open-vault/website/source/docs/agent/index.html.md

layout	page_title	sidebar_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	Vault Agent	Vault Agent	docs-agent	Vault Agent is a client-side daemon that can be used to perform some Vault functionality automatically.

Vault Agent

Vault Agent is a client daemon that provides the following features:

• Auto-Auth - Automatically authenticate to Vault and manage the token renewal process for locally-retrieved dynamic secrets.
• Caching - Allows client-side caching of responses containing newly created tokens and responses containing leased secrets generated off of these newly created tokens.

To get help, run:

$ vault agent -h

Auto-Auth

Vault Agent allows for easy authentication to Vault in a wide variety of environments. Please see the Auto-Auth docs for information.

Auto-Auth functionality takes place within an auto_auth configuration stanza.

Caching

Vault Agent allows client-side caching of responses containing newly created tokens and responses containing leased secrets generated off of these newly created tokens. Please see the Caching docs for information.

Configuration

These are the currently-available general configuration option:

• vault (vault: <optional>) - Specifies the remote Vault server the Agent connects to.

• auto-auth (auto-auth: <optional>) - Specifies the method and other options used for Auto-Auth functionality.

• caching (caching: <optional>) - Specifies the listener address and other options used for Caching functionality.

• pid_file (string: "") - Path to the file in which the agent's Process ID (PID) should be stored

• exit_after_auth (bool: false) - If set to true, the agent will exit with code 0 after a single successful auth, where success means that a token was retrieved and all sinks successfully wrote it

vault Stanza

There can at most be one top level vault block and it has the following configuration entries:

• address (string: optional) - The address of the Vault server. This should be a complete URL such as https://127.0.0.1:8200. This value can be overridden by setting the VAULT_ADDR environment variable.

• ca_cert (string: optional) - Path on the local disk to a single PEM-encoded CA certificate to verify the Vault server's SSL certificate. This value can be overridden by setting the VAULT_CACERT environment variable.

• ca_path (string: optional) - Path on the local disk to a directory of PEM-encoded CA certificates to verify the Vault server's SSL certificate. This value can be overridden by setting the VAULT_CAPATH environment variable.

• client_cert (string: option) - Path on the local disk to a single PEM-encoded CA certificate to use for TLS authentication to the Vault server. This value can be overridden by setting the VAULT_CLIENT_CERT environment variable.

• client_key (string: option) - Path on the local disk to a single PEM-encoded private key matching the client certificate from client_cert. This value can be overridden by setting the VAULT_CLIENT_KEY environment variable.

• tls_skip_verify (string: optional) - Disable verification of TLS certificates. Using this option is highly discouraged as it decreases the security of data transmissions to and from the Vault server. This value can be overridden by setting the VAULT_SKIP_VERIFY environment variable.

Example Configuration

An example configuration, with very contrived values, follows:

pid_file = "./pidfile"

vault {
        address = "https://127.0.0.1:8200"
}

auto_auth {
        method "aws" {
                mount_path = "auth/aws-subaccount"
                config = {
                        type = "iam"
                        role = "foobar"
                }
        }

        sink "file" {
                config = {
                        path = "/tmp/file-foo"
                }
        }

        sink "file" {
                wrap_ttl = "5m" 
                aad_env_var = "TEST_AAD_ENV"
                dh_type = "curve25519"
                dh_path = "/tmp/file-foo-dhpath2"
                config = {
                        path = "/tmp/file-bar"
                }
        }
}

cache {
        use_auto_auth_token = true

        listener "unix" {
                address = "/path/to/socket"
                tls_disable = true
        }

        listener "tcp" {
                address = "127.0.0.1:8100"
                tls_disable = true
        }
}