User configurable password generation for secret engines

9min
|
Vault
Interactive

Challenge

Vault's secret engines generate passwords that adhere to a default pattern that may not meet the standards required by your applications or within your organization. You may require passwords with:

Lengths that are smaller or exceed the default length
Differing character sets
Frequency of characters
Positional requirements for characters
Disallowed repetition
Disallowed words from a dictionary

Solution

Vault 1.5 introduced support for configurable password generation defined by a password policy. A policy defines the rules and requirements that the password must adhere and can provide that password directly through a new endpoint or within secrets engines.

Secrets engines with support for password policies:

Prerequisites

This lab was tested on macOS using an x86_64 based processor. If you are running macOS on an Apple silicon-based processor, click the Start interactive lab button or perform the steps using a x86_64 based Linux virtual machine in your preferred cloud provider.

Vault version 1.5 or later; refer to the Vault install guide to install Vault.
RabbitMQ environment or Docker.
ngrok installed and configured with auth token (HCP Vault Dedicated only)

Launch Terminal

This tutorial includes a free interactive command-line lab that lets you follow along on actual cloud infrastructure.

Lab setup

Start RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ is a message-broker that has a secrets engine that enables Vault to generate user credentials.

In a new terminal, start a RabbitMQ server running on port 15672 that has a user named learn_vault with the password hashicorp.

$ docker run --rm --name some-rabbit -p 15672:15672 \    -e RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER=learn_vault \    -e RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS=hashicorp \    rabbitmq:3-management

Docker downloads the necessary images and launches a RabbitMQ database container. RabbitMQ is ready for Vault to generate credentials.

Start Vault

A Vault server is able to generate passwords that meet the requirements of a configurable password policy. These password policies may also be applied to supported secrets engines.

In another terminal, start a Vault dev server with root as the root token.
```
$ vault server -dev -dev-root-token-id root
```
Insecure operation
Do not run a Vault dev server in production. This approach is only used here to simplify the unsealing process for this demonstration.
Export an environment variable for the vault CLI to address the Vault server.
```
$ export VAULT_ADDR=http://127.0.0.1:8200
```

$ vault login rootSuccess! 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                roottoken_accessor       n9CYvD0GK3iV6nwAOZQAy9Mdtoken_duration       ∞token_renewable      falsetoken_policies       ["root"]identity_policies    []policies             ["root"]

The Vault server is ready to explore password policies.

Set an environment variable for the RabbitMQ address.
```
$ export RABBITMQ_URL=http://127.0.0.1:15672
```

You are ready to proceed with the lab.

Note

If you do not have access to an HCP Vault Dedicated cluster, visit the Create a Vault Cluster on HCP tutorial.

Launch the HCP Portal and login.
Click Vault in the left navigation pane.
In the Vault clusters pane, click vault-cluster.
Under Cluster URLs, click Public Cluster URL.
In a terminal, set the VAULT_ADDR environment variable to the copied address.
```
$ export VAULT_ADDR=<Public_Cluster_URL>
```
Return to the Overview page and click Generate token.
Within a few moments, a new token will be generated.
Copy the Admin Token.
Return to the terminal and set the VAULT_TOKEN environment variable.
```
$ export VAULT_TOKEN=<token>
```
Set the VAULT_NAMESPACE environment variable to admin.
```
$ export VAULT_NAMESPACE=admin
```
The admin namespace is the top-level namespace automatically created by HCP Vault. All CLI operations default to use the namespace defined in this environment variable.

Type vault status to verify your connectivity to the Vault cluster.

$ vault status Key                      Value---                      -----Recovery Seal Type       shamirInitialized              trueSealed                   falseTotal Recovery Shares    1Threshold                1Version                  1.9.2+entStorage Type             raft...snipped...

The Vault Dedicated server is ready.

For Vault Dedicated to interact with resources running on your local machine, a tunnel needs to be established.

In another terminal, start ngrok and connect to RabbitMQ.

$ ngrok http 127.0.0.1:15672

Example output:

ngrok                                                                                                                                                              (Ctrl+C to quit)Session Status                onlineAccount                       username (Plan: Free)Update                        update available (version 3.0.5, Ctrl-U to update)Version                       3.0.3Region                        United States (us)Latency                       32.791235msWeb Interface                 http://127.0.0.1:4040Forwarding                    https://d12b-34-567-89-10.ngrok.io -> http://127.0.0.1:15672Connections                   ttl     opn     rt1     rt5     p50     p90                              0       0       0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00

Copy the ngrok forwarding address.
Return to the terminal where you set the VAULT_ADDR environment variable and set an environment variable for the ngrok address.
```
$ export RABBITMQ_URL=<actual-address-from-ngrok>
```

You are ready to proceed with the lab.

Setup RabbitMQ secrets engine with the default password policy

The RabbitMQ secrets engine generates passwords that adhere to a default password policy.

