OpenBao agent injector examples

The following are different configuration examples to support a variety of deployment models.

warning

A common mistake is to set the annotation on the Deployment or other resource. Ensure that the injector annotations are specified on the pod specification when using higher level constructs such as deployments, jobs or statefulsets.

Before using the OpenBao agent injector

Before applying OpenBao Agent injection annotations to pods, the following requirements should be satisfied.

Connectivity

the Kubernetes API can connect to the OpenBao Agent injector service on port 443, and the injector can connect to the Kubernetes API,
OpenBao can connect to the Kubernetes API,
Pods in the Kubernetes cluster can connect to OpenBao.

warning

Note: The Kubernetes API typically runs on the master nodes, and the OpenBao Agent injector on a worker node in a Kubernetes cluster.

On Kubernetes clusters that have aggregator routing enabled (ex. GKE private clusters), the Kubernetes API will connect directly to the injector service endpoint, which is on port 8080.

Kubernetes and OpenBao configuration

Kubernetes auth method should be configured and enabled in OpenBao,
Pod should have a service account,
desired secrets exist within OpenBao,
the service account should be bound to a OpenBao role with a policy enabling access to desired secrets.

For more information on configuring the OpenBao Kubernetes auth method, see the official documentation.

Debugging

If an error occurs with a mutation request, Kubernetes will attach the error to the owner of the pod. Check the following for errors:

If the pod was created by a deployment or statefulset, check for errors in the replicaset that owns the pod.
If the pod was created by a job, check the job for errors.

Patching existing pods

To patch existing pods, a Kubernetes patch can be applied to add the required annotations to pods. When applying a patch, the pods will be rescheduled.

First, create the patch:

cat <<EOF >> ./patch.yaml
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject: "true"
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-status: "update"
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-secret-db-creds: "database/creds/db-app"
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-template-db-creds: |
          {{- with secret "database/creds/db-app" -}}
          postgres://{{ .Data.username }}:{{ .Data.password }}@postgres:5432/appdb?sslmode=disable
          {{- end }}
        openbao.openbao.com/role: "db-app"
        openbao.openbao.com/ca-cert: "/openbao/tls/ca.crt"
        openbao.openbao.com/client-cert: "/openbao/tls/client.crt"
        openbao.openbao.com/client-key: "/openbao/tls/client.key"
        openbao.openbao.com/tls-secret: "openbao-tls-client"
EOF

Next, apply the patch:

kubectl patch deployment <MY DEPLOYMENT> --patch "$(cat patch.yaml)"

The pod should now be rescheduled with additional containers. The pod can be inspected using the kubectl describe command:

kubectl describe pod <name of pod>

Deployments, StatefulSets, etc.

The annotations for configuring OpenBao Agent injection must be on the pod specification. Since higher level resources such as Deployments wrap pod specification templates, OpenBao Agent Injector can be used with all of these higher level constructs, too.

An example Deployment below shows how to enable OpenBao Agent injection:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: app-example
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: app-example-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: app-example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: app-example
      annotations:
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject: 'true'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-secret-db-creds: 'database/creds/db-app'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-template-db-creds: |
          {{- with secret "database/creds/db-app" -}}
          postgres://{{ .Data.username }}:{{ .Data.password }}@postgres:5432/appdb?sslmode=disable
          {{- end }}
        openbao.openbao.com/role: 'db-app'
        openbao.openbao.com/ca-cert: '/openbao/tls/ca.crt'
        openbao.openbao.com/client-cert: '/openbao/tls/client.crt'
        openbao.openbao.com/client-key: '/openbao/tls/client.key'
        openbao.openbao.com/tls-secret: 'openbao-tls-client'
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: 'app:1.0.0'
      serviceAccountName: app-example

ConfigMap example

The following example creates a deployment that mounts a Kubernetes ConfigMap containing OpenBao Agent configuration files. For a complete list of the OpenBao Agent configuration settings, see the Agent documentation.

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: app-example
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: app-example-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: app-example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: app-example
      annotations:
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject: 'true'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-configmap: 'my-configmap'
        openbao.openbao.com/tls-secret: 'openbao-tls-client'
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: 'app:1.0.0'
      serviceAccountName: app-example
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: my-configmap
data:
  config.hcl: |
    "auto_auth" = {
      "method" = {
        "config" = {
          "role" = "db-app"
        }
        "type" = "kubernetes"
      }

      "sink" = {
        "config" = {
          "path" = "/home/openbao/.token"
        }

        "type" = "file"
      }
    }

    "exit_after_auth" = false
    "pid_file" = "/home/openbao/.pid"

    "template" = {
      "contents" = "{{- with secret \"database/creds/db-app\" -}}postgres://{{ .Data.username }}:{{ .Data.password }}@postgres:5432/mydb?sslmode=disable{{- end }}"
      "destination" = "/openbao/secrets/db-creds"
    }

