111 lines
5.9 KiB
Markdown
111 lines
5.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: "guides"
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page_title: "Production Hardening - Guides"
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sidebar_current: "guides-production-hardening"
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description: |-
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This guide provides guidance on best practices for a production hardened deployment of HashiCorp Vault.
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---
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# Production Hardening
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This guide provides guidance on best practices for a production hardened
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deployment of Vault. The recommendations are based on the [security
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model](/docs/internals/security.html) and focus on defense in depth.
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~> **Apply When Possible!** This guide is meant to provide guidance for an
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_ideal_ deployment of Vault, not to document requirements. It is entirely
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possible to use Vault without applying any of the following recommendations.
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These are best practice recommendations that should be applied when possible
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and practical.
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# Recommendations
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* **End-to-End TLS**. Vault should always be used with TLS in production. If
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intermediate load balancers or reverse proxies are used to front Vault, they
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should _not_ terminate TLS. This way traffic is always encrypted in transit
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to Vault and minimizes risks introduced by intermediate layers.
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* **Single Tenancy**. Vault should be the only main process running on a
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machine. This reduces the risk that another process running on the same
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machine is compromised and can interact with Vault. Similarly, running on
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bare metal should be preferred to a VM, and a VM preferred to a container.
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This reduces the surface area introduced by additional layers of abstraction
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and other tenants of the hardware. Both VM and container based deployments
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work, but should be avoided when possible to minimize risk.
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* **Firewall traffic**. Vault listens on well known ports, use a local firewall
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to restrict all incoming and outgoing traffic to Vault and essential system
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services like NTP. This includes restricting incoming traffic to permitted
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subnets and outgoing traffic to services Vault needs to connect to, such as
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databases.
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* **Disable SSH / Remote Desktop**. When running a Vault as a single tenant
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application, users should never access the machine directly. Instead, they
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should access Vault through its API over the network. Use a centralized
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logging and telemetry solution for debugging. Be sure to restrict access to
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logs as need to know.
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* **Disable Swap**. Vault encrypts data in transit and at rest, however it must
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still have sensitive data in memory to function. Risk of exposure should be
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minimized by disabling swap to prevent the operating system from paging
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sensitive data to disk. Vault attempts to ["memory lock" to physical memory
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automatically](/docs/configuration/index.html#disable_mlock), but disabling
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swap adds another layer of defense.
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* **Don't Run as Root**. Vault is designed to run as an unprivileged user, and
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there is no reason to run Vault with root or Administrator privileges, which
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can expose the Vault process memory and allow access to Vault encryption
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keys. Running Vault as a regular user reduces its privilege. Configuration
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files for Vault should have permissions set to restrict access to only the
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Vault user.
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* **Turn Off Core Dumps**. A user or administrator that can force a core dump
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and has access to the resulting file can potentially access Vault encryption
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keys. Preventing core dumps is a platform-specific process; on Linux setting
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the resource limit `RLIMIT_CORE` to `0` disables core dumps. This can be
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performed by process managers and is also exposed by various shells; in Bash
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`ulimit -c 0` will accomplish this.
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* **Immutable Upgrades**. Vault relies on an external storage backend for
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persistence, and this decoupling allows the servers running Vault to be
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managed immutably. When upgrading to new versions, new servers with the
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upgraded version of Vault are brought online. They are attached to the same
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shared storage backend and unsealed. Then the old servers are destroyed. This
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reduces the need for remote access and upgrade orchestration which may
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introduce security gaps.
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* **Avoid Root Tokens**. Vault provides a root token when it is first
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initialized. This token should be used to setup the system initially,
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particularly setting up authentication backends so that users may
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authenticate. We recommend treating Vault [configuration as
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code](https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/codifying-vault-policies-and-configuration/),
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and using version control to manage policies. Once setup, the root token
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should be revoked to eliminate the risk of exposure. Root tokens can be
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[generated when needed](/guides/generate-root.html), and should be
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revoked as soon as possible.
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* **Enable Auditing**. Vault supports several auditing backends. Enabling
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auditing provides a history of all operations performed by Vault and provides
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a forensics trail in the case of misuse or compromise. Audit logs [securely
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hash](/docs/audit/index.html) any sensitive data, but access should still be
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restricted to prevent any unintended disclosures.
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* **Upgrade Frequently**. Vault is actively developed, and updating frequently
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is important to incorporate security fixes and any changes in default
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settings such as key lengths or cipher suites. Subscribe to the [Vault
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mailing list](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/vault-tool) and [GitHub
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CHANGELOG](https://github.com/hashicorp/vault/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md) for
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updates.
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* **Configure SELinux / AppArmor**. Using additional mechanisms like SELinux
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and AppArmor can help provide additional layers of security when using Vault.
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While Vault can run on many operating systems, we recommend Linux due to the
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various security primitives mentioned here.
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* **Restrict Storage Access**. Vault encrypts all data at rest, regardless of
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which storage backend is used. Although the data is encrypted, an [attacker
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with arbitrary control](/docs/internals/security.html) can cause data
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corruption or loss by modifying or deleting keys. Access to the storage
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backend should be restricted to only Vault to avoid unauthorized access or
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operations.
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