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MySQL/MariaDB database secrets engine

warning

Note: This engine can use external X.509 certificates as part of TLS or signature validation. Verifying signatures against X.509 certificates that use SHA-1 is deprecated and is no longer usable without a workaround. See the deprecation FAQ for more information.

MySQL is one of the supported plugins for the database secrets engine. This plugin generates database credentials dynamically based on configured roles for the MySQL database, and also supports Static Roles.

This plugin has a few different instances built into OpenBao, each instance is for a slightly different MySQL driver. The only difference between these plugins is the length of usernames generated by the plugin as different versions of mysql accept different lengths. The available plugins are:

  • mysql-database-plugin
  • mysql-aurora-database-plugin
  • mysql-rds-database-plugin
  • mysql-legacy-database-plugin

See the database secrets engine docs for more information about setting up the database secrets engine.

Capabilities

Plugin NameRoot Credential RotationDynamic RolesStatic RolesUsername Customization
Depends (see: above)YesYesYesYes (1.7+)

Setup

  1. Enable the database secrets engine if it is not already enabled:

    $ bao secrets enable database
    Success! Enabled the database secrets engine at: database/

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

  2. Configure OpenBao with the proper plugin and connection information:

    $ bao write database/config/my-mysql-database \
    plugin_name=mysql-database-plugin \
    connection_url="{{username}}:{{password}}@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/" \
    allowed_roles="my-role" \
    username="openbaouser" \
    password="openbaopass"
  3. Configure a role that maps a name in OpenBao to an SQL statement to execute to create the database credential:

    $ bao write database/roles/my-role \
    db_name=my-mysql-database \
    creation_statements="CREATE USER '{{name}}'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '{{password}}';GRANT SELECT ON *.* TO '{{name}}'@'%';" \
    default_ttl="1h" \
    max_ttl="24h"
    Success! Data written to: database/roles/my-role

Usage

After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has an OpenBao 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:

    $ bao read database/creds/my-role
    Key Value
    --- -----
    lease_id database/creds/my-role/2f6a614c-4aa2-7b19-24b9-ad944a8d4de6
    lease_duration 1h
    lease_renewable true
    password yY-57n3X5UQhxnmFRP3f
    username v_openbaouser_my-role_crBWVqVh2Hc1

Client x509 certificate authentication

This plugin supports using MySQL's x509 Client-side Certificate Authentication

To use this authentication mechanism, configure the plugin:

$ bao write database/config/my-mysql-database \
plugin_name=mysql-database-plugin \
allowed_roles="my-role" \
connection_url="user:password@tcp(localhost:3306)/test" \
tls_certificate_key=@/path/to/client.pem \
tls_ca=@/path/to/client.ca

Note: tls_certificate_key and tls_ca map to ssl-cert (combined with ssl-key) and ssl-ca configuration options from MySQL with the exception that the OpenBao parameters are the contents of those files, not filenames. As such, the two options are independent of each other. See the MySQL Connection Options for more information.

Examples

Using wildcards in grant statements

MySQL supports using wildcards in grant statements. These are sometimes needed by applications which expect access to a large number of databases inside MySQL. This can be realized by using a wildcard in the grant statement. For example if you want the user created by OpenBao to have access to all databases starting with fooapp_ you could use the following creation statement:

CREATE USER '{{name}}'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '{{password}}'; GRANT SELECT ON `fooapp\_%`.* TO '{{name}}'@'%';

MySQL expects the part in which the wildcards are to be placed inside backticks. If you want to add this creation statement to OpenBao via the OpenBao CLI you cannot simply paste the above statement on the CLI because the shell will interpret the text between the backticks as something that must be executed. The easiest way to get around this is to encode the creation statement as Base64 and feed this to OpenBao. For example:

$ bao write database/roles/my-role \
db_name=mysql \
creation_statements="Q1JFQVRFIFVTRVIgJ3t7bmFtZX19J0AnJScgSURFTlRJRklFRCBCWSAne3twYXNzd29yZH19JzsgR1JBTlQgU0VMRUNUIE9OIGBmb29hcHBcXyVgLiogVE8gJ3t7bmFtZX19J0AnJSc7" \
default_ttl="1h" \
max_ttl="24h"

Rotating root credentials in MySQL 5.6

The default root rotation setup for MySQL uses the ALTER USER syntax present in MySQL 5.7 and up. For MySQL 5.6, the root rotation statements must be configured to use the old SET PASSWORD syntax. For example:

$ bao write database/config/my-mysql-database \
plugin_name=mysql-database-plugin \
connection_url="{{username}}:{{password}}@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/" \
root_rotation_statements="SET PASSWORD = PASSWORD('{{password}}')" \
allowed_roles="my-role" \
username="root" \
password="mysql"

API

The full list of configurable options can be seen in the MySQL database plugin API page.

For more information on the database secrets engine's HTTP API please see the Database secrets engine API page.