Enable the RabbitMQ secrets engine at the rabbitmq-default-policy path.
```
$ vault secrets enable -path rabbitmq-default-policy rabbitmqSuccess! Enabled the rabbitmq secrets engine at: rabbitmq-default-policy/
```
The secrets engine requires configuration so it can communicate with the RabbitMQ server.
Configure the secrets engine to connect to the RabbitMQ server.
```
$ vault write rabbitmq-default-policy/config/connection \    connection_uri=$RABBITMQ_URL \    username="learn_vault" \    password="hashicorp"
```
Output:
```
Success! Data written to: rabbitmq-default-policy/config/connection
```
The secrets engine is configured to talk to the RabbitMQ server running locally over the HTTP management interface. The user, learn_vault, with its password hashicorp, is an administrator that was generated when RabbitMQ started.
Create a role named example.
```
$ vault write rabbitmq-default-policy/roles/example \    vhosts='{"/":{"read": ".*", "write": ".*"}}'
```
Output:
```
Success! Data written to: rabbitmq-default-policy/roles/example
```
The example role defines an endpoint for dynamic credential generation. The credentials generated are granted read and write every entity.

Generate credentials from the example role.

$ vault read rabbitmq-default-policy/creds/example

Example output:

Key                Value---                -----lease_id           rabbitmq-default-policy/creds/example/4yCYMMCZ4I4mKBlPsbNNsKdjlease_duration     768hlease_renewable    truepassword           v0E6LjTeabrtEAz72cbYINNodWSApPS61vGPusername           root-2b3482f7-b522-9997-ab0c-1f3057a396d3

The credentials display the username and password generated. The password generated, v0E6LjTeabrtEAz72cbYINNodWSApPS61vGP, adheres to the default password policy for the secrets engine.

Define a password policy

Create a policy file named example_policy.hcl.
```
$ tee example_policy.hcl <<EOFlength=20 rule "charset" {  charset = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"  min-chars = 1} rule "charset" {  charset = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"  min-chars = 1} rule "charset" {  charset = "0123456789"  min-chars = 1} rule "charset" {  charset = "!@#$%^&*"  min-chars = 1}EOF
```
The policy is written in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL). The length field sets the length of the password returned to 20 characters. Each rule stanza defines a character set and the minimum number of occurrences those characters need to appear in the generated password. These rules are cumulative so each one adds more requirements on the password generated.
Create a Vault password policy named example with the password policy rules defined in example_policy.hcl.
```
$ vault write sys/policies/password/example policy=@example_policy.hclSuccess! Data written to sys/polices/password/example_policy
```
This policy can now be accessed directly to generate a password or referenced by its name example when configuring supported secrets engines.
Generate a password from the example password policy.
```
$ vault read sys/policies/password/example/generate Key         Value---         -----password    #v!RQDHxHunJ1TUmCyys
```
The password generated adheres to the requirements:
- length of 20 characters
- at least 1 uppercase character
- at least 1 lowercase character
- at least 1 number
- at least 1 symbol

Setup RabbitMQ secrets engine with a password policy

The RabbitMQ secrets engine may be configured to adopt a password policy.

Enable the RabbitMQ secrets engine at the rabbitmq-with-policy path.
```
$ vault secrets enable -path rabbitmq-with-policy rabbitmqSuccess! Enabled the rabbitmq secrets engine at: rabbitmq-with-policy/
```
The secrets engine requires configuration so it can communicate with the RabbitMQ server.
Configure the secrets engine to connect to the RabbitMQ server and use the example password policy.
```
$ vault write rabbitmq-with-policy/config/connection \    connection_uri=$RABBITMQ_URL \    username="learn_vault" \    password="hashicorp" \    password_policy="example"
```
Output:
```
Success! Data written to: rabbitmq-with-policy/config/connection
```
The same connection information is used to establish the connection with the RabbitMQ server. The difference is that the password_policy has been set to the example policy defined in Define a password policy section.
Create a role named example.
```
$ vault write rabbitmq-with-policy/roles/example \    vhosts='{"/":{"read": ".*", "write": ".*"}}'
```
Output:
```
Success! Data written to: rabbitmq-with-policy/roles/example
```
The example role defines an endpoint for dynamic credential generation. The credentials generated are granted read and write on every entity.

Generate a login from the example role.

$ vault read rabbitmq-with-policy/creds/example

Example output:

Key                Value---                -----lease_id           rabbitmq-with-policy/creds/example/vfoht23KclCzOuKzlRYeMZZSlease_duration     768hlease_renewable    truepassword           HtjHFtdy21*iBpNZjLNbusername           root-4efd295b-1a4e-285c-14c8-06b135c5464a

The credentials display the username and password generated. The password generated, HtjHFtdy21*iBpNZjLNb, adheres to the example password policy defined in the secrets engine's configuration.

Next steps

You configured a RabbitMQ secrets engine that generated credentials with the default password policy. Learn more about the RabbitMQ secrets engine by reading the documentation and the API documentation.

Then you defined a password policy and generated a password. Learn more about by reading the documentation and the API documentation.

Finally, you configured another RabbitMQ secrets engine that generated credentials that used a custom password policy.

Joint controller authorization

Next Collection

Certificate management