-certificates
  label: ca-certificates
  created: 2023-09-13T02:36:57Z
  updated: 2023-09-13T02:36:57Z
  content:
    ca-certificate: |
      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      MIIDPTCCAiWgAwIBAgIUGLlWWWj9My3coKtn/EAgequ4rlswDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL
      BQAwLDELMAkGA1UEBhMCVVMxHTAbBgNVBAMMFFZhdWx0IHNlbGYgc2lnbmVkIENB
      MB4XDTIzMDkxMzAyMzY1MloXDTI0MDkxMjAyMzY1MlowLDELMAkGA1UEBhMCVVMx
      HTAbBgNVBAMMFFZhdWx0IHNlbGYgc2lnbmVkIENBMIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEF
      AAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEA3zg2cmScuUV+EFKh4gOE6xxeaur6QEvfb1vFKLjTYRst
      iBbM5/BZE6noYwOIeyir2LgLeoLNr1tCc9EYhDJRNdCYPWUXVDZR4vD7kfZG7CUH
      8yXiQ18Q/7tYnJ63Ic3tE2VLf36Rwj6Wr9b9YrZzeqm2zQDvKUelZzsNh/UOCqzi
      Nd6PEZUQq6d7ucTqbEeOxO3UISTZjyQzx6kPsh3w0AQ4cT2kEtxT6Pg7c3bnbzwd
      TN3MOt0pVyY+2Mb6+Ep6cbB6qrluuOLfXNMBarQersddrJmhGfxq72dxIJ70uE8P
      RiyHH9+HqIoFSk5/e5Cc+VUlKnoNNbocYKh90oVcpQIDAQABo1cwVTAfBgNVHQ4E
      GAQWBBQ1EOm+fKnVxnNF1FztMjlS8LNUPDAhBgNVHSMEGjAYgBYEFDUQ6b58qdXG
      c0XUXO0yOVLws1Q8MA8GA1UdEwEB/wQFMAMBAf8wDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQADggEB
      AHKZ3PM1Ipxz5rb2ktOZ5G+AShA6dcGnGIWRW/HrH3BgvBABhBKu++IhBu4Hrp/P
      3Xg6hqZklmr30ZKLO6NgyrTOgTv+/IhauIYOzOyEs68kEnkFHmYuV5GSpPZyE9f9
      XshdCENJSi4JdJuYTboWc/yCsAbmlAPhEjxNA7oHKkgoI/eA3uMK3y01LXk0xcOh
      uCFzIGyvfR323czAfD3/4ZyjE9FCiU/0P10re5mVFUiOnnZIc4zP9/9jTS3BYyXE
      lzhpYn0LdcL8ci8LxCv1OjcgCNeC6kRgzgUhbrUmVHAQmC2+c4tmUq/HQnXA0LWI
      cgSs46l4xpaiLnDeBytVdWo=
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    privatekey: |
    [...]

Copy the CA certificate content into a file and set the VAULT_CAPATH environment variable to reference this file:

export VAULT_CAPATH=/path/to/vault_ca.pem

Identify the vault address by setting the VAULT_ADDR environment variable using the Vault URL which is retrieved through show-proxied-endpoints action. In our example, the vault address is “https://10.0.0.5/vault-vault-k8s”:

export VAULT_ADDR="https://10.0.0.5/vault-vault-k8s"

You can now run vault commands against the vault unit.

vault status
vault operator raft list-peers