open-vault/website/source/docs/secrets/aws/index.html.md

layout	page_title	sidebar_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	AWS - Secrets Engines	AWS	docs-secrets-aws	The AWS secrets engine for Vault generates access keys dynamically based on IAM policies.

AWS Secrets Engine

The AWS secrets engine generates AWS access credentials dynamically based on IAM policies. This generally makes working with AWS IAM easier, since it does not involve clicking in the web UI. Additionally, the process is codified and mapped to internal auth methods (such as LDAP). The AWS IAM credentials are time-based and are automatically revoked when the Vault lease expires.

Vault supports three different types of credentials to retrieve from AWS:

1. iam_user: Vault will create an IAM user for each lease, attach the managed and inline IAM policies as specified in the role to the user, and then return the access key and secret key to the caller. IAM users have no session tokens and so no session token will be returned.
2. assumed_role: Vault will call sts:AssumeRole and return the access key, secret key, and session token to the caller.
3. federation_token: Vault will call sts:GetFederationToken passing in the supplied AWS policy document and return the access key, secret key, and session token to the caller.

Setup

Most secrets engines must be configured in advance before they can perform their functions. These steps are usually completed by an operator or configuration management tool.

1. Enable the AWS secrets engine:

   $ vault secrets enable aws
   Success! Enabled the aws secrets engine at: aws/
   

   By default, the secrets engine will mount at the name of the engine. To enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the -path argument.

2. Configure the credentials that Vault uses to communicate with AWS to generate the IAM credentials:

   $ vault write aws/config/root \
       access_key=AKIAJWVN5Z4FOFT7NLNA \
       secret_key=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 \
       region=us-east-1
   

   Internally, Vault will connect to AWS using these credentials. As such, these credentials must be a superset of any policies which might be granted on IAM credentials. Since Vault uses the official AWS SDK, it will use the specified credentials. You can also specify the credentials via the standard AWS environment credentials, shared file credentials, or IAM role/ECS task credentials. (Note that you can't authorize vault with IAM role credentials if you plan on using STS Federation Tokens, since the temporary security credentials associated with the role are not authorized to use GetFederationToken.)

   ~> Notice: Even though the path above is aws/config/root, do not use your AWS root account credentials. Instead generate a dedicated user or role.

3. Configure a Vault role that maps to a set of permissions in AWS as well as an AWS credential type. When users generate credentials, they are generated against this role. An example:

   $ vault write aws/roles/my-role \
       credential_type=iam_user \
       policy_document=-<<EOF
   {
     "Version": "2012-10-17",
     "Statement": [
       {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": "ec2:*",
         "Resource": "*"
       }
     ]
   }
   EOF
   

   This creates a role named "my-role". When users generate credentials against this role, Vault will create an IAM user and attach the specified policy document to the IAM user. Vault will then create an access key and secret key for the IAM user and return these credentials. You supply a user inline policy and/or provide references to an existing AWS policy's full ARN:

   $ vault write aws/roles/my-other-role \
       policy_arns=arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess,arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/IAMReadOnlyAccess
       credential_type=iam_user \
       policy_document=-<<EOF
           {
             "Version": "2012-10-17",
             "Statement": [
               {
                 "Effect": "Allow",
                 "Action": "ec2:*",
                 "Resource": "*"
               }
             ]
           }
   
   

   For more information on IAM policies, please see the AWS IAM policy documentation.

Usage

After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has a Vault token with the proper permission, it can generate credentials.

1. Generate a new credential by reading from the /creds endpoint with the name of the role:

   $ vault read aws/creds/my-role
   Key                Value
   ---                -----
   lease_id           aws/creds/my-role/f3e92392-7d9c-09c8-c921-575d62fe80d8
   lease_duration     768h
   lease_renewable    true
   access_key         AKIAIOWQXTLW36DV7IEA
   secret_key         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
   security_token     <nil>
   

   Each invocation of the command will generate a new credential.

   Unfortunately, IAM credentials are eventually consistent with respect to other Amazon services. If you are planning on using these credential in a pipeline, you may need to add a delay of 5-10 seconds (or more) after fetching credentials before they can be used successfully.

   If you want to be able to use credentials without the wait, consider using the STS method of fetching keys. IAM credentials supported by an STS token are available for use as soon as they are generated.