    "openbao" = {
      "address" = "https://openbao.demo.svc.cluster.local:8200"
      "ca_cert" = "/openbao/tls/ca.crt"
      "client_cert" = "/openbao/tls/client.crt"
      "client_key" = "/openbao/tls/client.key"
    }
  config-init.hcl: |
    "auto_auth" = {
      "method" = {
        "config" = {
          "role" = "db-app"
        }
        "type" = "kubernetes"
      }

      "sink" = {
        "config" = {
          "path" = "/home/openbao/.token"
        }

        "type" = "file"
      }
    }

    "exit_after_auth" = true
    "pid_file" = "/home/openbao/.pid"

    "template" = {
      "contents" = "{{- with secret \"database/creds/db-app\" -}}postgres://{{ .Data.username }}:{{ .Data.password }}@postgres:5432/mydb?sslmode=disable{{- end }}"
      "destination" = "/openbao/secrets/db-creds"
    }

    "openbao" = {
      "address" = "https://openbao.demo.svc.cluster.local:8200"
      "ca_cert" = "/openbao/tls/ca.crt"
      "client_cert" = "/openbao/tls/client.crt"
      "client_key" = "/openbao/tls/client.key"
    }

Environment variable example

The following example demonstrates how templates can be used to create environment variables. A template should be created that exports a OpenBao secret as an environment variable and the application container should source those files during startup.

---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web-deployment
  labels:
    app: web
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: web
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: web
      annotations:
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject: 'true'
        openbao.openbao.com/role: 'web'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-secret-config: 'secret/data/web'
        # Environment variable export template
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-template-config: |
          {{- with secret "secret/data/web" -}}
            export api_key="{{ .Data.data.payments_api_key }}"
          {{- end }}
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: web
      containers:
        - name: web
          image: alpine:latest
          command:
            ['sh', '-c']
          args:
            ['source /openbao/secrets/config && <entrypoint script>']
          ports:
            - containerPort: 9090

AppRole authentication

The following example demonstrates how the AppRole authentication method can be used by OpenBao Agent for retrieving secrets. A Kubernetes secret containing the AppRole secret ID and role ID should be created first.

---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web-deployment
  labels:
    app: web
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: web
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: web
      annotations:
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject: 'true'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-extra-secret: 'approle-example'
        openbao.openbao.com/auth-type: 'approle'
        openbao.openbao.com/auth-path: 'auth/approle'
        openbao.openbao.com/auth-config-role-id-file-path: '/openbao/custom/role-id'
        openbao.openbao.com/auth-config-secret-id-file-path: '/openbao/custom/secret-id'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-secret-db-creds: 'database/creds/db-app'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-template-db-creds: |
          {{- with secret "database/creds/db-app" -}}
          postgres://{{ .Data.username }}:{{ .Data.password }}@postgres.postgres.svc:5432/wizard?sslmode=disable
          {{- end }}
        openbao.openbao.com/role: 'my-role'
        openbao.openbao.com/tls-secret: 'openbao-tls'
        openbao.openbao.com/ca-cert: '/openbao/tls/ca.crt'
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: web
      containers:
        - name: web
          image: alpine:latest
          args:
            ['sh', '-c', 'source /openbao/secrets/config && <entrypoint script>']
          ports:
            - containerPort: 9090

PKI cert example

The following example demonstrates how to use the pkiCert function and writeToFile function from consul-template to create two files from a template: one for the certificate and CA (cert.pem) and one for the key (cert.key) generated by OpenBao's PKI Secrets Engine.

---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web-deployment
  labels:
    app: web
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: web
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: web
      annotations:
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject: 'true'
        openbao.openbao.com/role: 'web'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-secret-certs: 'pki/issue/cert'
        openbao.openbao.com/agent-inject-template-certs: |
          {{- with pkiCert "pki/issue/cert" "common_name=test.example.com" "ttl=2h" -}}
          {{ .Cert }}{{ .CA }}{{ .Key }}
          {{ .Key | writeToFile "/openbao/secrets/cert.key" "openbao" "openbao" "0644" }}
          {{ .CA | writeToFile "/openbao/secrets/cert.pem" "openbao" "openbao" "0644" }}
          {{ .Cert | writeToFile "/openbao/secrets/cert.pem" "openbao" "openbao" "0644" "append" }}
          {{- end -}}
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: web
      containers:
        - name: web
          image: nginx

Before using the OpenBao agent injector​

Connectivity​

Kubernetes and OpenBao configuration​

Debugging​

Patching existing pods​

Deployments, StatefulSets, etc.​

ConfigMap example​

Environment variable example​

AppRole authentication​

PKI cert example​