Example IAM Policy for Vault

The aws/config/root credentials need permission to manage dynamic IAM users. Here is an example AWS IAM policy that grants the most commonly required permissions Vault needs:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:AttachUserPolicy",
        "iam:CreateAccessKey",
        "iam:CreateUser",
        "iam:DeleteAccessKey",
        "iam:DeleteUser",
        "iam:DeleteUserPolicy",
        "iam:DetachUserPolicy",
        "iam:ListAccessKeys",
        "iam:ListAttachedUserPolicies",
        "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
        "iam:ListUserPolicies",
        "iam:PutUserPolicy",
        "iam:RemoveUserFromGroup"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT-ID-WITHOUT-HYPHENS:user/vault-*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

STS credentials

The above demonstrated usage with iam_user credential types. As mentioned, Vault also supports assumed_role and federation_token credential types.

STS Federation Tokens

~> Notice: Due to limitations in AWS, in order to use the federation_token credential type, Vault must be configured with IAM user credentials. AWS does not allow temporary credentials (such as those from an IAM instance profile) to be used.

An STS federation token inherits a set of permissions that are the combination (intersection) of three sets of permissions:

1. The permissions granted to the aws/config/root credentials
2. The user inline policy configured for the aws/role
3. An implicit deny policy on IAM or STS operations.

Roles with a credential_type of federation_token can only specify a policy_document in the Vault role. AWS does not support support managed policies.

The aws/config/root credentials require IAM permissions for sts:GetFederationToken and the permissions to delegate to the STS federation token. For example, this policy on the aws/config/root credentials would allow creation of an STS federated token with delegated ec2:* permissions (or any subset of ec2:* permissions):

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
      "ec2:*",
      "sts:GetFederationToken"
    ],
    "Resource": "*"
  }
}

An ec2_admin role would then assign an inline policy with the same ec2:* permissions.

$ vault write aws/roles/ec2_admin \
    credential_type=federation_token \
    policy_document=@policy.json

The policy.json file would contain an inline policy with similar permissions, less the sts:GetFederationToken permission. (We could grant sts:GetFederationToken permissions, but STS attaches attach an implicit deny that overrides the allow.)

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "ec2:*",
    "Resource": "*"
  }
}

To generate a new set of STS federation token credentials, we simply write to the role using the aws/sts endpoint:

$ vault write aws/sts/ec2_admin ttl=60m
Key            	Value
lease_id       	aws/sts/ec2_admin/31d771a6-fb39-f46b-fdc5-945109106422
lease_duration 	60m0s
lease_renewable	true
access_key     	ASIAJYYYY2AA5K4WIXXX
secret_key     	HSs0DYYYYYY9W81DXtI0K7X84H+OVZXK5BXXXX
security_token 	AQoDYXdzEEwasAKwQyZUtZaCjVNDiXXXXXXXXgUgBBVUUbSyujLjsw6jYzboOQ89vUVIehUw/9MreAifXFmfdbjTr3g6zc0me9M+dB95DyhetFItX5QThw0lEsVQWSiIeIotGmg7mjT1//e7CJc4LpxbW707loFX1TYD1ilNnblEsIBKGlRNXZ+QJdguY4VkzXxv2urxIH0Sl14xtqsRPboV7eYruSEZlAuP3FLmqFbmA0AFPCT37cLf/vUHinSbvw49C4c9WQLH7CeFPhDub7/rub/QU/lCjjJ43IqIRo9jYgcEvvdRkQSt70zO8moGCc7pFvmL7XGhISegQpEzudErTE/PdhjlGpAKGR3d5qKrHpPYK/k480wk1Ai/t1dTa/8/3jUYTUeIkaJpNBnupQt7qoaXXXXXXXXXX

STS AssumeRole

The assumed_role credential type is typically used for cross-account authentication or single sign-on (SSO) scenarios. In order to use an assumed_role credential type, you must configure outside of Vault:

1. An IAM role
2. IAM inline policies and/or managed policies attached to the IAM role
3. IAM trust policy attached to the IAM role to grant privileges for Vault to assume the role

assumed_role credentials offer a few benefits over federation_token:

1. Assumed roles can invoke IAM and STS operations, if granted by the role's IAM policies.
2. Assumed roles support cross-account authentication
3. Temporary credentials (such as those granted by running Vault on an EC2 instance in an IAM instance profile) can retrieve assumed_role credentials (but cannot retrieve federation_token credentials).

The aws/config/root credentials must have an IAM policy that allows sts:AssumeRole against the target role:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT-ID-WITHOUT-HYPHENS:role/RoleNameToAssume"
  }
}

You must attach a trust policy to the target IAM role to assume, allowing the aws/root/config credentials to assume the role.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT-ID-WITHOUT-HYPHENS:user/VAULT-AWS-ROOT-CONFIG-USER-NAME"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
    }
  ]
}

When specifying a Vault role with a credential_type of assumed_role, you can specify more than one IAM role ARN. If you do so, Vault clients can select which role ARN they would like to assume when retrieving credentials from that role. You can further specify a policy_document which, if specified, acts as a filter on the IAM permissions granted to the assumed role. For an action to be allowed, it must be permitted by both the IAM policy on the AWS role that is assumed as well as the policy_document specified on the Vault role. (The policy_document parameter is passed in as the Policy parameter to the sts:AssumeRole API call.)

Note: When multiple role_arns are specified, clients requesting credentials can specify any of the role ARNs that are defined on the Vault role in order to retrieve credentials. However, when a policy_document is specified, that will apply to ALL role credentials retrieved from AWS.

Let's create a "deploy" policy using the arn of our role to assume:

$ vault write aws/roles/deploy \
    role_arns=arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT-ID-WITHOUT-HYPHENS:role/RoleNameToAssume \
    credential_type=assumed_role

To generate a new set of STS assumed role credentials, we again write to the role using the aws/sts endpoint:

$ vault write aws/sts/deploy ttl=60m
Key            	Value
lease_id       	aws/sts/deploy/31d771a6-fb39-f46b-fdc5-945109106422
lease_duration 	60m0s
lease_renewable	true
access_key     	ASIAJYYYY2AA5K4WIXXX
secret_key     	HSs0DYYYYYY9W81DXtI0K7X84H+OVZXK5BXXXX
security_token 	AQoDYXdzEEwasAKwQyZUtZaCjVNDiXXXXXXXXgUgBBVUUbSyujLjsw6jYzboOQ89vUVIehUw/9MreAifXFmfdbjTr3g6zc0me9M+dB95DyhetFItX5QThw0lEsVQWSiIeIotGmg7mjT1//e7CJc4LpxbW707loFX1TYD1ilNnblEsIBKGlRNXZ+QJdguY4VkzXxv2urxIH0Sl14xtqsRPboV7eYruSEZlAuP3FLmqFbmA0AFPCT37cLf/vUHinSbvw49C4c9WQLH7CeFPhDub7/rub/QU/lCjjJ43IqIRo9jYgcEvvdRkQSt70zO8moGCc7pFvmL7XGhISegQpEzudErTE/PdhjlGpAKGR3d5qKrHpPYK/k480wk1Ai/t1dTa/8/3jUYTUeIkaJpNBnupQt7qoaXXXXXXXXXX

Troubleshooting

Dynamic IAM user errors

If you get an error message similar to either of the following, the root credentials that you wrote to aws/config/root have insufficient privilege:

$ vault read aws/creds/deploy
* Error creating IAM user: User: arn:aws:iam::000000000000:user/hashicorp is not authorized to perform: iam:CreateUser on resource: arn:aws:iam::000000000000:user/vault-root-1432735386-4059

$ vault revoke aws/creds/deploy/774cfb27-c22d-6e78-0077-254879d1af3c
Revoke error: Error making API request.

URL: PUT http://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/sys/revoke/aws/creds/deploy/774cfb27-c22d-6e78-0077-254879d1af3c
Code: 400. Errors:

* invalid request

If you get stuck at any time, simply run vault path-help aws or with a subpath for interactive help output.

STS federated token errors

Vault generates STS tokens using the IAM credentials passed to aws/config.

Those credentials must have two properties:

• They must have permissions to call sts:GetFederationToken.
• The capabilities of those credentials have to be at least as permissive as those requested by policies attached to the STS creds.

If either of those conditions are not met, a "403 not-authorized" error will be returned.

See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/STS/latest/APIReference/API_GetFederationToken.html for more details.

Vault 0.5.1 or later is recommended when using STS tokens to avoid validation errors for exceeding the AWS limit of 32 characters on STS token names.

API

The AWS secrets engine has a full HTTP API. Please see the AWS secrets engine API for more details.